Argentbadger

Thank you very much. I have much to learn with both Kirai and Molly so in the short term I'm planning to stay mainly with those. I am a bit of a Malifaux fan though, and in various ways all the masters have appeal so I imagine that I'll branch out into more of them eventually. Between Gareth and me I think we have most of the Resurrectionist masters so I have plenty to choose from. Thanks for commenting. I'm not especially familiar with Arcanists so it is possible that Jamie simply forgot about something. He's a good player though, so I think that the more likely explanation is that the Mage carrying Blood Ward was the one killed by the Goryo's Black Blood at the start of turn 2. Perhaps I'm missing another rules interaction? The Paralyse was due to failing a horror duel from the Horrible End trigger when the Hanged killed the second Mage and I believe that only the Warding Runes / Blood Ward combination could prevent that.

Great reporting. I like your style - very clear without needlessly bogging down in the detail. I particularly appreciate your section at the start where you explain the rationale for choosing your crew and schemes (and the honesty of writing that you picked e.g. Rasputina simply because you felt like playing her). Threads like yours are a huge benefit to the community and help to balance out the tendency for untested 'theory-faux' on these forums with a bit of 'actual-faux'.

Game 4: Resurrectionists (me) vs Arcanists (Jamie Clark) Strategy: Headhunter, flank deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Tail 'Em, Show of Force, Accusation!, Frame For Murder Resurrectionists: Claim Jump, Frame For Murder (Izamu the Armour) Arcanists: Claim Jump, Show of Force Crews Resurrectionists: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Path, Take Back The Night, Wronged Spirits), Izamu the Armour, Datsue Ba, Anna Lovelace, Onryo, Dead Doxy, Grave Spirit, Rotten Belle Arcanists: Toni Ironsides (Warding Runes, Union President, Veteran Fighter), 2 Wind Gamin, 3 Oxfordian Mages (Nemesis Ward, Blood Ward and Doom Ward, plus a copy of Temporary Shielding each), Angelica (Practiced Production), Johan [Johana in this case] (Well Rehearsed), Arcane Effigy, Malifaux Raptor Headhunter is my favourite strategy and I think that it really showcases all that is best of Malifaux; you need to kill the other crew but you can't do it indiscriminately, and you need to have your own cheap pieces around to pick up their heads. I took again the same core Molly crew, this time losing the Night Terror (who are a total liability in Headhunter) for a Rotten Belle with the idea that if Jamie was very cagey I could bring a victim over and kill it at my leisure. With flank deployment I thought that Claim Jump could be quite useful since the line along which to lay the scheme markers is long. Izamu had been an easy victim in my other games this event so I thought that I might try to get some points out his inevitable (second) demise. With Molly liking to be in the thick of things plus two other Henchmen I was quite expecting to have Jamie pick Tail 'Em so I planned to try to give him so much to do that he couldn't afford to spend the AP on it (in retrospect he didn't actually have many Minions so maybe it wasn't so likely but that didn't occur to me at the time). Turn 1: There is a lot of very cagey moving around. The Doxy pushes Molly forward with Take The Lead while the Raptor Takes To The Sky. The Mages push each other around a bit. Eventually I realise that I'm not going to get a nice ball of enemies to summon off and resign myself to a single Goryo between Johana and a Mage. Ironsides moves so that the injured Mage is in Hand Picked Men range, then helpfully fails a Horror duel targeting Datsue Ba. The Mage does strip a few wounds from Izamu with Furious Casting. Turn 2: The Mage Furious Casts again to kill Izamu and I pick up 2VP for Frame For Murder. The Goryo gets Johana down to her Hard To Kill wound, and the nearby Mage suicides by Black Blood to kill it. This also forces Johana to discard Well Rehearsed to stay in the game, so the Doxy pushes Molly again then kills Johana as there is no way I'm going to miss an opportunity like that. The Mage that killed Izamu is Lured closer to me so that it is in a better place for Molly to summon. The Raptor, which had unburied next to Anna, pecks her a bit. Molly summons a Hanged and Goryo, then makes the Hanged put Glimpse The Inevitable on Ironsides. She companions into the Hanged which kills the Mage and the resulting Horror duels Paralyses Ironsides as Jamie cheated his last card in to stop Angelica from failing from the same pulse. Anna pushes the Raptor clear so that she can shoot Angelica and gets another pulse of Horror duels which this time Angelica and the Effigy fail. It is better to be lucky than good. Datsue Ba picks up a head in midfield and the Onryo misses some attacks on Ironsides. Jamie scores Claim Jump thanks to the Wind Gamin which have flown off to the corners pretty much unopposed and I score Headhunter. Turn 3: The Mage hurts my Goryo and fails to disengage. Anna kills Angelica and the Onryo gently tickles Ironsides. Interestingly Jamie often chose not to take her Good Shot, My Turn trigger, presumably because he didn't want me to splash Black Blood all over Ironsides. Ironsides kills the Hanged, uses a trigger to push over to where its head lands and picks it up, then charges and hurts Molly. Molly summons a replacement Hanged, puts Ironsides on negative flips with Whispered Secret then Paralyses her with Revelation. The Doxy picks up a head and Datsue Ba turns the Raptor into a Gaki. We both score for the strategy and Claim Jump. Turn 4: Datsue Ba charges into the Effigy but can't quite kill it. The last Mage kills the Goryo and picks up its head. The Doxy picks up a head and hurts the Wind Gamin after giving it Confused Feelings. Molly makes the nearby Gaki poke Ironsides then hits the Gaki to splash Black Blood onto Ironsides and kill her. She then moves over and kills the Wind Gamin. The Onryo finishes the Effigy and the Hanged drops the final Mage. We both score Claim Jump and I get a point for the strategy too. With only a Wind Gamin left, we agree to end it there. Resurrectionists win 9 - 5 (4 for Headhunter, 3 for Claim Jump and 2 for Frame For Murder for me; 2 for Headhunter and 3 for Claim Jump for Jamie). Every time I play against Jamie I enjoy it and I feel that our games are even more fun as Jamie has consistently improved his skill over the last year or so. This was a particularly interesting match-up as it was not only my first event playing Molly but Jamie was also playing his first event with Ironsides after swapping Masters with Joe (though of course he's experienced with Arcanists in general). I was very fortunate with Jamie flipping low on some crucial Horror duels in turn 2, though I would say that I'd done some work to drain his hand so it wasn't pure luck. The Belle didn't really do a lot but it was an extra activation, Lure is always good and it was cheap enough that I didn't really mind if it just dropped scheme markers anyway. Once the scores are all in I get second place overall behind Lewis so I'm very pleased. I've really enjoyed playing Molly and will admit that I find Black Blood highly entertaining on Spirits. I'm planning to get in a few more games with Kirai so that I'm not telegraphing that I'm going to play Molly in every game. Thanks to Ian, Gareth, Lewis and Jamie for four fun games of Malifaux, and of course to Kai for his continued excellent running of events. I'm looking forward to 2018's gaming experience already. Since this is my last event of the year, I thought it would be interesting to see how my record breaks down. I feel like it was a comparably successful year with Neverborn as with my previous years of playing with Factions (roughly: 2013-2014 for Ten Thunders, 2015 for Guild, 2016 for Outcasts) which supports my general theory of tolerable inter-faction balance in Malifaux. I hope that anyone reading these enjoys them and gets as much benefit from it as I do from writing them, and in particular that this adds a bit of 'actual-faux' to the vast amount of 'theory-faux' on the Wyrd forums. Overall: 34 wins, 6 losses Neverborn: 31 wins, 5 losses (Collodi: 8 wins, 1 loss; Dreamer: 4 wins, 0 losses; Lilith: 7 wins, 1 loss; Jakob Lynch: 5 wins, 1 loss; Pandora: 7 wins, 2 losses) Resurrectionists: 3 wins, 1 loss (Kirai Ankoku: 0 wins, 1 loss; Molly Squidpiddge : 3 wins, 0 losses)

