Suvalas

Not bad on the guesses there Shadowfane Swiglitz did indeed take Seamus, however I erred away from Mah on this occasion and decided to try out Wong. I agree that Mah would have been good for the strats and schemes but I fancied a change. Once I realised what Wongs' new upgrade 'Sparkly Lights' gave the crew, I was sold. As it turns out, the game did not pan out the way I expected. (When does it ever!?) I took: Wong with Sparkly Lights and Liquid Bravery. Sammy with Ooo Glowy Merris / Burt / 2x Swine Cursed / 2x Bayou Gremlins / Slop Hauler The vague plan was to use the multitude of abilities garnered by the upgrades on the Swine cursed and Burt, to allow me to get stuck in, interact away the Symbols and then run off relatively easily, what with 'Don't mind me' and 'Agile'. The Gremlins and Merris would work on Breakthrough and leave Wong to deal with Punish the weak (in hindsight not the best scheme to pick) As it unfolded, Swig did little to physically defend his Symbols, aside from Belle lures which worked infuriatingly well. That and blowing Merris up very quickly meant I was slow getting across the board. Missing out on the opportunity for scoring all 3 Symbols. As it turned out, I removed two in turn 5 to deny Swig that extra VP. What did go well (admittedly some great flips, and a great control hand, and Swig's lack thereof) was a Wong and Burt duet middle of Turn 2. Yin, a Belle and a Doxy were moving up one side of the board. With some Crackerjack timing, Burt managed to pull the Belle in towards Yin. Wong then subsequently attacked the Belle (circumventing Yin's nasty defence mechanisms) and blasted some heroic magic. Severe damage a couple of times severely damaged Yin and the Doxy, and wiped the Belle from the table. I believe that Yin and the Doxy were dealt with shortly after, leaving a gap in Swig's offence. Hats off to Swig at this point. I always seem to leave a large hole in his crew when he takes Seamus... He continued with aplomb and focus and got himself the win 8 - 6. Scoring once more for Punish than me, and getting that 3rd symbol at an appropriate time. We both scored 3 for Breakthrough. The game was close, bloody, and above all else great fun. Wong seems to be quite the wizard, and I look forward to playing him again when the strats and achemese line up Suvalas

Well, the list is finally written and I'm happy! We'll see how long that lasts when I see what Swiglitz sets down on Wednesday! Roll on deja vu from last week when I saw Zoraida across the table... As Swiglitz alluded to above, I didn't really have answer to the doll and it's shenanigans. At least not one that fit in with my game-plan, and I sorely needed to stick to my plan. One, for my own focus, and two, I was drained from illness and needed to keep it simple. It was the first time I'd faced off against a rider and I was determined to deal with it early. Which invariably would have netted me that table quarter and the subsequent entourage points. In tandem I thought that dealing with the Emissary would then in total, have diminished Shadowfane's Soulstones on the table, making it easier to win quarters. As it turned out, Shadowfane's crew was especially adept at killing my more delicate Gremlins. Even the Criers were killed in single activation thanks to Iggy's burning, and me with no healing or condition removal. I was happy with the Burt and Gracie combo, experiencing it for the first time, although their flank manoeuvre took a while to get there. Then to have Gracie's 'Reactivate' condition removed made me sad Perhaps I should have shoved those two into the mix and used the fragile Gremlins to skirt the flanks. The list was: Mah (Manifest Destiny / Liquid Bravery) Burt (Dirty Cheater) Gracie 2x Gremlin Criers 3x Bayou Gremlins 1x Gremlin Bushwhacker (Love these guys) I managed to get 2 points from an entourage on Mah, and no other points. My mistake with Take a prisoner on one of the Waldgeists. More so because only Mah was close and was needed elsewhere. Either ways I enjoyed the game, it was distinctly tactical and gave plenty of opportunity for learning. I'm still loving Mah's playstyle and am generally happy with the Gremlins at the moment. I feel like I need to get a handle on the finer points of their shenanigans, and learn how to keep key models safer for longer... I mean, how are they supposed to blow themselves up in style if the enemy gets there first! Suvalas

