Argentbadger

Fantastic work! The colours really 'pop'. Baron Samedi is my favourite though.

Nice neat painting. I like the white chests.

Here are Waldgeists for my Neverborn in Malifaux. They're quite agnostic about which Master they play in, bringing some simple but effective abilities to a crew. On the defensive side, Waldgeists have high armour to make them likely to suffer only 1 damage per attack (though it means that they really hate anything that ignores armour) and are hard to attack from range before they activate. Their attack does nothing exciting in terms of damage but has triggers to either Slow their victims or stop them walking. Waldgeists can also create little patches of cover for themselves and when sitting in them (or any other terrain) get a massive 4" melee range. All this combines to make Waldgeists highly effective speed-bumps that are hard to ignore or remove. I particularly like playing them with Bad Juju (more on that later) so that even when the Waldgeists finally die they unbury the big compost heap right in the most annoying place I can find. I deliberately kept the colours simple and naturalistic on the Waldgeists, as seemed appropriate since they are walking trees. Brown for the bark, creamy grey for the fungus and some green for moss.

Amazing painting work, well done. If I may be a tiny bit critical, it looks like there is a gap in Miss Terious's right leg which should have been filled somehow. The Mr Graves bloody hand and furry Bad Juju are my favourites.

Wow, terrific work. Especially for a newcomer to our wonderful hobby. Keep it up, and please keep sharing for us less-talented types to admire.

Game 3: Neverborn (me) vs Gremlins (Steve McVicar) Strategy: Interference, close deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Accusation!, Dig Their Graves, Covert Breakthrough, Hunting Party Neverborn: Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves Resurrectionists: Dig Their Graves, Hunting Party Crews Neverborn: Dreamer (Dreams of Pain, Otherworldly), 2 Daydreams, Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), 3 Terror Tots Gremlins: Wong (Dirty Cheater, Ooh Glowy, Explosive Solutions), McTavish (Dirty Cheater), Old Cranky, 2 Swinecursed, 2 Lightning Bugs, Slop Hauler I really wanted to try out a game with this Dreamer crew and utilising the Grow mechanic for Nephilim. The only other time I used this crew I never even got started since I was under such pressure right from the very first activation (here). So my idea was to send in the Nephilim and then use the Dreamer to summon in back-up pieces to cover the table for the strategy. As a bonus, two likely summons (Lelu and Lilitu) even have Black Blood so I could be a bit more relaxed in my positioning. I chose Claim Jump and Dig Their Graves for the obvious synergy, but I'm not sure why I didn't pick Covert Breakthrough as it is really easy to score in close deployment. Probably I didn't even look past those two that I selected. Steve makes McTavish Glowy to no-one's surprise. Turn 1: My hand is awful, even after using soulstones. It really hurts a summoner to have a terrible hand in turn 1. We're both really cautious in positioning here. McTavish blows a hole in Nekima from across the board. The Dreamer summons a pair of Insidious Madnesses with my only two decent cards and then Black Jokers a Daydream summon. Nekima moves into the centre to capitalise on winning initiative next turn, or hopefully survive long enough to do anything useful if I don't. Turn 2: I don't win initiative. The central Swinecursed goes into Nekima and gets a lucky Red Joker damage which really hurts, though she does survive. Unfortunately, the return swings are blunted by Steve top-decking two Kings in a row on defense, which I can't match so I don't even take out the Swinecursed never mind do anything else useful. McTavish comes in and kills Nekima easily. A Terror Tot kills the wounded Swinecursed, but unfortunately Steve points out (correctly) that I didn't remember to change out One Thousand Faces for Rapid Growth on Barbaros. I do it now, and Barbaros charges into Old Cranky for minimal effect except to tie up a big chunk of Gremlins. Wong fails his Challenge duel three times in a row trying to shoot the Tot, meanwhile the other two put down scheme markers. Not much gets done as we're both out of cards. The Dreamer does manage to summon a desultory Daydream. I score for Claim Jump and we both get the strategy. Turn 3: Barbaros bounces of Old Cranky again but Nimbles over to tie up more stuff. McTavish kills the nearby Tot, scoring for Dig Their Graves (but not Hunting Party as Steve forgot that models counting for Dig Their Graves can't count for anything else). The surviving Swinecursed, Wong and the Lightning Bug all attack Barbaros but the Nephilim hangs in there taking everything that Steve can throw at him. The Dreamer summons Lilitu and turns in Lord Chompy Bits, who finally deals with McTavish. I score for Interference and Claim Jump. Turn 4: Barbaros finally kills Old Cranky and is eventually pulled down by the Slop Hauler somewhere near the end of the turn. The Swinecursed hurts Lord Chompy Bits and is eaten in reply, scoring my own Dig Their Graves; Dreamer reappears. Lilitu Lures the Left Lightning Bug right into the centre of the board and Dreamer Paralyses it then summons Lelu into the spot where Barbaros just fell. Lelu kills the Slop Hauler to heal up. I score for the strategy and Claim Jump again. Turn 5: Lelu hurts the Lightning Bug next to him and is stabbed in return by Wong (this kills the Bug due to Black Blood). The Dreamer puts down a scheme marker then finishes off the other Lightning Bug for Dig Their Graves. I score for Interference; Neverborn win 9 - 2 (4 for Interference, 3 for Claim Jump and 2 for Dig Their Graves for me; 1 for Interference and 1 for Dig Their Graves for Steve). That was another excellent game against Steve, who I felt did well considering his relative inexperience with Gremlins. On the other hand, he knows Dreamer pretty well, so probably had no problem knowing what to do to stymie me. My big mistakes were forgetting to change in Rapid Growth on Barbaros in turn 1, then failing to realise that it was a lost cause in turn 2 and going for it anyway; I would have been far better served taking Fears Given Form at that point. Playing so aggressively with Nekima was a risk worth taking, I think. If I'd stayed back and played more cagily I'd have been shot to bits by Wong and McTavish, and Nekima gave the rest of my crew the time to get into position. Somewhat to my surprise, I get third place when the scores are announced; though positions two to six are only separated by very tiny amounts. I had a great day, and went home with a large pile of Resurrectionists to put together. Thanks to David, David and Steve for fun games of Malifaux, and to Kai as always for his great efforts running the event and generally being the focal point of Malifaux in Scotland.