Game 3: Resurrectionists (me) vs Guild (Lewis Philips) Strategy: Reckoning, standard deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, A Quick Murder, Show of Force, Leave Your Mark, Eliminate the Leadership Resurrectionists: A Quick Murder (The Jury), Eliminate the Leadership Guild: A Quick Murder (Izamu the Armour), Show of Force Crews Resurrectionists: Kirai Ankoku (Wronged Spirits, Spirit Beacon, Unforgiven), Izamu the Armour, Datsue Ba, Anna Lovelace, Madame Sybelle (Bleeding Tongue), 2 Rotten Belles Guild: Perdita Ortega (Aura Ancestral, Trick Shooting, Fastest Draw In Malifaux), Francisco Ortega (Debt To The Guild, Wade In), Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), The Jury (Debt To The Guild, Numb To The World), 2 Monster Hunters This was the round that I really had no good plan for. Theorising with Gareth on the way over I had planned more-or-less the crew above, but with Molly at the helm. But when Lewis declared Guild as his faction I started to expect either Sonnia or Perdita and decided that maybe with Kirai I could leverage Ikiryo to give me a bit of time to close the range. The plan was to Lure in whatever I could using the Belles and then kill it. If anything looked particularly vulnerable on my side then I had intended to summon something healthier off it with Kirai. For schemes I decided to go all in on the killing and chose A Quick Murder (on The Jury as she looked a bit more vulnerable than Francisco) and Eliminate The Leadership. The latter scheme is sometimes really hard against Perdita but with only six models in Lewis's crew I figured I would probably have to deal with her somehow anyway. Turn 1: The Monster Hunters Stalk Madame Sybelle. One Belle Lures the other forward; it then Lures the activated Monster Hunter towards me. Kirai eventually kills it; not that it was helpful for scoring but I felt that a bit more activation control might help me. The rest of our movement is very cagey. Perdita Obeys Izamu to walk out of cover. Turn 2: I figure I'll have to go all in with Izamu if I want to get any work done so I throw him into The Jury for not much impact. Nino and Perdita join forces to kill him. The Belles Lure in the other Monster Hunter and after some Pounces and Madame Sybelle's impact it is left on a single wound. Kirai moves up and knocks Nino down to one wound too. Lewis scores for Show of Force. Turn 3: The Monster Hunter Stalks then kills a Belle, healing himself to full. If I'd known that they could do this (on top of their improbable list of other abilities) I would have made a bit more of an effort to deal with him last turn. Ikiryo does come out to hurt him again before Sacrificing with On The Wind. Anna shoots the Jury and I get lucky and Paralyse Perdita with the resulting horror duel. Francisco returns fire and is rewarded with Ikiryo again. The Belle kills the Monster Hunter and The Jury hits Ikiryo, which hits her right back and disappears again. I throw everything else I have but can't deal with either Nino or The Jury. Lewis gets Show of Force again. Turn 4: Sybelle finally puts down The Jury (scoring me 2VP for A Quick Murder). Francisco and Nino fail to kill Datsue Ba. I try my best to drop Perdita but can't quite manage it. I even double focus with Kirai and eat the Seishin to have a go at Perdita, but Lewis (with an empty hand) top decks a queen and forces me to burn the Red Joker to hit at all. If he'd flipped a jack or less I could have killed Perdita and might have had a chance to take the game (probably only to a draw though). Oh well. He scores Show of Force for the last time. Turn 5: Francisco Flurries to kill Datsue Ba then chain activates Perdita who guns down Anna with a timely Red Joker flip on damage. Kirai kills Perdita, getting me the rest of the points for Eliminate The Leadership. Nino thoughtfully kills Francisco to stop me from getting Reckoning, though I think it would have been quite unlikely anyway considering I'd have had to do it with just Sybelle at that point. Lewis scores Reckoning this turn. Resurrectionists lose 5 - 7 (2 for A Quick Murder and 3 for Eliminate the Leadership for me; 1 for Reckoning, 3 for A Quick Murder and 3 for Show of Force for Lewis). Wow, so close... a really enjoyable game. Lewis played a really nice tight game to his strengths here and took great advantage of the terrain so that I was always having to react to him. I think that Kirai was still the right choice over Molly, though neither of them were really ideal I think. Perhaps a bit more familiarity with Kirai would have improved my chances (and actually, I'd never used Sybelle or the Belles before this game either) but to beat a player of Lewis's skill I would need to be really on top of my game. If I had this match-up again I think I would stand by those scheme picks; none of the others looked very appealing. Perhaps the biggest mistake was that we played the central gallows as not blocking line of sight - as it was this provided a perfect place for the Guild guns to sit behind and pick my crew off while scoring for Show Of Force.