I can confirm that I too have cemented my crew for next week. Whether it's any good or not, only time will tell! This Ours strategy has me wondering as to the best approach, perhaps different approaches are all now decent??? As to what I have available, my options are a lot fewer than Shadowfanes' having picked Gremlins after a couple of years playing Outcasts. (As such I have most of the Outcasts models shy of waves 4 and 5) I own Somer, Ophelia, Wong and Mah as Masters including their boxes. Bayou Gremlins Piglets Criers Wrastlers Swine-Cursed Banjonistas Slop Haulers Burt Gracie Merris Sammy Lucky Emissary I think that's it... I'd be intrigued to hear others' views on what they think I might take too. I agree Shadowfane, this could be a fun thing to do Suvalas

Aloha all. As with Swiglitz above, I too was nervous about putting models to table again after such a long hiatus. Not least with the fact I had chosen a new faction! Gremlins have always had an appeal thanks to their crazy and random nature. I'm often a little slow on the tactical uptake, and often react rather than be proactive. I'm hoping that the Gremlins playstyle will suit my tactical prowess, (or lack thereof) and I can happily throw things into the mix to see what happens rather than agonise over the finer details only to realise I've been out played two turns ago. As to the list - My model selection is still a little lacking, I have access to 4 crew boxes and a couple of extras. I'm intending to flesh out the faction with some extra pieces over the coming weeks. I took: Somer with Encourage and Family Tree 1 Skeeter Gracie Merris Lenny 2 Slop Haulers 3 Bayou Gremlins My very rough plan was to attempt the summoning machine, flood the board with Bayou Gremlins and hopefully overwhelm for the Strategy. Average positioning at best taught me how better to set the summoning going. Learning for later for sure. I took Deliver a message and Bodyguard as my schemes, the latter on Gracie. She sounded a lot more tanky so figured she'd be safe. Now seeing how far back Lenny can play he might have been a better choice. Deliver a Message was also a bad choice. I had no idea how slippery Kirai was. I figured tossing a couple of Gremlins at her would sort the scheme with Merris as backup. As it turned out, Izamu caught up with Gracie and Merris before my Skeeter could keep him busy. That pretty much rendered Merris useless as she struggled to escape his engagement. Gracie held her own well. A summoned Shikome later on would have helped end her had we played more turns. At least Gracie managed to move far enough away from Merris before becoming fried bacon with her untimely demise. Overall I enjoyed the evening and game. It was a fun foray back into the world of Malifaux. The Gremlins seem care-free and poised to create a laugh or two. Despite my inexperience with the crew and faction, I can already see what I need to do to get more from them next time. There mechanics seems a little simpler than they read originally so hopefully I can play faster with them and we can get more turns in. I particularly enjoyed the Bayou Gremlin who, after a turn drinking in the saloon, downed his moonshine, kicked open the back door, fired onto Kirai but blew himself up instead! Comedy Suvalas

Another update, a day of painting allowed me to finish a piece of scatter terrain and the Mechanical Rider. The pic with the completed base came out a little blurry so have uploaded the pre-varnish/leaves step. Suvalas

Update time. The third waif, Rusty herself, and some bonus Punk Zombies that will hopefully get summoned at some point Have painted our gaming table too, some scenery is next on the cards, will save pics of that for another time. Suvalas

Great tutorial, thanks! I like how Yu is grinning at us throughout

Shenlong looks amazing. Such smooth work on the skintones, and the trousers too!

More great work here, really diggin the bloodwretches!