Game 2: Neverborn (me) vs Resurrectionists (David McGuire) Strategy: Headhunter, flank deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership, Frame for Murder, Mark for Death, Tail 'em Neverborn: Frame for Murder (Nekima), Claim Jump Resurrectionists: Eliminate the Leadership, Mark for Death Crews Neverborn: Dreamer (Dreams of Pain, Otherworldly), 3 Daydreams, Nekima, 2 Teddies Resurrectionists: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Life, Tear of the Gorgon), Carrion Emissary (Carrion Conflux), Johan, 3 Rotten Belles, Nurse, Crooked Man So now that I was out of the running to win, I decided to try out a fairly silly crew. I'm pretty sure I heard of someone else using this (maybe Greg P) so it's certainly not my original idea, but it is really funny to play. The idea is to throw the Teddies into the other crew, then follow-up with Nekima. By the time that lot has been dispatched, I have hopefully summoned enough stuff to win the game. Optionally, Lord Chompy Bits is usually ready to work by the time my forward line has been handled, so I can also fire him up in to the other crew for more distraction. Teddy can be very easy to control again Resurrectionists due to its low stats, but the terrifying test can be quite an effective hand-drain. I picked Frame For Murder on Nekima as I planned for her to die early (could also have picked either Teddy for the same reason) and Claim Jump since I was hoping to pin David right back off the centre line. Thanks here to Jamie for lending me his very nicely painted Miss Ery. Turn 1: My Daydreams push both Teddies forward aggressively; one of them sacrifices itself to give the Dreamer a mask for summoning. The Emissary comes up and puts Shards in the centre of the board and moves back, but there isn't a choke point for this to be a big problem for me. The Dreamer summons Lelu, Lititu and a replacement Daydream, then Molly comes forward and summons a Punk Zombie between my Teddies and gives one of them Whispered Secrets. The Belles Lure her back to safety and bring the affected Teddy in with her. It Focuses and eats the Nurse; I'm glad to get her out of the way at least. Nekima kills the Punk Zombie and Lelu walks on to its head. Turn 2: Molly puts a Teddy on negative flips with Whispered Secret. The other Teddy Flurries Molly, pushing towards my crew before a Belle Lures her back to relative safety. The Crooked Man Marks the de-buffed Teddy for Death and the Belles Lure it around, eventually killing the big cuddly beast off with a Red Joker pounce attack and scoring a point for Mark for Death; Johan picks up its head. Meanwhile the Daydreams push Lilitu forward and she then Lures Nekima forward to where she can attack the Emissary for depressingly little effect. Lelu picks up a head somewhere here and Dreamer just pushes my stuff around with Empty Night. We both score for Headhunter. Turn 3: Molly Paralyses Nekima and gives the surviving Teddy Whispered Secrets. The Belles eventually pull Nekima down with Pounces after something Marks her (another point for Mark for Death for David, and two for Frame For Murder for me). The Daydreams move Teddy back into range of the Dreamer to remove the condition with Empty Night, then he summons Coppelius and an Insidious Madness and turns into Lord Chompy Bits. The Crooked Man unluckily Black Jokers a chance at Paralysing Teddy, which would have been annoying after I'd just removed Whispered Secrets from it. Lord Chompy Bits eats the Crooked Man and is Lured forward by a Belle; Teddy does some more damage to Molly. Somewhere in her I pick up a head (probably the Nurse's) and get markers down for Claim Jump, scoring both. Turn 4: We're pretty much out of time. Lord Chompy Bits kills the Emissary and turns back into the Dreamer. Molly hurts the Dreamer and chain activates Johan who burns my cards and gets my master down to half wounds, thereby scoring a point for Eliminate the Leadership. I don't have time to put down scheme markers or pick up heads. Neverborn win 5 - 4 (2 for Headhunter, 2 for Frame For Murder and 1 for Claim Jump for me; 1 for Headhunter, 2 for Mark for Death and 1 for Eliminate the Leadership for David). That game was a lot of fun, and very instructive for me in terms of future use of Molly (as she is my next planned master). I'm always especially pleased to play against Molly when piloted by David since he is her creator in the fluff. Overall, I think that I had things well in hand in this game, but neither of us were playing very quickly so the scores were low on both sides. The game was also strewn with minor positioning errors on my side which is a bit sloppy, but David was out of practice so he didn't capitalise on them as well as he might have done when he was playing more regularly.