Game 2: Resurrectionists (me) vs Ten Thunders (Gareth Henry) Strategy: Extraction, corner deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, A Quick Murder, Inspection, Dig Their Graves, Leave Your Mark Resurrectionists: A Quick Murder (Kang), Inspection Ten Thunders: Claim Jump, Inspection Crews Resurrectionists: 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 Ten Thunders: Asami Tanaka (A Heavenly Design, Grasping Strands, Peaceful Waters), Amanjuku, 2 Ten Thunder Brothers, 2 Katanaka Snipers, Kang, Monk of Low River, Mr Tannen A big majority of my games of Malifaux are against Gareth as he is my regular opponent for our little gaming group, so we came into this match-up with interesting expectations of what the other would bring. I took the same list as round one, swapping the Goryo for a pair of Night Terrors. I wasn't too surprised to see Asami on the other side of the board though I did consider that Gareth might have picked Misaki instead. Not that Misaki is a strictly better pick for this strategy and scheme pool, but rather because Gareth is very effective at using her and I thought he might have decided to go all in on just killing all my stuff and picking up the pieces later. Kang would have to come into my clutches to get any work done so I decided I might as well score points for killing him with A Quick Murder. I love a pair of Night Terrors as cheap ways to collect points for Inspection, though when the Ten Thunder Brothers also telegraphed going for the same scheme I was a bit worried that they would simply kill the Night Terrors and leave me without a way to get anything to the corners. Turn 1: The Snipers take pot shots at my crew for pleasingly little effect, then the Doxy fails to push Molly; I had a weird control hand with only low and high cards and didn't want to cheat a really good card in simply to save Molly from walking. Asami teleports forward with A Heavenly Design, pulls Kang to her with Reaching Tendrils and summons a pair of Yokai. Molly advances and drops a Goryo into the middle of this scrum which then achieves nothing whatsoever attacking Kang, though it is tying up the Yokai. Kang helpfully misses the Goryo so Mr Tannen kills it off with Bore To Tears. Datsue Ba moves Izamu forward and moves into position herself. One of the Yokai charges Izamu who one-shots it in return and charges Kang. The Monk heals Kang to undo my good work and Anna puts some nice damage into the left Sniper. Meanwhile, The Night Terror and Ten Thunder Brothers start their long and obvious journeys to the corners. Turn 2: Molly summons another Goryo and a Hanged, makes Izamu hit Kang and chain activates to really hurt the big chap. Then the Monk heals him again. Maybe I should actually deal with the Monk instead. The Onryo and Sniper on the left trade blows; the Sniper is left on a single wound and in Black Blood range. The Goryo makes Asami an Adversary; Asami then teleports away again and pulls Kang clear of the fray. She then summons a Jorogumo and an Obsidian Oni. The Doxy Takes The Lead on Izamu to push him into range to just engage Kang and the Obsidian Oni, then charges the other Sniper. This goes poorly and the Sniper cuts her down easily. Mr Tannen goes again with Bore To Tears on the new Goryo but doesn't kill it this time. Datsue Ba kills the Yokai and the Hanged puts Glimpse The Inevitable on Kang. Ananjuku top decks the needed card to increase the Flicker on the Obsidian Oni and Kang kills the Goryo. Anna drops Kang to his Hard To Kill wound. I score Extraction and we both get Inspection. Turn 3: The Monk of Low River removes Glimpse The Inevitable from Kang and heals him. Molly Black Jokers a Whispered Secret on Asami then summons a second Hanged and a Drowned. She chain activates Izamu to kill Kang (scoring me 3VP for A Quick Murder). Izamu also walks over to engage the Sniper. Datsue Ba hurts Asami who teleports away and charges into Izamu for minimal effect. The Onryo polishes off the Sniper while the Night Terror and Ten Thunders Brothers poke at each other gently. The Drowned gets double severe on a negative flip to kill the Monk of Low River in one go, then the Hanged and Anna get Asami down to a single wound. I score Extraction, Gareth scores Claim Jump and we both get Inspection. Turn 4: Molly does Whispered Secret and Revelation to finish off Asami, then chain activates Izamu to deal with the Sniper. Mr Tannen puts some wounds onto the Hanged while the Night Terror and Ten Thunder Brothers continue to flail at each other. The Hanged kills Amanjuku. I score Extraction and we both get Inspection. Looking at the board state we agree that Gareth will certainly get Claim Jump next turn and I'll get the last point for Extraction so we call it there. Resurrectionists win 10 - 5 (full score for me; 3 for Inspection and 2 for Claim Jump for Gareth). I always have a great time playing Gareth and this was no exception. We play each other so often that there are sometime little games-within-games to play around taking expected pieces or counter-picking and I think that this adds an interesting extra dimension to our encounters. The game went well for me; it was the only strategy and scheme pool that I felt really comfortable with coming into the event. This allowed me to do the things I think that Molly does well: flood the centre of the board with disposable but dangerous chaff. I'm still working on the relative benefits of using a good card to summon compared to using it to make an attack land but hopefully this will come with experience.

Gareth and I took the train to Common Ground Games in Stirling for our last Malifaux event of 2017. As is my habit, I've swapped from Neverborn to play a new faction for the coming year or so; in this case I'm picking up Resurrectionists. I've long noticed that despite Molly being a common enough sight I have never seen anyone use the Spirit version. So I decided to start with her and see how I get on with this option. I will admit that I looked at the strategies and schemes and the 'try hard' part of me considered playing Neverborn for one last event since they are mostly not very friendly to a master who summons in models on low wounds near the enemy crew, but in the end I figured it would be an interesting pressure test. Game 1: Resurrectionists (me) vs Neverborn (Ian Gemmell) Strategy: Collect the Bounty, close deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Recover Evidence, Search the Ruins, Dig Their Graves, Eliminate the Leadership Resurrectionists: Search the Ruins, Eliminate the Leadership Neverborn: Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership Crews Resurrectionists: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Path, Take Back The Night, Wronged Spirits), Izamu the Armour, Datsue Ba, Anna Lovelace, Goryo, Onryo, Dead Doxy, Grave Spirit Neverborn: Collodi (Fated, Strum The Threads, Aether Connection), Mannequin, Shadow Effigy, 2 Stitched Together, 3 Marionettes, Baby kade, Burt Jebsen The crew above is more or less the ones I've used to get used to Resurrectionists. When I pick up a new faction I usually start with a couple of masters but will run a few games with a pretty much fixed list approach until I see what works for me and what doesn't. Since I'm still in that learning process I'm just making minor changes to the core here. In summary, Molly goes toward the biggest patch of the other crew and bombs Black Blood ghosts into them as allowed by my hand. The Doxy gives her a nice push forward at the start, and Izamu, Datsue Ba and Anna are there to do actual work until I can get the attrition rolling in my favour (I almost always lose one or more of these three by the end of turn two). The Goryo and Onryo are there for a bit of all-round hitting or scheming as needed, and also because I like the models. I've preferred the Grave Spirit over the Necrotic Machine mainly because it seems to fit the theme. For this match up I picked Search The Ruins as it would suit my attrition plans and Eliminate the Leadership because, having played Collodi, I knew that I would have to deal with it before the game was out. Turn 1: The Shadow Effigy gets us underway by giving Collodi Blend Into Shadow; Collodi kindly shares this out to its minions. The Doxy pushes Molly forward. We jockey for position a bit and eventually I send Izamu forward to poke a Marionette. A Stitched comes forward and manages to land severe damage on the Ancestor. Molly moves up further and summons a Hanged which somehow manages to get the Stitched to Reactivate; it then hurts Izamu a bit more. Collodi makes one of the Marionettes a Personal Puppet, My Wills the Stitched to finish off Izamu and Slows Molly. Turn 2: Molly summons another Hanged and companions the other one to hurt the untouched Stitched. The wounded Stitched together Gambles Your Life with Molly but loses. Datsue Ba kills a Marionette to turn it into a Gaki and Collodi hurts Molly rather badly. It also attacks the Hanged and makes the Spirit attack Molly but luckily Molly doesn't take the hit. The Hanged puts Whispers From Beyond on Collodi who blows up its Personal Puppet to avoid the damage. We ruled that Collodi still got the Glimpse The Inevitable condition as it didn't seem to be related to the damage. The Gaki misses the Mannequin and a Marionette goes Fast to charge Molly, helpfully dying to Black Blood in the process. The Stitched puts more damage onto Molly (scoring Ian a VP for Eliminate the Leadership) and is killed by Anna in return. Kade charges into Molly and top decks the Red Joker on damage to kill her (I didn't have any cards left to use Masterful Dead), scoring the rest of the points for Eliminate the Leadership in the process. My Goryo pokes Kade after the Onryo failed to get Adversary onto him as usual. Burt moves around and drops a scheme marker. We end up drawing on the strategy. Turn 3: The Hanged kills the Effigy, then Collodi kills the Grave Spirit and hurts my Goryo. Anna kills Baby Kade then the Onryo and Burt drop scheme markers around the place. The Goryo drops the Mannequin mainly to get it out of my hair, and Datsue Ba starts the long process of pinning Collodi down long enough to kill. I score for the strategy and Ian gets Claim Jump. Turn 4: The Goryo gets Collodi down to a single wound. It summons a Marionette to make it a Personal Puppet and then finishes off the Goryo. Datsue Ba puts a wound onto Collodi to force the Marionette to die to Decoy. The Onryo hurts Burt after he has put down some more scheme markers, then Anna drops Collodi. I score for Collect the Bounty. Ian has seen enough (and anyway only has Burt left on a single wound) and agrees to call it there. Resurrectionists win 8 - 4 (3 for Collect The Bounty, 2 for Eliminate the Leadership [in retrospect I think I should have had the full 3 here] and 3 for Search the Ruins for me; 3 for Eliminate the Leadership and 1 for Claim Jump for Ian). I really enjoyed that game. Having played Collodi quite extensively myself recently I felt that I had an idea of how to handle it, but Collodi is such a versatile master that almost anything is possible. I gave away Izamu quite cheaply but two Stitched were always going to get something so probably it was best to try to blunt them on Izamu's armour since they ignore all the defenses on the rest of my crew. Ian's crew was quite interesting and I was rather surprised by the inclusion of Kade who doesn't seem to gain much from Collodi (or vice versa). Burt seems to show up all over the place so it was not so unexpected to face him but I was quite glad that he wandered off to do Claim Jump rather than getting in my way.