Excellent work on Ama no there! Beautiful colours and free hand flowers. Must have taken a lot of patience

Swifter update than usual, the infamous Leveticus is done, along with two of his entourage. The third and the Rusty are up next! A picture of our table, with some newly acquired mining scenery. Looking to get the table painted soon, and then maybe some of the scenery too! Suvalas

Another month and another update. The remaining Freikorps are done! Did not enjoy painting them as much as I would have liked. They were the cause of me stopping painting last year. Glad that they're finished now :). A Hodgepodge Effigy and 4 steampunk abominations are also complete Suvalas

Loving your summers work. Lord Chompy is excellent, and Coppelius' eye looks very demonic. The muted Necropunks look ace too

Thanks for the nice comments everyone, I'm glad you all approve Another week goes by, and some more progress! First, Johanna. Started her awhile a go and finished her this week, not my best. Similar with Bishop but slightly happier with him. Then onto Hannah, even happier with her, was a lovely model to paint. All three still need sealing and then the obligatory leaves adding to their bases but there as good as done otherwise. See you all soon! Suvalas

Update time! Nothing beast is complete, with a Karina thrown in there too. Took ages deciding on how to do Karina but I'm very pleased with the final result. Still needs a few additions to the base. Wish Tara had turned out as well... Might try and finish Bishop and or Johanna next Suvalas

Hey everyone, long time no post! Almost a year and that's shocking. We've all still been playing, but less painting has been going on... until recently at least. I finally have the painting bug back and have a few updates for this plog. Think the 3rd Void wretch is my favourite, look at that grin! Going to try and get a group shot of the crews as each one is complete. (Nothing Beast is in progress atm, then onto Karina) Suvalas

Just throwing in my thoughts on our first campaign game. Despite knowing that Vaiuri was totally going to expect Make them Suffer and Assassinate, and me deliberating over taking something completely different as a surprise, I bottled it and stuck with what I know. Or at least thought I knew. Having mis-read Make them Suffer, I actually only had two models that could score from this scheme... the Viks. That left me tactically limp. Also having never faced or read about Lucius beforehand, I was not prepared for how tough he would be to get rid of. Lessons number one and two fail: 'Know thy Enemy' 'Know Thyself'. The initial strategy was to gather my crew in to small cells of operation, and spread them across the width of the board, hopefully not leaving any weaknesses. Concentrate on keeping my two table quarters for Strategy scoring, whilst making my way to Vaiuri's half, replacing her crews corpses, with my own living ones. The crew was; Vik of Ashes (Sisters in Fury) Vik of Blood (Shez'uul / Oathkeeper) Bishop Vanessa Lazarus (Oathkeeper) Freikorps Librarian Freikorps Trapper Following is a summary per turn of the most exciting / tactically important points that I made note of. T1 Knowing how annoying the Austringers can be, I had my Trapper setup in a building with a clear LoS, and attempted to lay some damage on the Bird-wielder. I also wanted to dispatch at least one of the Hounds asap, knowing that it would hamstring their usefullness in future turns. After failing on both counts, the only other learning this turn was just how many AP's Lucius can provide to his crew! Clearly it was not enough to have more activations than me, but having 3 of them take additional actions as well, really puts on the pressure T2 Start of turn two and the Hunter attempts to Harpoon Bishop. Seriously, Harpoon on a Dog, what next Sharks with Lasers? Fortunately it missed (lack of opposable thumbs perhaps)? Vanessa managed to kill off one of the hounds quickly, whilst the Austringer missed with his/her bird. Bishop decided to retalliate against the Hunter, choosing the Ignore Armour trigger, and managed to kill it with with attacks. Annoyed by this, the Guild Sergeant swiftly shoots Bishop in the head, dealing 5 dmg. Other members of the opposing crews shuffle around for position until the Guild Rifleman takes aim at Bishop. 