Once again Kai organised a Malifaux event at Common Ground Games, so once again Gareth and I boarded the train to Stirling to take part. This event was low key and not really highly attended, and I got the impression that a lot of people were trying out something bit new after the Scottish GT in July. Indeed, I took Neverborn but picked up some toys for the Resurrectionists during the day. Game 1: Neverborn (me) vs Gremlins (David Hamilton) Strategy: Turf War, standard deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Frame for Murder, Dig Their Graves, Inspection, Last Stand Neverborn: Frame for Murder (Hungering Darkness), Claim Jump Gremlins: Frame for Murder (Burt Jebsen), Inspection Crews Neverborn: Jakob Lynch (Endless Hunger), Hungering Darkness, 2 Waldgeists, Spawn Mother (Hexed Among You), Bad Juju (Eternal Fiend), McTavish, Will O’ The Wisp Gremlins: Zipp (The Gift of the Gab, Airship Spotlight, Rambling Diatribe), Earl Burns, Iron Skeeter (Hovering Airship), Iron Skeeter (Poorly Handled Explosives), Burt Jebsen (Dirty Cheater), The First Mate (Treasure Map, Where The Captain Can't See), Mechanical Porkchop, Sparks I was originally considering playing the Dreamer in all three rounds for the event since I can't quite seem to get the performance out of the little chap that I feel is possible. But when David announced Gremlins I had a feeling that I would be seeing Zipp or Wong, both of whom I think would make pretty short work of the Dreamer (and Pandora, another likely option for this strategy), so I went with the old faithful crew of Lynch plus Swampfiends. Actually crew might have been an interesting one to use for Last Stand as it has plenty of Henchmen, but I still think that it is a terrible scheme since I don't generally aim to lose all my pieces (at least, not faster than the other crew). Instead I went for the slightly predictable combination of Claim Jump and Frame For Murder (on Hungering Darkness as it's so easy to kill and doesn't bring out Bad Juju). Turn 1: Earl Burns hands out Tomes to everyone nearby and Sparks makes the Mechanical Porkchop Fast. On my side of the board, the Spawn Mother lays an egg and the Wisp hatches it. The left Iron Skeeter makes Burt Fast and taxis him up into range, so one of my Waldgeists moves to hurt it, then Black Jokers the Germinate that would have allow it to cover Burt and Sparks also within melee range. Zipp attacks the Waldgeist with Up We Go (I really hate how that attack ignores pretty much every defense in the game) and the Mechanical Porkchop pushes it around some more. Eventually Burt kills it in such a position that I can't bring out Bad Juju. The other Waldgeist moves over to block the same choke point as its predecessor and the First Mate uses Menacing Croak to push the Spawn Mother back toward me. Lynch drops a scheme marker for McTavish to eat, and the latter guns down an Iron Skeeter. Hungering Darkness uses Heed My Voice to make Sparks move away from the action. Turn 2: Hungering Darkness takes three attacks to kill off the other Iron Skeeter despite it being only on two wounds at the start. Zipp zaps it to push it back toward me, then flies over and shoots the Spawn Mother to stop her laying eggs, or doing anything else at all useful. The Gupps drops scheme markers and the First Mate comes over to eat one of them. McTavish shoots Burt and then Sparks gives him armour. An armoured Burt is all kinds of horrible, as the Waldgeist demonstrates by flailing uselessly at him. Lynch gently tickles Zipp with Play For Blood; I really wanted to deal with the First Mate but the combination of armour and Perfect Camouflage meant that would be really hard to do. The Mechanical Porkchop and Earl move to the board edges and score for Inspection; we both also score for Turf War. Turn 3: Zipp shoots both McTavish and the Spawn Mother to stop them taking (0) actions. Hungering Darkness attacks Burt but Black Jokers the first attack then David flips the Red Joker on the second, killing my Henchman with All In The Reflexes. Still, at least I get some points for Frame For Murder. The First Mate takes his turn and Black Jokers his Leap. Sparks makes Burt a Construct again and hands out Fast, the Burt walks over to Lynch and kills himself on Lynch's Hold 'Em trigger (for some reason it didn't occur to me to just not declare this) giving David three points for Frame For Murder. Lynch, the Spawn Mother and McTavish kill Zipp. David scores again for Inspection and we both score for the strategy. Turn 4: McTavish hurts Earl so the First Mate Leaps over to guarantee the Inspection points. Lynch kills Sparks. We run out of time even with me passing all my remaining models, and unfortunately there isn't time for one more turn. I do score Claim Jump this time, David gets the last point for Inspection and I take Turf War. Neverborn lose 6 - 8 (3 for Turf War, 2 for Frame For Murder and 1 for Claim Jump for me; 2 for Turf War, 3 for Frame For Murder and 3 for Inspection for David). That was a game that I felt should have been closer, and I will admit that I was a bit irritated that we didn't have time for a couple of activations of turn 5 since I could conceivable have pulled up for a tie. Still, it was great to get another game against such a nice and skilled opponent as David, and at the end of it he played the game more efficiently than I did. David did really well to play around the threat of Bad Juju, effectively controlling my pieces with Zipp rather than killing them. I am also quite pleased by the prospect of David returning to really regular play at tournaments as he has the ability to be among the strongest players in Scotland. I should have killed my own Gupps in turn 3 to bring out Bad Juju. I also made the mistake of giving away Frame For Murder by needlessly using Lynch's defensive trigger, though the prospect of letting Burt just wander round attacking my stuff was also quite unappealing.

This is probably the best approach to grow lists. My favourite is this, or some variation upon it: Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), Nekima (One Thousand Faces), 3 Terror Tots and a Black Blood Shaman I've used this lot with only very slight variations in tournaments using Collodi (link and link) and Lilith (link, link, link link and link). I played the crew with summoning Dreamer (losing the Shaman as the points are super tight here) but in the only tournament game so far (link) I was under such pressure from the start that I never got going with the Grow shenanigans. It worked well in a couple of friendly games though, and I also have had success with Pandora in the same crew. I have no reason to think that Lynch couldn't also lead the crew effectively, but haven't tested it. Note that in some of the linked games I didn't Grow even a single Tot. Sometimes it simply isn't practical or advantageous to do it, and you need to use your experience to know whether any particular situation will help you. It's important to point out that (except for a few cases where I didn't even get as far as swapping in Rapid Growth) the other player has to always work around the possibility that you might be able to turn a wounded Young Nephilim into a fully-healed Mature which can swoop off to cause havoc. So there is a positional side to this that can be exploited even if the mechanical side does nothing. And after all, Rapid Growth is only a single soulstone so I don't consider it a major waste even if it does very little in the game.

This is Barbaros, one of the Nephilim Henchmen for the Neverborn faction. Unlike Nekima (more on her later), Barbaros is a tanking and control piece. His main ability, at least for me, is to make enemy models take a fairly tricky willpower check if they are near him and target someone else with an action, otherwise they fail. Ideally they'll be in a position where actually attacking Barbaros is impossible or undesirable so they would need to take the test all the time. Helpfully, it even affects things like healing friends. Naturally, passing one willpower duel is easy (notwithstanding the Black Joker, of course) but with some clever positioning I've had opponents taking more than a dozen in a single turn. Eventually, they start to fail and have run out of good cards to cheat in. Even when Barbaros is attacked he has armour, Black Blood and a tasty (if rare) defensive trigger to keep him in the game. Overall, Barbaros is one of my favourite pieces in the faction. I stuck with the same Nephilim skin tones as before, pale blue all over for skin and purple hair. At least Barbaros is wearing more than one item of clothing so I was able to mix up the colours a bit with his armour. I like the pose, though I've knocked his left arm off quite a few times now (the spikes on his weapon keep sticking in the foam of my carry-case). The only frustrating thing is that the miniature has wings but the rules of the game don't give him flight. It took me quite a few games to get that correct, especially as the Young Nephilim have almost identical wings but can fly.

Very nice. The gradations of colour on the wings are particularly nice. And of course, the runes look very sweet indeed.

Nice work! I think they look really good in that muted tone. There are plenty of models in Malifaux that might suit the more garish colours, but sure these sturdy mercenaries wouldn't be so flashy.

Excellent! Paid for me and Gareth H.