I've quite enjoyed using the Woe Is Me upgrade on Pandora. I've generally found the use of Pandora herself to be roughly similar to when she's carrying The Box Opens in that I throw her as soon as possible into the biggest clump of enemies that I can find and then hit Inflict as often as possible. I have only tended to summon one or two Sorrows per game and certainly not more than 1 per Pandora activation. Of course, getting more models is good, but it costs a decent card (and maybe a Soulstone) and also one of Pandora's precious AP that could be spent on draining more cards with Inflict. For me, a single additional Misery aura from one Sorrow has been sufficient. The Poltergeist is pleasingly easy to summon and I think I've almost always been able to have it on the table by turn 2. Sample crew: Pandora, (Woe Is Me, Fears Given Form), Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), Mr Graves, 2 Field Reporters, Insidious Madness I used this against the mighty Greg P in a tournament a few weeks ago and was pleased with the effectiveness (battle report here). Probably worth noting that Anna Lovelace would have been a big problem for me but Greg didn't specifically expect Pandora so didn't counter-pick her. I am not convinced that the Insidious Madness is of huge value in the crew; of course it remains an excellent scheme runner but it wants to be in a different part of the board to Pandora so the nice Willpower shenanigans it should enable don't actually happen in practice. Field Reporters were an interesting pick and I'll admit that I have only been taking them because I can. They are first rate scheme runners but I don't think that they are necessarily any better than Terror Tots or Gupps for the same role. I had thought that the conditions that they put out and the Willpower attacks would synergise well with Pandora but in practice they have other jobs (i.e. put down scheme markers etc) and are often not near to Pandora anyway. Especially in strategies where the other crew want to be somewhere particular, I like to fire Pandora up hard enough to stop the other crew from even reaching the Stash markers (or whatever we're trying to get to). Feagaur - any particular reason why Barbaros, Aeslin or Candy aren't just starting with One Thousand Faces? Mutter - I feel like with that crew you're relying on Pandora (and Misery in general) to do a lot of lifting. Apart from Mr Graves you don't really have anything to just punch annoying things that you want to go away. Could you consider dropping some of the cool tech pieces (Mr Tannen, Iggy, the Wisp) for something fightier, like a Teddy perhaps?

This is the Doppelganger for my Neverborn crews. She has a number of useful toolbox abilities such as Ill Omens allowing one to cheat initiative and particularly the always-valuable Don't Mind Me to enable interactions even when engaged. Her basic attacks are terrible but she can copy the attacks of nearby models so depending on what is nearby she can sometimes turn out to have something impressive like Nekima's sword hidden under her sheet. Reading the forums one might think that the Doppelganger should be the first option taken in all crews and that Ill Omens is so powerful as to overshadow other options. I certainly like to play the Doppelganger in some crews but generally find that in few cases would the cost of a high card be worth it to cheat and win initiative; I prefer to set up so that I can play my turns whether I win or lose the flip. The Doppelganger is a really nice sculpt and I like the story it tells with the skin and exposed muscle as if it is half-way through a change of forms. I used red ink (rather than wash) to give a shiny wet look to the muscles.

This big chap is a Mature Nephilim for my Neverborn. As you can probably tell from the appearance, Mature Nephilim are unsubtle murder machines best suited for use as some kind of linebreakers. They're fast on the charge and can fly so my most effective use of them has been simply throwing them into enemy crews and letting them get on with it while the rest of my crew goes about scoring points. They can grow from Terror Tots and Young Nephilim and I find it far more amusing to try to do that rather than hiring these guys right from the start. Even if it never happens, players get careful when there is a possibility that a wounded Young Nephilim could suddenly turn into a fully-healed bruiser like the Mature Nephilim. I like the aesthetic of the Mature Nephilim, being a straightforward demon amalgamated from many familiar sources, though I would state that it looks bit squat. Probably that is a good thing; with that wingspan it is quite hard to fit neatly into my case anyway. Painting it was quite dull though since almost the whole model is skin. I could have livened it up with tattoos or a variable skin tone but they didn't really fit with the way that I'd painted the other Nephilim so I just left it.

That looks excellent! Great use of the autumn foliage.

Fantastic painting! The skin tones on both Sparks and Kang really 'pop' in particular. The freehand on Misaki's trousers is just amazing. Well done.

Wow, your painting is so neat. The spacing on the print-marks on that Yokai's cloth is perfect. Do you eyeball the distance between them or have some kind of measure for it?

Excellent! Money sent for Gareth Henry and Paul Campbell.

Thanks very much! I think that some of this is because the reports I write are filtered through my own perspective on the game despite my trying to provide an objective account. In other words, it is easy for me to note when my plans have gone awry because I know what my plans are. I am, of course, doing my best to stop my friends getting to play their game the way they plan but I can only speculate on how my actions impact their intentions. Also, since part of the point of writing up these reports is to make myself go over key points of the game and think whether I could have done better, I tend to pay particular attention to the parts where my plans were coming undone. As an interesting exercise, try reading games where both sides post independent battle reports. A recent example (with excellent reports) is game 2 of Ropecon where forum users Math Mathonwy and Nikodemus posted their own impressions (here and here). The differences in how the game seemed to go when comparing the views from each side of the table is quite striking.

