Ampers&nd

I'm done for month 1:) http://tacticsandtea.blogspot.co.uk/

ticket bought:)

Got Willie, I'm thinking an Arcane effigy if I can get one, they seem useful

balls, better pay tonight if I want that deck! may even play thunders...

The captain can be great for this too, with burning from his push ability if you have the cards for the trigger

MOnth 2 is an issue, what to get for Mei that I don't already have? I suppose I can step out of faction and go TT, but I have so much arcanist and M&SU that i'm struggling to think of a purchase... hmm

You know what, those odds are also much easier on the old mental arithmatic too, thanks for the advice:)

Hi, I've been running a TtB session in Cardiff recently, and last night the story took place on a floating Casino on the river, during the course of the night a player decided he wanted to gamble a bit, and where cards and skill is involved we flipped for the gambling skill and he won/lost based on those flips, when he wanted to play roulette however I didn't want to use the skill, because roulette is after all completely random. In one of those moments where you become forced to make stuff up on the spot I had to describe a Malifaux roulette table and give him the odds, luckily we had a spare fate deck around which gave me an idea for a simple solution which I thought I'd share- "The table has four long columns which go from 1 to 13, each column has it's own suit and colour, first Rams in red, then black Crows, red Masks and black Tomes., at either side there are two marked areas; 'Black' and 'Red,, and at the top there is one more area marked 'Fools', . The wheel has 54 spaces, which correspond to the spaces on the board, with two more, a black fool and a red fool, these have their own odds- if the ball lands in the black fool, the house wins and all bets are lost, if the ball lands in the red fool, the house loses and all bets are paid out at 2/1 odds regardless of the bet made. Players can place their bets in the following way- Called Black/Red (place in side area)- odds of 2/1 Called Suit (Column bet)- odds of 4/1 Called Number (Row bet)- odds of 13/1 Play the Fools (Fools area)- odds of 27/1- this will still pay out fully on black and red fools Deadeye call (place on a single space, same number and suit)- odds of 54/1 They call it 'playing the fool' because it shows a player doesn't have the sense to stick to a safe bet, nor the guts to go for a deadeye bet, proving they are either a fool or an amateur. Once all bets are down the wheel is spun and the ball is dropped" once any participating player has placed their bet flip a single card from the spare fate deck, jokers are obviously fools, and everything else is as on the card, a game takes a couple of minutes of in character time as they have to wait for other NPC's to bet, get drinks etc, I didn't use splits, trio, corners etc as making this up on the fly (and working the odds in my head) meant there was more than enough going on:) hope someone finds this useful, I'm going to try and add more of our groups creations here as we progress:) and make a roulette table terrain piece, obviously...

You have no idea how much you can hide inside a bracer;)

sounds nasty, furious casting is pretty brutal, but wouldn't the 4 card discard each turn really hurt your hand control?

the problem with those images is that they are modernised fancy dress costumes, and don't really reflect the costumes of the period, most Saloon girls and dancers did wear 'scandalously short' skirts- but for the time that meant knee length, not hotpants, the only girls who wore the slit skirts and exposed thighs were the true 'Shady ladies' who sold themselves, not something I'd imagine Collette would be up to in her spare time.

so it's a casting gun line effectively?

as a non-outcast player- how does the Hannah list work that makes it so nasty? the Alyce list is pretty obvious but the three librarians has thrown me?

Bracers are more sleeve-like and give her somewhere to hide her tricks, gloves aren't as useful as she'd have to keep going to the top end for the cards;) besides she needs something for the metal doves to land on and lace gloves would get shredded! This beats the awful old metal hands down for me:)

sculpting tutorials (by someone of that calibre would be amazing) for some of the basics, like scenic bases and accessories would be great, I enjoyed the stories, failed at the quiz, thought the peace and love themed sections were very well executed, more galleries of peoples work would be nice, and perhaps a couple of tutorials on things like hazardous terrain? great stuff anyway

I'm usually Greeny (a childhood nickname) on most forums, but some awkward misanthrope had already got that here (me being late to the party) the story that sold the game to me was about Lazarus in Ampersand, and I had just read China Mieville's 'Railsea' which uses the ampersand a lot as part of the story convention, so after building my first crew with an Ampersand theme I decided I'd play with that and put an ampersand in my Ampers&nd.

yeah, my first game was against gremlins and it was really difficult for me to do anything, groups of grems who want to die so they can grab the heads quick, plus if they mob you they have enough AP to stab, move to the token and pick up, horrifically hard game. In the end it was only a very lucky turn in which my Blessed used it's push to stand on the Head marker it just made and somehow survived vs two roosters that got me a single strat VP. (haven't mentioned the Blessed yet- any model with a push after damaging is great in headhunter for exactly that, you can kill something then push onto the head, with the Blessed's 40mm base they have to kill it pick it up, and with leap it can pick them up itself if it gets the chance)