Good advice Viruk. I guess that the same approach could work with Collodi too. Here is the Black Blood Shaman, part of the Neverborn faction. Arguably more than most pieces in Malifaux, the Black Blood Shaman has a fairly narrow niche. It supports models with Black Blood, gives them Black Blood and has some synergy with the Nephilim tag (almost all of whom have Black Blood). Luckily, I also love all these things, so I take this beaky chap fairly often. Most obviously, it makes a nice support piece in a Nephilim-heavy crew, allowing some un-resisted damage to be splashed on anyone standing near your Black Blood models. More than that, being able to hand out Black Blood for a tiny damage cost can be hilarious for options that can heal themselves. Wise scholars have often asked 'what is more annoying to deal with than an Illuminated?' To which the answer is surely 'an Illuminated with Black Blood.' Similarly, I really enjoy giving Collodi Black Blood (this also allows the use of the Run Away Home trigger to move the Puppet around), then making the Shaman its Personal Puppet. So when Collodi takes damage, it can push up to the most annoying position possible, then make the Shaman hit it with Black Blood Pustule for some area damage and a possible heal or buff for Collodi itself (living the dream, you could also theorise that the Shaman is itself engaged with something and bleeding profusely over it in the process, but I've never actually had this happen). The miniature was somewhat fiddly to assemble and paint. The former is due to the rather spindly arms and the tiny contact points at both wrist and shoulder, though this is rather standard fare for Malifaux. The latter is because of the folds of the wings making it a bit tricky to maneuver the paint brush around the model. Nonetheless, I like the miniature's pose and did find it fun to colour. The scheme was a simple copy of all the other Nephilim, pale blue skin and purple clothing; the beak (I assume; for all I know it's meant to be a mask) allowed a bit of divergence from the norm.

That is some really good stuff. I like Dr Grimwell's blood splatter the best; I have no idea if it's actually realistic, but it looks like it should be.

Nice painting work. I think my favourite is the 'Doctor Octopus' Ramos though; it's remarkable that I've not seen such a conversion before (though you do mention that it's a well-used route). I look forward to seeing it with paint.

Thank you very much! I enjoy writing them and get a lot of benefit from ordering my thoughts. There are plenty of other players who probably have similar records to me (notably, at least 5 of the 6 players I faced in this event!), but they don't report everything in tedious glorious detail on these forums. Thank you! In terms of overall toughness of my opposition (i.e. the people I actually faced, not the totality of all attendees) this could be the hardest event I've ever taken part in - 5 of my opponents are in the top 20 in my country rankings at the moment. For the mirror image Frame for Murder and Quick Murder in game 5, I probably thought that I was being really clever as I fully expected Joe to also take a Quick Murder so I could 'trade' points with him there. For some reason (sheer stupidity I suppose) it completely did not occur to me that Joe might also do the same thing! Thanks. Good spot on the Monk; I've edited that in now. The Silurids are pieces I just never quite got round to plugging in to a crew. I'm limited in how much time I can play and for whatever reason the Silurids simply never got their moment in the sun. I think that in a few friendly games coming up I'll ask for Stake A Claim or similar and see how I take to them. Gupps are superficially similar and good enough for Claim Jump while being half the price (or summonable) compared to Silurids and for me they had always done the job. But of course, the difference in Leap distance is critical for Stake A Claim. Do you have any clever suggestions for Silurids beyond the obvious 'Leap and score Stake A Claim' option? I'd be happy to read about your experiences with them.

Thanks for taking the time to write up these battle reports. I really like your style and it feels easy to follow the action. In your game 1 (against Ben) I think that you made the right move to be able to nearly drop Myranda in a single flip, and I would say that your conclusion from the episode should be simply that nothing is certain rather than that similar situations should be handled differently. The Black Joker is always a potential confounding factor in Malifaux. This article by the excellent Joe Taylor feels relevant: Why You Should Ignore Your Instincts (due to the rather frustrating way posts are ordered on Arcane Reservoir it might be needed to search by the title). Keep up the good work!

Game 6: Neverborn (me) vs Resurrectionists (Josh Leak) Strategy: Collect the Bounty, flank deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership, Accusation, Undercover Entourage, Recover Evidence Neverborn: Eliminate the Leadership, Undercover Entourage (Lilith) Resurrectionists: Eliminate the Leadership, Accusation Crews Neverborn: Lilith (Beckon Malifaux), Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Doppelganger, 3 Waldgeists, Lilitu, Cherub Resurrectionists: Dr Douglas McMourning (Moonlighting, Plastic Surgery, Decaying Aura), Zombie Chihuahua, Archie (Corpse Armour, Hulking Leap), Sebastian (Those Are Not Ours), 3 Rotten Belles, Canine Remains I decided that my best option here lay with Lilith to control the board position and hopefully limit Josh’s options for attacking my crew. To the same effect, I chose Lilitu and the Doppelganger to give me more Lure options. The Cherub is a cheap activation with a possibility to cause Slow, and the Waldgeists bring a bit more control and are hard to remove due to their armour. When I saw Josh’s crew though, I realised that I would be in for a lot of trouble. With 3 Belles he could ‘out-Lure’ me easily, and McMourning would have no difficulty ignoring armour. I thought that if I could pressure McMourning a bit I could possibly force Josh to commit him which might allow me to score for Eliminate The Leadership, and after some consideration I chose Undercover Entourage on Lilith and intended to keep her on the fringes of the fight. Turn 1: The Canine Remains flips the Black Joker trying to Dig Up A Bone. The Chihuahua puts some Poison onto McMourning and the Belles start Luring a Waldgeist toward them. Lilith Tangles Shadows to put Nekima there instead and creates a Forest in Sebastian’s way. Archie bounces off Nekima to my great surprise, and I decide to go for all out aggression as I’m not going to win a positioning game here. Nekima moves in and smites the unactivated Belle, Paralysing the other two. Sebastian summons a Canine Remains from the corpse of the Belle and Lilitu Lures him to me. McMourning makes short work of Nekima and turns her into a Flesh Construct. Somewhere after this I needlessly cheat away my last card which gives the Flesh Construct Reactivate and it has the range to charge Lilith, hurting her and giving Poison. Josh declares Eliminate The Leadership. Turn 2: McMourning Expunges Lilith into another Flesh Construct, scoring the rest of the points for Eliminate The Leadership and (though Josh didn’t know it at the time) preventing me from getting Undercover Entourage. Two Waldgeists gang up to kill Sebastian and a Flesh Construct Accuses the Doppelganger. Archie drops one of the Waldgeists and the Cherub fails a horror duel against the big chap. The Doppelganger removes Accused thanks to Don’t Mind Me. Josh scores Collect The Bounty. Turn 3: The Cherub Slows both McMourning and Archie, and pushes them back. The Canine Remains Accuses a Waldgeist. I have pretty much run out of options here, so Lilitu flails uselessly against a nearby Flesh Construct which kills the Doppelganger. A Waldgeist with Poison on it explodes on activation due to the presence of McMourning, who hurts the Cherub and pushes Archie back into the fray. Archie, even with Slow, has no trouble dealing with Lilitu. Josh scores on Accusation and the strategy. Turn 4: The Waldgeist pokes the Canine Remains (just activated it first to stop Accusation) and then McMourning kills it and the Cherub. Neverborn lose 0 – 8 (nothing for me; 4 for Collect The Bounty, 3 for Eliminate The Leadership and 1 for Accusation for Josh). That was a much more one-sided game than I’d hoped for, and I’m sorry to Josh for not giving him a rougher ride. Nonetheless I very much enjoyed it, and Josh is a very pleasant chap to play against. Looking back at the game, I think that Josh had done a very good job constructing his crew and that I was going to be on the back foot right from the start. And of course he played it without mistakes while capitalising on those that I made, so he well deserved his win. The majority of my errors were in turn one, probably because after that I didn’t have enough crew left for any mistakes to matter. The biggest one was giving the Flesh Construct Reactivate; I can’t remember now why I used my last card, but it was nothing that was critical and I really paid for it by getting the Flesh Construct in Lilith’s face. Once Archie had bounced off Nekima, I probably should then have Lured her back to safety and forced Josh to expose McMourning if he wanted to go after her. It isn’t evident from the report (because I don’t take detailed notes on card usage), but I squandered some good cards attacking the Belle too; I probably would have been better saving them for defense. [Edit: in case you would like to know how this all felt for Josh, listen to this episode of the excellent Arcane Reservoir podcast.] [Edit: For further reading about the event, you could also check the Loyalty To The Coin blog or this other episode of Arcane Reservoir.] One thing that I particularly enjoyed about this game was that even though we were both trying our best to win (and hence win the whole event) there were smiles and jokes throughout. If you’re reading this and have only heard about how tournaments are full of cut-throat, win-at-all costs-players and that the top tables are Serious Business only, then I can say that this is not my experience at all in the UK Malifaux scene. Fun is the primary goal for most players; winning is just an added bonus. So once all the scores come in I get 4th place and I'm really pleased with how I played all weekend. I had a wonderful time against some really tough players; 4 of my opponents finished in the top 10 I also got 6 delicious bottles of purple-labelled beer for being best Neverborn player, and I’m very much looking forward to drinking those. Thanks to James, David, Conor, Mark, Joe and Josh for 6 terrific games of Malifaux, and to Kai and his team for another wonderfully organised event. One day I’m going to win this thing!