Lovely reports, with just the right amount of detail to be clear without bogging things down. That crew looks really brutal. Having played these games with them, would you make any further changes? I saw above that you were considering swapping Viktoria of Blood's upgrades around a bit. How about the five Void Wretches? In general I find I get dimishing returns with multiple identical miniatures in Malifaux and wondered if you thought that all five are needed for this to work, or if swapping some of them for (e.g) the Hodgepodge Effigy or a Ronin could tune the crew further. Also, well done on three victories.

Terrific reports, I really like your style. For the last game, were you concerned about starting with so few pieces? Or was it deliberate to have stronger independent models in case they were spread far and wide by the blind deployment? This is one of two great reasons that everyone should write battle reports (the other is that I like to read about people's experience in the game, much more so that reading theory-faux). Hopefully you're able to apply the lessons in future games.

Game 4: Neverborn (me) vs Guild (Dave Laing) Strategy: Reconnoitre, standard deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves, Leave Your Mark, Undercover Entourage, Tail 'Em Neverborn: Leave Your Mark, Undercover Entourage (Dreamer) Guild: Dig Their Graves, Tail 'Em Crews Neverborn: Dreamer (Dreams of Pain, Otherworldly), 2 Daydreams, Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), 3 Terror Tots Guild: Nellie (Misleading Headlines, Guild Funds, Transparency), Phiona Gage (Debt To The Guild), Alison Dade (Numb To The World), 2 Guild Investigators, Monster Hunter, Prospector, Printing Press Claiming table quarters seemed like a good opportunity to play a summoner so out came the Dreamer. I'd actually intended to try the new Sleep Cycles upgrade but forgot about it when crew building and went for Otherworldly instead (arguably this is safer anyway against a crew that can possibly put out long range fire like a Guild crew). I have tried this Dreamer / Nephilim Grow crew a few times before and it can be effective. I actually don't need to Grow anything; just the threat of it can be a very good deterrent for moving injured models near Terror Tots. The idea was to force Dave to deal with the Nephilim while the Dreamer summoned enough models to let me win on the strategy. I picked Leave Your Mark because between the Tots and any summoned Insidious Madnesses I find that most crews don't have the resources to deal with the scheme runners if they want to avoid being overrun by the big Nephilim. Dreamer is remarkably mobile, especially when you consider the extra movement that he can get from turning into Lord Chompy Bits for a turn or two so I also selected Undercover Entourage. Turn 1: The Press gets us underway by Focusing and giving Nellie some Evidence. The Dreamer summons Lelu and Lilitu while the Monster Hunter Stalks Barbaros. Our movement forward is quite cagey as there is a lot of open ground in the centre and neither of us want to give up the initial alpha strike at the end of turn 1. Eventually I put a Tot in the open within 6" of both Nekima and Barbaros in the hope that Dave will kill it there to get me a free move. Instead, Nellie pushes it and places it in the midst of her lines where it eventually dies to Burning (and sprays a little Black Blood around) and scores Dave a point for Dig Their Graves. After passing a few activations, Phiona gets to go last and puts some minor damage onto Nekima. Turn 2: Nekima swaps in Fears Given Form and flies into the middle of Dave's crew. She smites the Prospector in order to Teach Them Fear; no-one gets Paralysed but it does consume a few decent cards out of Dave's control hand. The Press feeds more Evidence to Nellie and she Slows Nekima and pushes her around with Propaganda. This allows a few attacks to come in from Phiona too. Barbaros swaps in Rapid Growth (this was a mistake; Fears Given Form would have been more useful considering that I had decided to keep the Tots safe) and rams himself down the Guild crew's throat. He misses both attacks on the Investigator but splashes Black Blood on various models due to Alison Dade's aura. The Monster Hunter takes advantage of his improved Stalk to Tail Barbaros. The Investigator gives Just Act Casual to Lelu, who is obliged to share it with Lilitu; Lelu ineffectually pokes him back. The Monster Hunter attacks Nekima but is hampered by Challenge and the fact that Dave has run out of cards. The Dreamer summons an Insidious Madness and Coppelius [I couldn't find my miniature for him so Dave kindly let me use Vasalisa instead; since neither of us have ever seen it on a tournament table we agreed it would be clear] before turing into Lord Chompy Bits. The big Tyrant hurts the Monster Hunter but my positioning ins poor. I placed Lord Chompy Bits such that he wouldn't be pushed away by Nellie on a miss but I'd have been better taking the risk and moving further up the table. I score for the Strategy and Dave scores for Tail 'Em. Turn 3: Nekima kills the Monster Hunter to drain more cards with Teach Them Fear; no-one ends up failing the horror duel. Nellie and Phiona combine to kill Barbaros, scoring Dig Their Graves again. Coppelius hurts the left Investigator who gives Just Act Casual to the Twins and Lord Chompy Bits. I throw various other attacks at that Investigator but he leads a charmed life, repeatedly flipping face cards for defense. The Daydreams push Lelu and Lord Chompy Bits around, then Lord Chompy Bits lightly tickles Phiona and turns back into the Dreamer. The Guild Investigator Tails Nekima, the Insidious Madness moves up to drop a scheme marker. Dave cleverly moves the Press in between the Dreamer and the nearest Daydream to stop me pushing attacks onto it and Phiona uses Debt To The Guild to hurt the little boy. We have somehow run out of time so I just try three times to disengage with the Dreamer; not surprisingly this does not work. Luckily he is just over the centreline. I score for Reconnoitre and Leave Your Mark, Dave scores again for Tail 'Em. Neverborn win 5 - 4 (2 for Reconnoitre, 1 for Leave Your Mark and 2 for Undercover Entourage for me; 2 for Dig Their Graves and 2 for Tail 'Em for Dave). That was a truly great game! I'm not sure how we managed to play so slowly that we didn't get to even start turn 4, but there was a lot going on; I had many activations and Dave's activations were often highly complex. As always, Dave was an excellent opponent and really made me evaluate every move I made as he countered me so well. I felt that I was probably in position to win even if we had time to play the full game as I had built up a fairly large attrition advantage. My poor positioning of Lord Chompy Bits, and hence the Dreamer, could easily have ended up costing me the points for Undercover Entourage. On the other hand, I was well placed to score Leave Your Mark and Reconnoitre for the rest of the game, and probably deny Dave getting anything for the strategy. So with four wins, I am confirmed as the overall winner of the event. Joe finally gets his blue best-in-faction badge for Arcanist after several attempts to pass Jamie, and Gareth is best Ten Thunders by default. I was particularly pleased that Dave, Lewis and Greg only lost one game each (i.e. the game against me) so I did feel that I had negotiated a challenging path to the end of the event. Thanks to Andy, Lewis, Greg and Dave for four terrific games of Malifaux, and of course thanks to Kai for running another excellent event.

