admiralvorkraft

True, and that's the reading that I had been going with. I just wanted to make sure that the original target still takes that damage, even though it's no longer "within the blast."

Apologies for the threadomancy, but this seemed like the place to ask.

Lets say that Sonnia wants to throw out some damage from behind her favorite wall. She does the natural thing and has her totem poke Burning onto a Witchling Stalker and the sacrificial Witchling runs forward. Sonnia targets the Witchling and scores severe damage, and uses pyrokinesis to place the blasts so that none of them are in base contact with the Witchling.

The way I've been playing it, the Witchling still takes the 5 damage, but I realized today that the wording of the blasts section in the rulebook states that models touched by the blast markers take damage, which could be read to imply that the Witchling wouldn't take damage from the action.

Have I been playing this wrong? Or am I going mad with power now?

Eh, I can definitely tell where I had to finish up before running to rehearsal, but if you can't then I'm happy!

Glad you enjoyed it

Agreed with the Brewmaster, next round I'll have to make the time to do this thing properly!

Nikko Andass,

First off, I love your language. You walk that fine line between poetic and purple and I ate it up.

If your story had ended with the Wastrel going down and then a short denouement I think I would have liked it more. Having him hook up with the whole McCabe crew seemed rushed and unnecessary, and it gave me a kind of, "yeah, right" moment. That's the only critique I can muster though, and I only mention it because I loved the first three quarters of this piece so much.

Thanks for sharing!

Glad you liked the line, sorry it went downhill from there

Between work and (finally) finishing my Bachelors my personal writing has been stuck on the back burner.

Best guess, at this point, 3 Oxfordian Mages. That's based on the Warding Runes upgrade being Henchman or Ironsides, but they also have straight up excellent synergy.

I toyed around a bit more with Lucius and had all of my minions massacred over and over again. So I switched to Ironsides for a game and got tabled by Pandora, but at least I made her work for it. Yesterday I played a game with Lucas McCabe and it was great, I lost 8-9 but that was off of bad scheme selection and one missed move.

I've got an old McMourning kicking around so I'm probably going to give his Guild incarnation a shot next, and then maybe come back to Lucius when I have patience for him again. Proxying some new masters is a really great way to force me to change how I think about the game, and remember why I love it. It is frustrating to have to keep referring to the cards, but on balance it's totally worth it.

...And it's up. Maybe subject to changes depending on my levels of time and energy. Comments, critiques, etc. are always welcome.

Factory Girls

By: AdmiralVorkraft

Ingredients: All - more or less

1728 words

“Thank god!” The guard snapped to attention as she saw the exorcist coming around the corner.

“God is dead,” the exorcist said, knocking ash from the end of his cigarette, “Thank the Judge.”

He was a man made to walk out of a bloody sun in the opening pages of some pulp novel. His symbol of office was a formality, his look told her everything that she needed to know. The exorcist’s long coat was dusk blue and bloodstained, with charms and wards hanging from the polished brass buttons. He carried his sanctified cross-bow slung across his broad shoulders and the weapon gleamed, purest ebony inlaid with silver.

“What have we got?” His voice was mountainous and the guard could do nothing but stare at him for a long beat. He waited, he was used to the effect he had on people.

“Uh, spirits. I think. Ghost.” The guard closed her eyes and stood up straight, by god I can be a professional too. “Routine patrols early this morning made contact with what they thought was an arcanist spy scoping out the factory. These were private guards, but Guild sanctioned. They sent a runner to the dispatch station across the river to keep us apprised of the situation. He was the lucky one.

“The other three gave chase. Their bodies were discovered in the coal yard as the second shift came on duty. We were called in to retrieve them. Dr. McMourning conducted the autopsies just over an hour ago.”

“I saw the results, drowned.” The exorcist said, “What did you see?”

“Well the bodies weren’t wet or anything, looked more peaceful than any victim I’ve ever seen, thought they were sleeping. Sergeant went first, Maston, serial…”

“I don’t care.” He cut her off, “Tell me what happened.”

“When he got up near the first body he started talking to something that we couldn’t see. ‘I want to help you,’ he was saying, ‘It will be okay.’ He started to take off his jacket and offer it to…” She couldn’t bring herself to describe the way he held it out, or how it felt to watch slim shoulders fill out the jacket only to have it drop to the ground as soon as Maston let go. “And then he started convulsing,” She did her best to keep her tone neutral, “and clawing at his throat. And then he looked up, tender, like someone lifted his chin, to kiss him maybe, and then he collapsed completely.”

“What kind of factory is this?” The exorcist asked.

The guard fingered the sleeve of her uniform jacket, “Wool, spinning and dyeing the raw yarn. Big, automated looms. They’ve had more accidents lately, soulstone blow-out, incomplete or mis-ordered card stacks, there were rumors of a haunting even before today.”

“They aren’t rumors.” The exorcist said.

“I guess not.” The guard said, “Do you know what this is?”

“Did a worker die recently? They would have been a woman, most likely with child.”

“Yes, well, I don’t know that she was pregnant, but that was one of the first things we asked the foreman. She was a programmer, trying to retrieve a stuck data card on loom 17, somehow the machine came on. She bled out in less than a minute.” The guard shuddered, “They’ve been calling that the ghost’s first kill.”