Game 5: Neverborn (me) vs Ten Thunders (Joe Jackson) Strategy: Stake a Claim, close deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Frame for Murder, Leave your Mark, Tail 'Em, A Quick Murder Neverborn: Frame for Murder (Nekima), A Quick Murder Ten Thunders: Frame for Murder (Yasunori), A Quick Murder Crews Neverborn: Collodi (Strum The Threads, Fated), Brutal Effigy, Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), Nekima (One Thousand Faces), 3 Terror Tots, Black Blood Shaman Ten Thunders: Misaki (Stalking Bisento, Misdirection, Servant Of Five Dragons), Shang, Ohaguro Bettari (Peaceful Waters), Monk Of Low River, Shadow Emissary (Conflux Of Thunder), Yasunori (Smoke Grenades), [edit for correction] Wandering River Monk I picked Collodi here with the idea that I might be able to either slow Joe's crew to stop them putting down Claim markers, or move my own crew around to get good positioning to do it myself. In all honesty I wasn't really sure how to approach this game; historically I've always found Stake a Claim to be really hard. I know that Silurids are meant to be the Neverborn answer to the strategy but I've almost never used them (indeed, I'd only assembled mine in the week leading up to the event) and felt that this was not the time to start. So in the end I went with a crew that was familiar to me even if it wasn't ideal for the job. With both A Quick Murder and Frame For Murder in the pool I took both thinking that at least that would allow me to concentrate on the strategy with most of my crew. Turn 1: We both jockey for position a little with our cheap stuff. The Emissary makes Yasunori Fast and kills a Tot. Barbaros charges Shang and gets killed by Yasunori for his trouble. This was a really bad move from me here; I should have kept him central so that I could at least bait Joe's killers into range of my own. Collodi uses the My Bidding trigger twice on Nekima to move her forward. Misaki hurts the Shaman who Collodi has made its Personal Puppet, receiving Black Blood in return. Nekima kills Yasunori, trading points between Joe's Frame For Murder and my Quick Murder. Turn 2: The Tot on the left Stakes a Claim. Misaki shanks Collodi; on the first go he pushes into her and the Shaman heals it and hurts her with Pustule. On the second go I'm forced to sacrifice the Shaman so that Collodi gets away; Misaki then walks to engage the Brutal Effigy and Collodi (presumably to make use of Misdirection). The Emissary kills the Tot on the right. The Effigy walks away from Misaki's clutches and Collodi pushes free, hurts her a bit then puts down a Claim marker. The Monk of Low River moves to engage Nekima so she hits him with her melee expert and kills him with Blood For Blood. She then charges Misaki and makes short work of her. The Wandering River Monk Leaps and Stakes a Claim and Bettari moves into my side of the board. I score for the strategy. Turn 3: Bettari puts down a Claim marker before Nekima kills her. The Monk Leaps and Stakes again. Collodi moves the Effigy then moves to the right. I've no idea why I did that as it allowed the Shadow Emissary to easily kill my master. What a terrible bit of positioning. We draw on the strategy. Turn 4: The Emissary moves to make a nuisance of itself and our crews continue to move around and put out Claim markers. We draw for Stake a Claim. Turn 5: The claiming continues but neither of us can get ahead so it is another draw. Neverborn win 4 - 3 (1 for Stake a Claim and 3 for a Quick Murder for me; 3 for Frame For Murder for Joe). That was an enjoyable but rather strange game; I don't think either of us really made an attack at all in the last two turns. My positioning play was generally quite poor, notably giving away Barbaros in turn 1 and Collodi in turn 3 for no gain at all. I think I probably need to play this strategy a few times again as it has been a long time since I've seen it in a tournament. I might possibly never have played it at all using Neverborn. Anyway, Joe made the whole experience very enjoyable and I'm really glad to have met him over a game of Malifaux.