Game 3: Neverborn (me) vs Resurrectionists (Greg Piskosz) Strategy: Squatter's Rights, flank deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Accusation!, Frame For Murder, Hidden Trap, Search the Ruins Neverborn: Claim Jump, Search the Ruins Resurrectionists: Frame For Murder (Carrion Emissary), Hidden Trap Crews Neverborn: Pandora, (Woe Is Me, Fears Given Form), Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), Mr Graves, 2 Field Reporters, Insidious Madness Resurrectionists: Reva (Decaying Aura, Litany Of The Fallen, Guises Of Death), Carrion Emissary (My Little Helper), Philip and the Nanny (Haunting Cries), Crooligan, Burt Jebsen, Asura Roten, Dead Doxy This game seemed like a good opportunity to use Pandora with her new summoning upgrade. This also let me take a pair Field Reporters as the only out-of-faction Woes (that I can think of); Joe kindly loaned me his. In theory they should synergise nicely with Pandora as they are Manipulative and attack Willpower. The rest of the crew was quite standard; Nekima to stab things, Barbaros to annoy with Challenge (which is even better in a Pandora crew) and Mr Graves to push things around and hit them with sticks. My plan was simple: fire Pandora into the biggest clump of Resurrectionists I could find, summon a Sorrow and then spam Inflict until Greg ran out of cards. The Reporters and Insidious Madness would be on Squat marker and Claim Jump duty. I had hoped to be able to clear enough of the centre by the end of the game to get down my markers for Search The Ruins; this might seem optimistic but I am generally quite an aggressive player and can clear the board within 5 turns in a lot games. Seeing Reva and Asura Roten was very interesting as I would be able to Incite the endless swarm of Mindless Zombies, plus they (and Corpse Candles) are very easy to evaporate with Inflict if they're standing near Pandora. Turn 1: The Emissary uses My Little Helper, then flies up aggressively and put two sets of Shards right in my face. Fortunately it can't get far enough to completely box me in so Mr Graves pushes Pandora along the line of Shards. The Corpse Candle moves forward so the Field Reporter on the right pushes it back again. Asura moves forward and summons the first of many Mindless Zombies. Pandora fails to Incite the Corpse Candle as it flips the Red Joker to defend. She is reduced to simply walking up, summoning a Sorrow off the Zombie and using Inflict. This does kill the Zombie and the Corpse Candle, allowing me to bring the Poltergeist into play. The Doxy pushes Reva toward me but my summons (and the Emissary) are still positioned such that Reva can't see the corpse markers. She also drops some scheme markers that Philip eventually hoovers up for cards. Reva moves to get line of sight to the corpse markers, misses Pandora which allows her to push away (I held a 13 in hand specifically to do that, especially once I saw the Red Joker out of Greg's deck), and instead kills the Sorrow. Nekima misses an attack on Asura. Burt takes a Squat marker and the Crooligan, Insidious Madness and other Reporter head for the corner markers. Turn 2: Reva summons a Corpse Candle and hurts Nekima. Nekima then fails to polish off Asura, which was annoying as the Poltergeist would have give me a good opportunity to Paralyse the Emissary if I could have made it work. The Emissary puts more Shards out and turns a nearby corpse marker into a scheme marker. Pandora does kill both Asura and Emissary with Inflict since they're on negative willpower flips due to the Poltergeist; the latter gives Greg 3VP for Frame For Murder. Burt and the Insidious Madness take Squat Markers. Mr Graves kills a Mindless Zombie who is getting in my way and allows Barbaros to walk twice and take a Squat Marker for me. The Poltergeist Slows Reva and the Reporter and Crooligan continue to achieve nothing whatsoever in their corner. We both score for Squatter's Rights. Greg also announces and received 3 VP for Hidden Trap at this point; we only realise later that this should actually happen at the end of the game. We correct the final score but at this point I'm under the impression that I'm 7 - 1 down. Turn 3: Reva somehow fails to kill the Poltergeist, so Nekima kills her and the summoned Corpse Candle (aiming for Burt but he's Slippery of course). Barbaros kills the last Mindless Zombie. The Doxy pushes the Poltergeist away but ends up engages with Pandora. Mr Graves drops Burt Jebsen and Pandora kills the Doxy. I take back one of the scheme markers from the Resurrectionists. I score for the Strategy and Claim Jump. Turn 4: Nekima kills Philip and we call the game. Neverborn win 10 - 5 (full score for me; 1 for Squatter's Rights, 1 for Hidden Trap [we agreed that I would have still given up one from this as there was a scheme marker in the corner where the Reporter and Crooligan were staring uselessly at each other] and 3 for Frame For Murder for Greg). It was super to get a game against Greg as he's a highly skilled player and such a gent; it had been quite a long time since we'd faced each other. Coming into the game I was concerned that Greg's huge experience with Neverborn might give him a substantial edge over me, so I was especially glad to edge out the win. Pandora's new upgrade, Woe Is Me, turned out to be quite effective. Sorrows and the Poltergeist are really helpful to the kind of Pandora I like to play (i.e. to get in the way while my crew does stuff to score points) but normally they're so easy to kill on the approach that they're not really worth hiring. Being able to summon them in place is excellent, particularly for the Poltergeist that gets summoned for free by doing things I would do anyway. The Field Reporters went less well with Pandora than I expected but I think that this is because they want to be in different parts of the board than she does (i.e. she wants to be elbows-deep in the other crew, they want to be on the edges doing scheme-related things). However, they are still highly effective scheme runners and I feel that taking them along with Woe Is Me is well worth