3 Rams in the final total and you can call 'Boom Headshot!' Bishop taken out by two headshots. Thinking the sniping was at and end (what was my Trapper up to!) I was shocked when Lucius called aid from his 'Hidden Sniper' jeepers! Fortunately a Black Joker for damage. Clearly left his safety on, amateur! T3 (1-1 score both from Recon) Both the Trapper and Rifleman attempted to snipe Lucius and Blood respectively, but both missed. Ashes moved into a good but open position and cast Sisters in Fury, setting uip her Sister. Lucius seeing an opening, commanded the Sergeant to have a crack at Ashes. 3 of 6 damage was prevented via a soulstone. Seeing her sister get shot, Blood activates, discards Oathkeeper, moves, then charges the Guild Rifleman. Slices him up a treat killing him in one hit. On the other flank, the Lawyer was having a debate with Lazarus. Unsure exactly what he'd done wrong, Lazarus walked away with Fees+2 and Poison+2 for some kind of crime, shocking decision! Unfortunately his retaliatory grenade shots missed their target. That's one tough Lawyer. To round off the turn, the Austringer tried to 'Bird' (it's now a verb) Ashes. He left the window shut again though with another Black Joker for Damage. The Librarian tried to chastise the remaining Hound but with 3 Ca only manage to hit once for 2 damage. T4 (2-2 Recon scoring) Lucius started up turn 4 throwing orders about, a few movement shenanigans and finishing off with a Hidden sniper at Ashes and Commanding the Guardian to attack. 3 and 4 damage respectively quickly saw Ashes turn into Dust. The Trapper (now out of his hiding spot) Focused and shot at Lucius. Black Joker on damage! The Guild Sergeant started to move further up my Left flank, dragging a scheme marker with him, the flank wide open. Blood moves into combat with the obscured Scribe and kills him in one Melee Expert swing, then casually moves off. The rest of the crews fail at their actions and a few moves for better position were made. The Librarian tries again to discipline the Guild Hound, clearly this dog is a bit dense as it stands there stubbornly. T5 (3-3 Recon for Vaiuri and Make Them Suffer for Suvalas) Determined on revenge, Lazarus attempts to end the Lawyers life again, but fails. Think he has a box of dud grenades. The Guild Sergeant moves closer to my deployment zone, moving his scheme marker and popping a second one down. The Trapper moves around the central building towards the Sergeant, and the Lawyer moves inside the opposite building to join the Austringer. The Austringer focuses, and sends his bird against Vanessa, result: Bird Crit to the face for 2. The Librarian finally finishes off the second hound, then hides, keeping claim of a quarter. Lucius commands the Austringer to 'Bird' Vanessa again. Only a splatter this time for 1. He then commands the Hidden Sniper, uses a Soulstone for a Ram and aims at Vanessa gain. I'm forced to use the Red Joker in my hand to draw, but Vanessa still takes 3 dmg. He finally commands the Lawyer to attack Vanessa using another Soulstone for a Ram, which finishes her off. Here endeth the battle. A final victory point was earned by Vaiuri for 1 Breakthrough marker which had been slowly moved by the Seargent, leaving a final score of 4-3. Vaiuri finishes with a minor victory, and as mentioned above, a few injuries to contend with. 9SS are also earned for the win. I ended up with Vanessa, Bishop and Ashes injured, and 2SS for the loss. The nature and degree of the injuroes are going to be calculated next time we meet.