Game 4: Neverborn (me) vs Resurrectionists (Mark Elwood) Strategy: Extraction, corner deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves, Accusation, Covert Breakthrough, Show of Force Neverborn: Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves Resurrectionists: Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves Crews Neverborn: Jakob Lynch (Endless Hunger), Hungering Darkness, 2 Waldgeists, Spawn Mother (Hexed Among You), Bad Juju (Eternal Fiend), McTavish, Will O’ The Wisp Resurrectionists: Amelia Bathory [Nicodem] (Love Thy Master, Maniacal Laugh, Undertaker), Mortimer (My Little Helper, Corpse Bloat), Philip and The Nanny (My Little Helper, Haunting Cries), Archie (Corpse Armour, Hulking Leap), Necropunk, Malifaux Child Right from the start I was planning to use the same Lynch crew as I had done for game one here as it plays Extraction so well. In particular, Hexed Among You is extra useful for the slow Swampfiends with corner deployment. Interesting, Mark told me that he would predict my crew so he wrote it down while we were choosing. He didn't even get one choice correct; so there is probably some value in trying out something that your opponent doesn't expect. I was planning to send summoned Gupps down the long centreline for Claim Jump and if Mark didn't contest the centre quickly enough then I would lay down a load of marker there to either score Claim Jump or Dig Their Graves. I was expecting Mark to start out quite far back and flood the area with summons, so my plan was to pin his crew as far back as possible for as long as possible. Turn 1: The Spawn Mother and Wisp work together again to summon Gupps and Mortimer uses My Little Helper to pull two corpse markers out of himself so that the summoning engine can get going in earnest. The Necropunk puts down two scheme markers and Philip eats them for cards, then the Child makes Archie Fast. Lynch moves up cautiously and puts down a scheme marker for McTavish but in the end I send McTavish round the long way to give the benefit of cover against Lures and so on. Bathory uses Arise to bring up Mindless Zombies then summons two Hanged and a Rotten Belle off them. The Waldgeists advance and Germinate; one of them goes forward as bait. The Hanged hurts it and then Archie comes over and kills it, pushing it back at the same time. Bad Juju falls out and is in range to charge the Belle, but I'm not even interested in the Belle, I just want to get into the most irritating position possible. Turn 2: Bad Juju walks into the middle, shrugging off the various horror duels, and kills Mortimer. The surviving Waldgeist, the Gupps and Necropunk all put down scheme markers, but the Necropunk's are eaten by Philip again. The Child again makes Archie Fast while McTavish polishes off the Belle. Bathory casts Arise again and summons a pair of Necropunks. The Hanged start whittling down Bad Juju's wounds so I throw Hungering Darkness in to keep Mark busy. Archie buries Bad Juju but fails his horror check against Hungering Darkness. The new Necropunks move to position for Extraction so we both score it and I get Claim Jump too. I move the Extraction marker back. Turn 3: Archie doesn't make any mistake the second time to kill Hungering Darkness. The Gupps keep putting down scheme markers and McTavish kills one of the Hanged. The Spawn Mother top decks the needed card to lay another egg by pure luck, but I don't feel so bad after Bathory does the same for a Doxy. She also summons another Hanged, so my respite didn't last long on that front. The Necropunks move off to start scoring for Claim Jump and I throw both the Wisp and new Gupps forward. The Hanged hurts the Wisp so Lynch Plays For Blood to bring Bad Juju back out. The Mire Golem kills a nearby Necropunk that was in scoring position. The Doxy pushes Archie into scoring range and the other Hanged has to move to score too instead of doing horrible stuff to my crew. We both score for the strategy and Claim Jump, and I move the Extraction marker even further away from Bathory and her summons. Turn 4: Archie kills Bad Juju again. Lynch moves up, puts down a scheme marker and kills the Hanged for Dig Their Graves. The Gupps and Necropunks both continue putting down scheme markers and time is called. We both get another point each for Extraction and Claim Jump. Neverborn win 7 - 5 (3 for Extraction, 3 for Claim Jump and 1 for Dig Their Graves for me; 3 for Extraction and 2 for Claim Jump for Mark). That was another very tight game and I felt very glad to have been able to hold on for the win. I think that Mark made a mistake by having his hired Necropunk put down scheme markers for Philip to eat instead of going right out for Claim Jump. It was an interesting game pulling back away from the summons with the Extraction marker and I would have liked to see what might have happened if we had time to go for the full game. As always, Mark was a gentleman to play against.