Game 2: Neverborn (me) vs Guild (Lewis Philips) Strategy: Reckoning, corner deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Frame For Murder, Leave Your Mark, Mark For Death, A Quick Murder Neverborn: Frame For Murder (Nekima), A Quick Murder Guild: Frame For Murder (Thalarian Queller), A Quick Murder Crews Neverborn: Lilith (Beckon Malifaux, The Land Consumes), Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Doppelganger, 3 Waldgeists, Lilitu, Cherub Guild: Sonnia Criid (Counterspell Aura, Cherufe's Imprint, No More Masks), Dr Grimwell (Debt To The Guild, Disrupt Magic), Thalarian Queller, Malifaux Child, Witchling Thrall, Witchling Stalker, Brutal Emissary (Conflux Of Incineration) On a board like this I felt that I had to use Lilith just to generate some cover for me to hide behind; I also had some ideas about using her to Tangle Shadows Lewis's crew into me one at a time to kill off at my leisure. I added The Land Consumes simply because I wanted to try it in a tournament game rather than because I felt that it would actually be particularly valuable. The Waldgeists allow me some measure of activation control while generally being quite resource intensive to deal with, and Nekima was there just to hurt stuff quickly. Lilitu in theory gives me a bit more positional control with her Lure, and the Doppelganger can either copy that or Nekima's giant death sword. I took a risk with the Cherub that it would generally not be high enough priority to be worth killing, but I really like the bow for controlling heavy hitters. Lewis, as expected, put Sonnia down. When he explained what the Thalarian Queller did to armour I realised that the crew would make quite short work of the Waldgeists (and Lewis cleverly put Frame For Murder on it, knowing that I would have to deal with it somehow). Considering how 'killy' the game was set up to be, I went all in and took A Quick Murder and Frame For Murder on Nekima. For the latter, I figured I was likely to lose her and might as well try to get some points out of it. I wanted to play cagily until Sonnia got in range, then just down her throat as quickly as possible. Lilith would have to put her Illusory Forest somewhere midfield if I was to have any chance of surviving the opening barrage with enough to counter-punch effectively. Turn 1: Dr Grimwell pushes Sonnia toward me. The Child puts a Flame Wall into the middle of the board. Our advances are cagey; I don't want to give Sonnia too much of a target and Lewis (presumably) doesn't want to let me rush Sonnia too easily. Eventually, Sonnia gets forward enough to see a Waldgeist in hard cover; she Soulstones to get a straight attack flip then (of course) flips the Red Joker on a negative damage flip, badly hurting that Waldgeist and allowing Lewis to splash blast over parts of my crew I thought were rather safer. She follows up with a minimum damage shot that kills the Waldgeist with Burning at the end of the turn. Lilith Tangles Shadows to bring the Thrall into the middle of my crew and Nekima kills it. I should have cast Illusory Forest before doing that as Disrupt Magic meant that I didn't have the blocking terrain I wanted; against a player of Lewis's calibre that alone could have ultimately cost me the game. Turn 2: I cheat initiative with the Doppelganger after Lewis very kindly reminds me that I can do that (shows how often I use it). Lilith tries to Tangle Shadows to get the Emissary since I have the 13 of masks in hand, but it turns out that Lewis has the Red Joker; I suppose I should be glad to draw it from his hand. She does put an Illusory Forest slightly more than 4" ahead of Sonnia so she'll have to walk twice to get me. The Emissary retaliates by putting some burning on Lilith so a Waldgeist walks over and interacts to remove it. The Thalarian Queller gives Dr Grimwell Enchanted Weapons; I sense that this will not bode well for my Waldgeists. He does indeed charge one (using Soulstones to get round Perfect Camouflage) and kills it. It seems fitting to use a saw to kill a tree. The Cherub moves into cover and shoots the Queller to push it through my Illusory Forest, then Lilitu Lures him in further. The Child fires a Flame Burst and gets double severe damage on a negative flip to spread yet more damage around. Nekima smites the Queller and gives Lewis 3VP for Frame For Murder and Sonnia finally advances into the Forest and zaps Lilitu somewhat ineffectually. Turn 3: Nekima charges Sonnia and leaves her on one wound. Somewhat to my surprise, Dr Grimwell activates and gently tickles the last Waldgeist; I was expecting Sonnia to activate and stab Nekima to heal. I'm happy to take the stroke of luck so Lilith disengages from Dr Grimwell and stabs Sonnia to death. The Emissary gets some temporary revenge by putting her in a box and puts Burning on the Waldgeist which has one wound remaining at this point. The Cherub shoots the Stalker and Lilitu puts out the Burning from the Waldgeist. Turn 4: Nekima hurts the Emissary. The Stalker charges the Cherub, dies to Black Blood and explodes, finishing off the Cherub in a hilarious mutual death pact. The Doppelganger copies Nekima's sword and leaves the Emissary on a single wound; it misses in return. Lilith falls back into reality and kills the Emissary (scoring 2VP for A Quick Murder in the process) then Tangle Shadows Dr Grimwell away from my very poorly looking Waldgeist. He fails to land a hit on Nekima, the Lilitu Lures the Malifaux Child on some Consuming Land that Lilith left in an earlier turn. I score for Reckoning. Turn 5: Nekima cuts Dr Grimwell into tiny pieces, then Malifaux Child activates and is eaten by the Consuming Land marker she's standing on. To add insult to injury, we didn't remember about that until after flipping some amazing cards from the Child who cut down Lilitu and killed the Waldgeist with Black Blood... but I suppose that was just a dream of what could have been. I score again for Reckoning and she's the last Guild piece. Neverborn win 4 - 3 (2 for Reckoning, 2 for A Quick Murder for me; 3 for Frame For Murder for Lewis). Wow, what a game! Lewis is a highly skilled player of course, and always runs me very hard. But that game was especially interesting as we first met when I was playing Guild and he was playing Neverborn so we knew each other's factions really well. Almost every activation from the middle of turn 1 onwards felt like it could be the one that made the difference between a win and a loss. I think that Lewis made a couple of important activation order mistakes, notably activating Dr Grimwell instead of Sonnia after she'd survived Nekima's attentions in turn 3, and that cost him the game in a match this tight. I could have positioned much better throughout; the Doppelganger was just messing around not achieving much for a depressingly long period in the game and if I'd pushed the Stalker more cleverly after shooting it with the Cherub I could probably have killed it without the loss of my totem.