Whenever a model kills or sacrifices a non-Peon model which it considers an enemy, the Acting model's controller must place a 30mm Head Marker within 3" and LoS of the killed or sacrificed model before removing it from play. This Marker may not be placed in base contact with any model; if there is nowhere it can legally be placed, then skip placing a Marker. Any model in base contact with a Head Marker may make a (1) Interact Action with it to remove it from play. The marker has to have been killed by an enemy to create it, but Any model can pick it up for the VP, that's why it's such a shifty scenario

I'll alter my shooty models are useless to shooty models are a risk then:) there's always a risk of accidentally blowing someone's head off and just giving the marker away, and most players woulcn't send a wounded melee model into a shooting crew, keeping it at the back (or even killing it themselves so no marker appears) to deny VP rather than seeking to score, The advantages of weakening an enemy crew are there as Sholto says, and of course if he's hiding/killing his own men it leaves you free to pursue schemes even if you aren't scoring anything for the strategy. On that note- what Schemes do you think work well/are risky to take alongside Headhunter? Frame for murder is an obvious one, but it does mean you have to drop one head token, I had success with breakthrough and plant evidence with marcus as we by and large ignored each other and just dropped markers, neither force having enough of an advantage to both kill and claim a marker in one action so neither taking the risk.

way back in the day I used to regularly run tournaments of varying sizes for GW systems, one year I ran a one off special event with some crazier rules (3 days, last day was seige with the lower VP player in the castle, I had to source a LOT of castles) and when designing it I sat with a group of players and talked about what prizes should be offered, the best general, painted etc came up, and sportsmanship was suggested (as Auroraz says, it can work well). One player joked that its a shame we never awarded cheesy (read- super competitive) powergamers as he'd been one all his life and not won a tournament yet, and it was really hard work!, which got me thinking. On the day of the tournament every player was given a playstyle score of 0 (on a comedy swingometer on the wall with 'competitive', on the left and 'fluffy' on the right) after every game their opponent could rate them as either competitive 1/2/3, fluffy 1/2/3 or balanced 1/2/3, and the swingometer moved left, right or toward the centre. at the end of the weekend the player with the highest score in each section won a prize (an expensive roundel of cheese or a teddy bear dressed as a beefeater) and anyone on flat 0 got a small prize too. because there were prizes all round players were actually honest about how their opponent played, they didn't feel like saying that competitive was dirty, or that saying a player was fluffy meant they were a weak player (in fact the fluffiest player also came second) (one of the weaknesses of sportsmanship is when everyone is really nice to the people they beat, and harsh to the people that beat them) Ok that's seems a tangent, (it is a tangent, possibly even a ramble) but in relation to the OP, if I applied that system to malifaux, and someone was found to be deliberately scouting with their pre-game conversation, I wouldn't hesitate to add a +1 competitive to their scorecard, if they went in my bag I'd be bemused (at least) probably talk to the TO and maybe wonder if I was in the right place. I'll never be a competitive player, but I'm well aware of the extra effort and energy they spend getting to their level in gaming, planning and research, so if he puts the effort in extorting the information from me and then rapidly applies it to his list building in a meaningful way which results in a win- he deserves that cheese. (it was very expensive cheese, seriously, it cost more than any other prize.)

I use one set of sewers and the catacombs set, (with three sets of clips as I picked up one cheap off ebay) it gives a nice 3x3 board with a lot of raised sections and walkways, I have played many a decent game on it. I'll try and find some photos:)

On reflection I do wonder why you took two sets of Warding Runes without the Oxford mage to optimise it? replacing a miner with a mage with Blood Ward would have given condition immunity, as well as it's own pretty useful toolkit? did you consider the mages at all?

the two games I've played of headhunter have been very cagey, especially when you are outnumbered (damn gremlins) the general feel was don't even attempt an attack unless you are absolutely certain you are going to kill, and even more certain that you are going to get the head marker first. This means ranged attacking is just about useless, and models with long charges (I used the emissary as I thought the free (1) action could be useful) are a bit of a liability. the hints on here are good to ponder over, thanks.

really interesting to read, very different from the M&SU heavy lists I play Ironsides with (though yours seems more successful) the SS factory is a good idea, especially on Df flips, the boosts from the essence are also very clever. thanks for sharing it is definitely food for thought. As for henchman I have had the most success with Joss (because Joss?) once he's taken some damage (and I usually smack him with a Raptor or Mobile toolkit early on to nick a wound off) hand picked men makes him an absolute nightmare. The Captains movement shenanigans are very useful, especially when 3 Ca a turn, but with that upgrade he is 12 ss which is quite an investment as he is proper squishy compared to Joss, Snowstorm etc. Relic Hammers are great for the 3" range, but very situational so his melee attack isn't as useful as it could be.

I'm in too, I'll be starting with Mei Feng, I'll be sharing a blog with Jonah- http://tacticsandtea.blogspot.co.uk/ and I'll try really hard to have a bit more online presence here on the forums for a while too:)