Game 3: Neverborn (me) vs Gremlins (Conor McNama) Strategy: Interference, close deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Frame for Murder, Dig Their Graves, Mark for Death, Inspection Neverborn: Frame for Murder (Nekima), Inspection Gremlins: Claim Jump, Frame for Murder (Francois LaCroix) Crews Neverborn: Dreamer (Dreams of Pain, Otherworldly), 2 Daydreams, Nekima (One Thousand Faces), Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), 3 Terror Tots Gremlins: Wong (Ooh Glowy), Iron Skeeter, Francois LaCroix (Do Over, Dirty Cheater), Old Cranky, 2 Stuffed Piglets, 2 Bayou Gremlins, Swine Cursed, Gracie (Saddle) The final game of day one was against the mighty Conor. I was almost certain what crew he'd use here but even after a couple of games against Joe I couldn't think of any foolproof way to stop it with counter-picking so just went with my original plan to use the Dreamer. After all, what better way to use my first summoning master than in Interference after all? I put Frame For Murder on Nekima in the hope that she'd be enough of a threat that Conor would feel obliged to deal with her. Inspection was chosen as I thought that I could either summon Insidious Madnesses to stand in the right spots or otherwise use the Tots accordingly. Francois is Glowy. [Edit] It is probably worth mentioning here that when Conor and I came over to this table it was clear that we were both thinking the same thing: where is all the terrain? The forests in the below photos were absent and the rocks were pushed out to the edges. Rather than spar across a bowling green we called over TO Kai to ask if more could be added. The board is still a touch sparse (probably due to having to spread the store terrain across about 30 tables) but we agreed it was playable. If you're at an event and there is clearly not enough terrain on the board then I suggest to speak with the other player and TO to see if anything can be done to resolve it. Playing on an empty board is dull even if you're playing a full Shen Long gunline, never mind if you have to face such a monstrosity. Turn 1: The Iron Skeeter makes Francois Fast and drops him right in front of the Dreamer. He chain activates, goes Reckless and charges into the Dreamer. The first two attacks are pawned off onto the Daydreams (killing them of course) and my master barely survives the second two, only by luck of cards getting me through. I nearly lost my master before I even managed to activate a single model! The Dreamer summons an Insidious Madness and two Daydreams which are all I have the cards for after that mauling. Nekima hurts Francois who squeals away before I surround him with Daydreams. I have no doubt that Francois has Frame For Murder on him but I can't take another round of attacks like that. The Insidious Madness moves up to get engage Gracie and limit the movement options on that side; the Swine Cursed attacks it and gets the trigger to charge into a Tot. The other Tot kills off the Stuffed Piglet on the right. Turn 2: The Dreamer summons Lilitu and a Daydream to turn into Lord Chompy Bits. Francois goes Reckless, strolls away from the Daydream and starts shooting into Lord Chompy Bits but is denied by the Black Joker on a crucial damage flip. I activate the big guy and he eats the Swine Cursed, then Wong kills Lord Chompy Bits and splashes a blast over Lilitu (bad positioning on my part there. Nekima kills the Iron Skeeter and moves to claim a quarter while Barbaros pushes Old Cranky around a bit. Bayou Gremlins eventually hit the Dreamer enough that I can't keep the little boy alive any more. I score for Inspection and Interference. Turn 3: Francois walks up to the bottom of the cliff where Nekima is standing and shoots her so that he dies to Black Blood, giving Conor 3 VP for Frame For Murder. Nekima kills a Bayou Gremlin and Old Cranky. Wong finally kills the Insidious Madness (it lasted much longer than I expected) and moves toward the surviving Tot on the right. The Piglet Bacon Bombs and get the right suit to do 4 damage and kill the Tot on the left, denying me Inspection. Gracie puts down a scheme marker and I move Daydreams into the most annoying places I can find. I score for Interference again. Turn 4: Barbaros kills the second Bayou Gremlin. Gracie Reactivates and eats the Daydream. Wong fails to kill another one thanks to Barbaros, and Nekima is used as a glorified scheme runner to move for Inspection. I've given up any hope of Frame For Murder by this point. I score the strategy and Inspection. https://thebovineoverlord.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/imgp4686.jpg[/img] Turn 5: Barbaros gently pokes Gracie. She moves to Saddle Wong free and he kills the another Daydream and the Tot, which finally opens up Conor's scheme markers. Conor scores for Claim Jump. Neverborn win 5 - 4 (3 for Interference and 2 for Inspection for me; 3 for Frame For Murder and 1 for Claim Jump for Conor). What a game! Conor is a really nice chap to play, but that crew he uses is absolute murder to face. I had to think about every single activation and play the best game I possibly could and I still only held on because of good cards for me and bad cards for Conor. I probably should have put Frame For Murder on the Dreamer as I knew that Conor was going to go for him, but it didn't occur to me at the time. Considering how open the board was I'm not even sure I could have kept Dreamer safe by starting him right at the back as Francois could just as easily have shot him to death. Luckily for my frazzled nerves that was the end of day one and we (almost) all decamped to the pub for beer and dinner. It's great to get to chat with other enthusiasts from different areas about their experience of the game, to trade tales of what happened in day one and to speculate about how the pairing for the next morning would play out.

Game 2: Neverborn (me) vs Resurrectionists (David Wigley) Strategy: Headhunter, flank deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Eliminate The Leadership, Accusation, Leave Your Mark, Last Stand Neverborn: Claim Jump, Eliminate The Leadership Resurrectionists: Eliminate The Leadership, Accusation Crews Neverborn: Pandora (Fears Given Form, The Box Opens), Beckoner, 2 Illuminated, Black Blood Shaman, Barbaros (One Thousand Faces), 2 Terror Tots Resurrectionists: Reva (Spare Parts, Litany Of The Fallen, Decaying Aura), Anna Lovelace (Corpse Bloat, My Little Helper), Carrion Emissary (My Little Helper), Chiaki The Niece, 2 Rotten Belles, Nurse I was thinking about taking Collodi here and using Pull The Strings to pick up Head markers, but decided instead to use Pandora. The basic plan was to throw her and Barbaros into the middle of the Resurrectionist crew, drain their resources while generally being a pain to deal with. Then use the Beckoner to pull in one miniature a turn and kill it with Illuminated and the Black Blood Shaman. When I saw David's crew I realised that he had more or less the same plan with the Luring, except that he had two Rotten Belles to my one Beckoner (in retrospect, this was so obviously a likely strategy for David that I don't know how it didn't occur to me that it might happen) so I opted for plan B, which is to rush him. I took Eliminate The Leadership because it was something that I would have to do anyway and then Claim Jump thinking that I could maybe send the Tots out to score it as the opportunities arose. Now that I think about it, Leave Your Mark might have been a better choice as I'd only have needed one scheme marker. Anna was going to be a problem for Pandora. Turn 1: Anna uses My Little Helper then pulls two corpse markers out of herself. The Nurse does Take Your Meds to heal her and then Chiaki removes the Paralyse. The Shaman stabs both Illuminated to give them Black Blood. The Carrion Emissary flies over a wall to drop Shards and the retreats; the Shards weren't anywhere useful so I assume that David wanted the Mindless Zombie out for some reason. Barbaros picks up Fears Given Form. The Belles Lure the Beckoner in (the irony...) and Reva pokes her once then summons a Guild Autopsy. Pandora pushes herself round and into the most annoying position I can find, engaging half of David's crew. Turn 2: The Emissary uses My Little Helper. The Beckoner Lures the Guild Autopsy forward and tags a Belle with Brilliance; it then Accuses Pandora. Barbaros kills the Autopsy and the Nurse Paralyses Pandora. Reva kills the Beckoner and hurts Barbaros; I activate Pandora to get her engagement range back. The Emissary drops more shards in seemingly inconsequential positions and the further back of my Illuminated picks up a head. The other one smacks the Brilliant Belle but can't finish her off so the Shaman uses Pustule to deal the final wounds. Anna fails her horror check against Pandora which is quite a let off for me. The Tots put down scheme markers and the Corpse Candle gives Reva Disguised. I score Headhunter and Claim Jump; David scores Accusation. Turn 3: Pandora hurts Anna and then the Incited Mindless Zombie explodes thanks to Fears Given Form. Barbaros puts up Challenge and stabs Anna a couple of times. The Shaman Pustules Barbaros to heal him fully and get Anna to her last wound. She pushes Barbaros back and pokes Pandora. Reva Accuses the nearby Illuminated and misses an attack on Pandora; the Illuminated start hitting her back. Chiaki pushes my stuff around and hurts the Terror Tot. Neither of us pick up a head but David scores for Accusation again. Turn 4: The Nurse stops Pandora from taking anything other than Ml actions and prevents one of the Illuminated from attacking at all. Barbaros stabs Reva who finishes off the nearby Tot. The Shaman uses Pustule to make the Illuminated bleed all over Reva, killing her and getting me the remaining points for Eliminate The Leadership. Anna finally falls to the endless Fears Given Form checks. One Illuminated picks up her head and the Belle Lures in the other one to stop me getting away for Claim Jump. Over in the other corner the Tot is also denied Claim Jump by a clever play using the Emissary to drop Shards close enough for the Mindless Zombie to stop me scoring. We run out of time for another round. Neverborn win 6 - 3 (2 for Headhunter, 1 for Claim Jump and 3 for Eliminate The Leadership for me; 3 for Accusation for David). That was a really nice game, and I was very happy to get a game against a player I'd never met before. This was actually my first game against Reva and David had me sweating a few times about her damage output and threat range, which are certainly very scary. I felt that he didn't really make the most of the Carrion Emissary as there was a tight choke point that I was really expecting him to keep blocked with Shards and hamper my opportunities to get to his crew. Pandora worked even better than I'd hoped as she held up the Resurrectionist crew very effectively but also turned out to be much more survivable than I had any right to expect. The all-star here was the Black Blood Shaman who dealt a ridiculous number of wounds out with his Pustules and also brought back Barbaros from the brink of death.