Suvalas reporting in for Campaign Conspiracies et al! Likewise to Shadowfane, a roster including upgrades, a brief description on the plot will come later. Von Schill The Viktorias Lazarus Bishop Vanessa Johan(na) Student of Conflict Steam Trunk Freikorps Librarian Freikorps Trapper Freikorps Specialist Freikorpsman Convict Gunslinger Ronin Hodgepodge Effigy 'The Shirt Comes Off' 'Engage At Will' 'Synchronised Slaying' 'Sister's In Fury' 'Mark of Shez'uul' 'Howling Wolf Tattoo' 'Oathkeeper' x2 Creating a balanced roster was quite tough! Looking forward to earning a few extra Soulstones to bolster the roster. Assuming it is boltering, and not replacing injured crew members! They wouldn't dare get themselves killed though. How will they possibly get paid if they're dead! Also wonder if our Convict Gunslingers will juke it out Shadowfane +5 Soulstones for the Cache

In response to Swiglitz's summary above, I will add my own thoughts on Friday's story encounter. Firstly, the list: Von Schill (The Shirt Comes off / Scramble / Another which I forget...) Didn't make use of any of these due to how the game went. Strong Arm Suit Lazarus Freikorpsman Freikorps Specialist Freikorps Librarian Steam Trunk Having Blind Deployment threw a proverbial spanner in the works. As such, I stuck to 2 schemes that I was familiar with. Protect Territory and Bodyguard. Bodyguard was an easy choice when Swiglitz commented that he didn't really need to kill my models to score. Score! With the deployment so irregular, I figured that there would be a deployment spot on it's own, which would lend itself to some easy Protect Territory scoring. When the cards were flipped, having a single spot near my scoring marker, surrounded by enemy spots, and things weren't looking good. Also having never played with Von Schill, I was not fully aware of most of the models capabilities. My first mistake was probably sticking Von Schill relatively on his own. This would, as the game developed, cause him to be stuck, largely ineffectual. Moving the Steam Trunk out of his range was also much more of a (bad) game breaking decision that I first thought, as Von Schill was now stuck in combat with Izamu, and the Steam Trunk literally trundling round on its own. Lessons learned there! From my view point, the game did occur as Swiglitz describes it, so I shall sumarise my thoughts on my crew. I'm very happy with how the Librarian played out. She does appear as good as everyone raves about, and even managed to chastise Yan Lo himself with her cutting insults, causing the old dude an untimely finish. Perhaps her being the first Hired Gun that I painted helped? The Specialist did ok. His placement was not ideal, and the Ashigaru was a tough duelist, especially given the close quarters fighting over the Mysterious Effigy. I picked him for his ability to remove Corpse Markers, which I didn't really need in this game. I forsee him being very useful in future matchups. The Freikorpsman was also average. Did his job of scheme placement, but was left without much support and was severely outnumbered, end game. Lazarus was his usual good self. Kept himself easily topped up on Health and did a bit of damage here and there. Being alone, in the thick of it, meant that he didn't get to use his Grenade Launcher quite as effectually as he has in previous games. The Strongarm Suit, this being his Second outing for me, did better this time. He is quite beefy in melee and did manage to last a while. Hats off to Toshiro though, he's one tough nut to crack. Thought I had him at one point, alas, not. I think he might be better bouncing around, hunting the smaller, less defensive models. The Steam Trunk was not utilised in any way, all game, apart from me moving him somewhere stupid. I will review him when I properly use him, lol. Von Schill himself... fought valiantly, and managed to dispatch the Mighty Izamu, only to then die to the retaliatory strike. Oh well. He too would be much more useful, bouncing around the field, picking on lesser models I feel. Everything about him seems to help buff his crew after all. Getting Izamu down to Defence 1 was pretty easy, and I can only imagine how much that would help other models dispatch him more quickly. Other than some ropey deployment and activation orders, I was quite happy with the game. I learned a lot about the crew (which I've long been waiting to play). I think one more ranged model would have helped me in the long run, and focussing a bit more on the main scheme. I originally toyed with the idea of taking either a Convict Gunslinger, Hans, and even the Trapper. I think they may have helped me more, but it's hard to say. All in all though, another fun game, with plenty of learning to take on board. Perfect in preparation for our imminent Campaign. Suvalas

Another minor update. I've slowed down a bit on the painting recently. Had quite a few busy weeks. Got 1x Leveticus to show off, nothing fancy. Hoping to get back into painting the rest of his crew soon! That and a delivery of Hired Guns should be arriving in the not too distant future. Suvalas

Glad you like the crew Decoyfate, and that my Killjoy has inspired you to get one too. I still have yet to field him. Not quite sure what I'm waiting for, lol Further model progress also attached... x 4 Steampunk Zombies Suvalas

I finished 4 steampunk zombies and started Leveticus last night too. Guess that doesn't fall into your idea of slowing down? Suvalas

It could very well be that I wrote it up wrong. Didn't have access to the cards. If you swap Synchronized Slaying and Sisters in Fury it's ok right? I know there's one that Vanessa can take Think I just had the names muddled up when I did the write-up. Either way, I don't think I cast either this game. (I'll edit for no further confusion). Glad everybody is enjoying reading the battle reports. It's good to know, to keep us documenting them. Hopefully it will be even more interesting once the campaign Swiglitz is planning, is underway Suvalas