I spent another Saturday in the company of Gareth and various other gamers at Common Ground Games in Stirling taking part in another excellent Malifaux tournament organised by Kai. Here is how it all happened... Game 1: Neverborn (me) vs Outcasts (Andy Bush) Strategy: Guard the Stash, standard deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership, Accusation!, Covert Breakthrough, Last Stand Neverborn: Claim Jump, Covert Breakthrough Outcasts: Last Stand, Accusation Crews Neverborn: Jakob Lynch (Cheating Bastard), Hungering Darkness (One Thousand Faces), 2 Waldgeists, Spawn Mother (Hexed Among You), Bad Juju (Eternal Fiend), McTavish, Will O’ The Wisp Outcasts: Von Schill (Engage At Will, Survivalist, Nythera Aftermath), Hannah (I Pay Better), 2 Freikorps Librarians, Sue, Johan, Steam Trunk I had been planning to play Pandora for this game but when Andy announced his faction as Outcasts I had a sudden doubt that I might be facing either the Viktorias (who would just carve Pandora up with no trouble) or some Freikorps (who ignore much of what I want to do with her) so I decided to go with Lynch and his Swampfiend crew. I wanted to try out the new Cheating Bastard limited upgrade as Hungering Darkness isn't really critical to the way this crew plays and the extra support could be useful. The rest of the crew plays a tanking and area denial game as I've described in previous reports. I chose scheme marker based schemes as I intended to summon Gupps which are great at both Claim Jump and Covert Breakthrough; my overall plan was to sit next to the markers and gradually knock wounds out of the other crew until there were none of them left. When Andy revealed his Von Schill crew I was glad that I had avoided Pandora. Turn 1: I set the tone for the day by flipping a Red Joker on initiative; what a waste. The Spawn Mother and Wisp combine to summon Gupps and I throw them forward aggressively. If Andy kills them early then I can start annoying him with Bad Juju; otherwise it'll be in the right spot to start on Covert Breakthrough. Von Schill punches Johan and Hannah forward with his new Clockwork Arm, then Librarians heal both. The left Waldgeist moves up to cover Sue and Johan with its large engagement range and the right one gently pokes at Hannah. Johan smacks the nearby Waldgeist, then Lynch moves up and drops a scheme marker for McTavish who gratefully feeds it to his pet and guns down Sue. Andy reveals Last Stand. Turn 2: Hannah Accuses her Waldgeist and the other one Slows Johan. The Spawn Mother puts down a scheme marker and lays an egg which the Wisp hatches later. Von Schill charges, throws Johan into my face, then throws the Waldgeist away and kills it with a shot; Bad Juju falls out of it. Hungering Darkness eats Johan and McTavish nearly drops the left Librarian; she hides behind the Stash marker. We both score for the Strategy; I get Claim Jump and Andy scores Last Stand and Accusation. Turn 3: The right Librarian heals itself. I send in Hungering Darkness to try to deal with the one on the left but get both Red and Black Joker on the second attack damage flip. Hannah Accuses the Waldgeist and Makes A New Entry to heal the Librarian further. Bad Juju hurts Von Schill as I repeatedly flipped double moderate damage on negative flips against him. On the left, the Librarian Accuses the Wisp as insurance for next turn and is then killed by the combination of McTavish and the Wisp to deny Last Stand. We both score again for Guard the Stash; I score Claim Jump and Andy gets Accusation. Turn 4: Lynch makes Von Schill Brilliant by revealing a mask for Cheating Bastard, then puts a few more wounds into the old chap. Von Schill heals with the aid of the Steam Trunk and punches Hungering Darkness away. Bad Juju smacks Hannah and the Librarian heals her. The Spawn Mother puts the damage right back on and the Waldgeist finishes her off. Everything else puts all it has into Von Schill; he survives on one wound and Paralysed. The Gupps spend the game jumping around and putting down scheme markers. We both score for Guard the Stash; and we both get the remaining point for Claim Jump and Accusation. With so little left on the table, Andy is happy to concede without playing out the final round. Neverborn win 10 - 7 (full score for me; 3 for Guard the Stash, 1 for Last Stand and 3 for Accusation for Andy). Andy is a solidly competent player and I feel he gets better each time we play; it is always a pleasure to do so. Things went more or less to plan from my side. The game was arguably won by things that don't really merit much mention in the flow of the report itself though. The two summoned Gupps pretty much scored me 6 VP for my schemes by Leaping to places that were hard for Andy to get to and putting down scheme markers. The Cheating Bastard upgrade is also hard to rate by reading the flow of what happened but I would say that being able cheat last with almost my whole crew for most duels had a massive impact on hand control; for me it is very definitely worth consideration if you don't need either of Lynch's other (admittedly also excellent) limited upgrades.

You've got the core of an interesting Dreamer list there. Take Dreamer, some Daydreams and [whatever cool stuff you like from other boxes], then summon in Nightmare models (i.e. Insidious Madness, Lelu, Lilitu and Stitched Together). My experience with Lynch and Lilith suggests that they are quite agnostic about what goes in their crews and can run more or less whatever you find most amusing. Lynch doesn't directly support anything apart from picking up Aces; you could use this to increase your chance of having a Mask for the Sprint ability on Terror Tots. Lilith supports all your things equally by messing with the other player's crew. I would hesitate to play Collodi without access to the Brutal (or Lucky) Effigy but otherwise it only supports Minions or Puppets so again you can pretty much pick anything in the crew. For me, Collodi's best synergy with its crew is putting Slow (or Idle Hands) on as much of the other crew as possible and letting the rest of your own pieces do whatever wins you the game. I don't think I've played any games with exactly the combination of miniatures you own so anything more specific would be theory-faux on my part. Your best bet is probably to play a few games and assess what works well for you and what you feel you're missing in your crews. Good luck, and (0) Welcome To Malifaux.

I think Collodi is flexible enough that you can play almost any crew with it to tolerable success. Just take the Brutal Effigy and use them as a tag team to control whatever will be most annoying for the other player, then use the rest of your crew to take advantage of that control in order to win you the game (easier to write than to achieve, of course). I will admit that I prefer to mix up Puppets and non-Puppets in my Collodi crews. But there are relatively few Puppets in the game so you can probably do fine by just picking them all up and then mixing and matching to your heart's content. Don't go wild with the Effigies; Brutal is my favourite (I almost always use it with Collodi) and I like the Arcane too if I'm expecting a lot of conditions. The rest are good pieces in their own right but there is a limit to how many scheme runners you'll want. I did use a mainly-Puppet crew at an event at the start of the year (link): Collodi (Strum The Threads, Fated, Threads Of Fate), Arcane Effigy, Brutal Effigy, Lazarus, Barbaros, 2 Bunraku, Stitched Together. You could now replace Barbaros with Hinamatsu to complete the theme. Lazarus isn't strictly a Puppet of course but does bring some interesting tech to a Collodi crew and I consider him to be worth it.

I've tried two Teddies with Dreamer several times to reasonable effect. You could consider a crew like this: Dreamer (Dreams of Pain, Otherworldly) 3 Daydreams Nekima 2 Teddies I'm still undecided if the best option is to include the third Daydream (as in this example), or remove it for either 2 extra Soulstones in cache or 2 copies of One Thousand Faces. The general idea is to get stuck in early with the Teddies. They'll get killed but do some damage. Then Nekima swoops in to clean up any heavy hitters that survived the Teddy onslaught. You can be ridiculously aggressive with the Teddies since you can push them forward with the Daydreams; note that my testing suggests that you have to be a bit circumspect with this otherwise they'll be taken down one at a time whereas your goal is to have both Teddies hit the enemy crew at once. While all this is going on, the Dreamer can summon whatever you think will win you the game. Be aware that although the Teddies have a lot of wounds they are not actually very hard to kill and in particular they are pitifully easy to control. You can mitigate the latter to some extent using Dreamer to clear undesirable conditions from them but it is something that you would have to play around. A sample game from a recent tournament can be found here. I play Collodi without Puppets all the time (at least, without Puppets that are not the Brutal Effigy) and don't consider it to be weak at all.

Paid for Joe Taylor, Gareth Henry and Paul Campbell.

Here are the Young Nephilim, the next up in the chain started by Terror Tots for my Neverborn. They're pretty reasonable generalists in their own right, being mobile (due to Flight) and punching somewhat above their weight class but are pitifully easy to kill. They do make for acceptable scheme runners for this reason as they can usually put up a creditable fight against any enemies sent for that purpose as well as being able to mostly get where they are needed. I rarely hire them, preferring to hire Terror Tots (cheaper and at least as good for laying scheme markers) and something with the Rapid Growth upgrade which allows the Tots to grow into Young, then eventually in Mature Nephilim. In practice, I don't even succeed in doing this some games for various reasons but have found the threat of this occurring to be worth cost of the upgrade. The miniatures are really nice looking 'teenage devil' styled sculpts. The one standing up was assembled as intended, but the flying one is supposed to be holding a skull which is attached to the ground only by a bit of dangling spine. Reasoning that the chance of that staying attached to the base for long was rather slim I did some minor work with putty to make it look like it is vaulting this pillar. Hardly perfect, but good enough for my purposes. The painting was intentionally the same as the other Nephilim: white/blue skin and purple clothes and hair. Simple but effective on the table.