Javier kindly gave me a lift to the two-day Malifaux extravaganza that is the Scottish GT, held at the magnificent Common Ground Games in Stirling. Every year I think that this event can't get any better but then organiser Kai keeps on proving me wrong. This time we were all served a treat in the form of a six-round event with a mighty 58 players; this must put it as one of the largest [non-UK GT] Malifaux events ever run. Game 1: Neverborn (me) vs Arcanists (James Doxey) Strategy: Turf War, standard deployment Schemes Pool: Claim Jump, Frame for Murder, Leave Your Mark, Set Up, Search the Ruins Neverborn: Frame for Murder (Hungering Darkness), Leave Your Mark Arcanists: Leave Your Mark, Set Up (Hungering Darkness) Crews Neverborn: Jakob Lynch (Endless Hunger), Hungering Darkness, 2 Waldgeists, Spawn Mother (Hexed Among You), Bad Juju (Eternal Fiend), McTavish, Will O’ The Wisp Arcanists: Rasputina (Cold Nights, Arcane Reservoir, Armour of December), Snow Storm (Imbued Energies), Ice Gamin, Arcane Effigy, Malifaux Raptor, Performer, Mannequin, Carlos Vasquez (Practiced Production, Stunt Double) I had been hoping to have a reasonably straightforward first round match-up, so a pairing against the highly skilled and experienced Mr Doxey was not on the list! Still, James is a great person to play at Malifaux and certainly knows his way round a tournament. Probably he felt the same about me. I'd been discussing planned crews on the way over with Javier and had intended to run Pandora for this game but I had an inkling that James might predict that and so went with Jakob Lynch instead. I've used this Swampfiend crew in a few previous events and found it excellent at holding strategies. In addition, having Frame For Murder in the scheme pool allows me to select (or bluff) that it is on either Lynch or Hungering Darkness in order to offer up the horrible choice of killing something that will unbury Bad Juju or giving me VPs. After some consideration of Search The Ruins (because I'd be in the right place anyway) I selected Leave Your Mark with the idea of sending a summoned Gupps base off to score it and Frame For Murder on Hungering Darkness. Turn 1: The Spawn Mother and Wisp combine to summon Gupps on my side of the board while on the other side the Ice Gamin puts up Bite of Winter and Snow Storm pulls Rasputina forward. The new Gupps rush over to engage her and make life as awkward as possible while the Waldgeists also move up and Germinate to cover as much as possible and reduce the options for Ice Mirrors. Lynch drops a scheme marker for McTavish to eat but he ends up Black Jokering a long-range shot on the Ice Gamin. Rasputina Paralyses my Gupps and Hungering Darkness makes Snow Storm smack the Ice Gamin. The Malifaux Raptor unburies in my right corner. Turn 2: Rasputina somehow fails to Paralyses the Waldgeist and Hungering Darkness due to terrible cards on James' part. I throw Hungering Darkness at her to keep the pressure on and engage a big chunk of the crew. The Ice Gamin puts up Bite of Winter again before the left Waldgeist kills it. Carlos pokes the Gupps rather uselessly before getting charged equally ineffectually by the Spawn Mother. The Wisp hatches another egg and Snow Storm kills the first Gupps as James cleverly boxed it in to avoid Bad Juju having space to unbury. McTavish guns down Rasputina and the Performer and Mannequin combine to lay more scheme markers next to Hungering Darkness. We both score for the strategy and James gets one for Leave Your Mark and three for Set Up. Turn 3: Hungering Darkness and Carlos trade blows, then most of my crew spend their activations trying to kill him before McTavish finally puts the dancer down. The Performer and Mannequin both helpfully fail Horror checks against Hungering Darkness. The Gupps head off to start putting down scheme markers but the Arcanists haven't put enough out to stop the one next to the Raptor being taken away again. We both score for Turf War again and I score Leave Your Mark. Turn 4: James theorises out that he won't score any more points as I can certainly kill the Performer and the Effigy, and he won't concede anything for Frame For Murder as he'd be purely defensive. Neverborn win 7 - 6 (4 for Turf War and 3 for Leave Your Mark for me; 2 for Turf War, 3 for Set Up and 1 for Leave Your Mark for James). And we get a nice long lunch break. That was a really tricky game and I was glad to be able to squeak through with a narrow win against an opponent of James' calibre. He played a really great game of managing who he killed to avoid letting Bad Juju come into play, but having to work around that threat meant that he ended up running out of models to score the strategy. He could have probably got a draw if he had remembered to put down a scheme marker with the Performer instead of trying to Siren Call Hungering Darkness in turn 3.

Zoraida would be a good option for this crew indeed since she's yet another Swampfiend so (in the fairly unlikely event of her dying) could be another portal to unleash Bad Juju. I will admit that I haven't tried the crew with the Doppelganger. She's a good toolbox indeed and can synergise well with McTavish, though I don't value her as highly as many other posters in this forum seem to. But I would always worry that I'm giving up too much board presence by keeping two pieces at the back; in general I've found that McTavish ends up playing a sort of 'sweeper' role, picking off anything engaged with a high front-line of Walgeists and Bad Juju. The other reason is that my testing of this crew led me to think that the saturation of threat of Bad Juju being unburied is quite important. When I started to mix in non-Swampfiend models then my opponent would focus on them first so as to leave me with less time using the Mire Golem. Admittedly the Doppelganger can be quite tricky to deal with, but a determined opponent will do so. Of course, that in turn can lead to traps being set, and this is what I love of the game. Please try the crew with a Doppelganger (instead of a Waldgeist I suppose) and let us know how you feel it works.