My own musings on Friday’s game; Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, I’ve been thinking a lot about a second Master, in preparation for our upcoming Campaign. I really love the new plastics, but Outcasts seem to be a little slow off the mark, and I’ve only really had use of the Viks recently. I’ve had the offer to borrow Misaki, but there’s something about having your own models. It definitely adds to the enjoyment of the hobby. As Swiglitz stated, seeing Von Schill on the GenCon spoilers excited me a lot, but, I still will have to wait for them, but knowing that it was them coming out, and not either of Hamelin and Leveticus, allowed me to splurge and buy one of their respective boxes. I’ve read long and hard about their play-styles, and finally decided on Leveticus. (That being said, the brand new re-packaged Misaki was in the shop also, so I quickly went from 1 Master to three ) I decided to stick together the whole Leveticus box, alongside two additional Waifs, and a Hodgepodge Effigy, all with the intention of using them no matter what. When we flipped Turf war as the Strategy, it screamed Leveticus, but I still didn’t want to take the plunge using a new crew, especially as I am getting more and more used to the Viks. The Viks it was then, with the following roster: Vik of Ashes – Sisters in Fury Vik of Blood – Mark of She’zul / Oathkeeper Student of Conflict Vanessa – Synchronized Slaying Lazarus Convict Gunslinger Ronin Desperate Mercenary 5ss in the cache I decided, that with Turf War being up, a lot of the focus would be around the centre of the board, and figured that Protect Territory would go well. Either by placing the required markers far away from the action, or if things went well in the middle, placing them there instead. It turned out that the latter fit better for me, as it allowed me to keep all my forces together. The swiftly dispatched Ronin is proof that sticking together is better! I also opted for Bodyguard, and placed it on Lazarus. He’s proven himself tough to get rid of already, and just loves it up in the middle of the board. By creating a crew with enough distraction, I hoped he would be left alone. With the above in mind, my general strategy was to try and take control of the centre, whilst the Ronin ran off dropping markers. I deployed the Ronin on my left flank, and Vanessa on the right flank, where she had easy access to the Centre line and ‘some’ defence in a wall. The rest stayed mostly central. I was hoping that the Gunslinger and Lazarus would provide the firepower, to whittle down any opposing attempt on the centre. As it turned out, great positioning from Swiglitz’s core team kept Lazarus out of action for a turn, and the Gunslinger with a tough choice of advance fully but get Lured, or hang back in relative safety but forgo his shooting. Some fine maneuvering later, and a dead Ronin and Turn One was over. I realised quite quickly that I couldn’t really prevent the Necropunk from scoring, and decided that I needed to score from Turf War to have a chance at winning. (I was quietly confident at this point that Lazarus would stay alive a while). I’ve learnt from past games, that it’s often the Strategy that I’ve been losing points from, and decided to change that. With some deliberation, I threw the Vik of Blood at the group of three, charging Bette, to position me between the three Resser models. A spent soulstone on a crow for the whirlwind trigger, and flipping one on the subsequent charge attack and there was a lot of damage being put out. With the Mark of She’zul, she’s clearly the best option I have for hurting the undead models who, swiftly died. A final Melee expert swing finished off the last of the three. Swiglitz was unfortunate in not being able to bury Bette, and in one activation, the battlefield looked a lot healthier. (From my eyes of course) From here it was a case of protecting the models important to Swiglitz’ scoring, namely the Student, and to keep Lazarus alive whilst holding the centre. I didn’t get much opportunity to learn about the Seamus crew other than; Sybelle’s upgrade/ability that makes lures more effective, is very useful; there’s not much you can do about Seamus and his Copycat Killer from bouncing around doing their thing, which invariably is shoot very hard! I did learn that the Convict Gunslingers are pretty nifty in their own right. Being relentless is very useful, as failing Terror duels to even do anything can be very demoralising! All in all a decent game. I was glad to play having missed a few weeks, and it was nice to place an almost fully painted crew! Perhaps next time I’ll pluck up the courage to trial Leveticus… although we’ll probably flip Reckoning to lure me back to the Viks! Suvalas

Loving your Viks'. Most notably the eyes, good work on them.