“Idiots.” The exorcist said, “The spirit can drown men on dry land, why would she need to use a loom?”

“I don’t know…”

“Of course you don’t. The programmer is the ghost. Ten gets you a hundred that there’s scrap from loom 17 in the coal yard.”

“You’ve seen this before?” Maybe I’ll get out of this alive after all. The guard thought.

“Of course.”

“So what do we do?” She asked.

“Kill it.” The exorcist swung his massive crossbow into both hands and drew back the clockwork firing mechanism. “We can sanctify bullets, but any exorcist worth their salt uses a crossbow, do you know why?”

“No.”

“With a gun there’s margin for error, with a gun there’s another bullet, another chamber. You know that. It makes you sloppy. With a crossbow you have to hit the first time and make it count, so you do.” He slid a bolt into place. It was black and silver, the same as the bow, inscribed with prayers for guidance and grace. “Lets go.”

“Where to?”

“To meet our destiny’s.” The exorcist said, “The coal yard.” He added after a beat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the sickly dimming of the Malifaux evening the guard led the exorcist through the abandoned factory. Even though she’d ordered the evacuation herself it felt wrong somehow, the machines had been built to run constantly and now there wasn’t a tick or hum to be heard. The buzz of creation had stopped.

The high windows allowed only faint streaks of light into the factory, shadowing the cavernous looms and catching eerie halos of dust motes. Somewhere in the dimness they heard a weeping.

The exorcist shot out a hand and grabbed her shoulder. “Freeze.” He hissed.

She didn’t need the warning.

“You didn’t tell me she was a walker.”

“I didn’t know.” She can barely whisper. “What do we do now?”

“Same plan. Only now we can let her come to us.” Turning to the nearest loom he grabbed a lever and pulled it. The soulstone begins to glow faintly white and a stack of thousands of data cards begin to feed themselves into the machine.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making her angry.” The exorcist was on the balls of his feet, his eyes probed the darkness, bow ready.

The guard drew her refurbished pistol and held it in both hands, pointed at the ground but cocked and ready to fire. When the ghost appeared she forgot about the gun.

She was naked from the waist up, skinny and translucent, her legs and right arm faded away into red mist and everything near her seemed drawn in by it. She was weeping openly and searching, under the machines, up in the rafters, behind specks of dust. “Help me, help me find them.” She repeated, and repeated, and repeated.

“Do you see her?” The exorcist asked the guard.

“Yes.”

“Where.”

The guard pointed. The exorcist smiled grimly and raised his crossbow, “By the power invested in me by the Governor-General of Malifaux, the Judge, and Lady Justice, by the flames of the pit and the fire in my throat be BANISHED!” He stepped back as he raised the crossbow, widening his firing stance. His coat flared out behind him and he fired.

Three feet to the left of the spirit.

“No,” the guard said, “There!” Pointing again at the weeping woman.

The exorcist blinked and dropped his aim, reaching for another bolt. A ripping sound cuts the air, and the exorcist jerks back, his coat caught in the machine.

“No, no, no…” The spirit screamed, diving towards the exorcist.

The exorcist dropped his bow, struggling to free himself before being drawn into the flashing blades and needles, the crushing gears of the machine. The spirit lashed out at him with her good arm and tried to tear his coat free.

“Back spirit!” He cried, and reached for his symbol of office, the heavy lead baton that hung at his side. The spirit ignored him, tugging on the coat, but she only could interact loosely with the world and her half-strength was no match for the hungry machine.

The exorcist got his hand on the baton as he started to choke, and he began his swing.

The guard’s pistol was old and worn, smooth bored, with a long barrel. It barked once and the bullet bit into the exorcist’s shoulder. The spirit darted back with a cry of fear and despair and the exorcist, bleeding and in pain, couldn’t stop himself being broken by the machine.

“Why?” The spirit asked the guard.

“He was going to kill you.” She replied.

“Then I would have died.”

“But you were trying to help him.” The guard said.

“Yes.” The spirit’s voice filled the dead factory.

“And that’s not fair, that he would kill you…” The guard said, “Unless, do you want to die?”

“No,” the spirit said, “But very few things are fair in life. Or death.”

“You can’t stay here.” The guard said.

“I know. I don’t know where to go.”

“Anywhere you want.” The guard said, “There’s nothing holding you here, is there?”

“No…” She shook her head, her hair was short and neatly kept, but one rogue curl bounced free and she brushed it away from her face, “I feel like a loom with a short stack of cards, I’ve run out of things to do and I’m just running, gears grinding, destroying myself and everything around me.”

“But you’re not a loom, are you? You’re a… you. And you can choose what to do with your life now.”

“Such as it is. I can’t help anyone, I can’t even touch them. And my codes… I can’t punch cards or program anymore. I can’t shovel coal to warm the building, I can’t set or clear the looms… No, no, no, no, no…”

The guard began to walk towards her, biting back the tears that she feels beginning to well up, threatening to spill and drown her.

“You’re going to die, I’m going to kill you.” The spirit protested.

“If that’s your choice, then I’ll die.” The guard said. It already felt harder to breath, her limbs felt heavy and cold.

“Please, don’t…”

“Then let me live.” The words took the last of the guards breath, she could feel herself dragging down. She closed her eyes and pushed forward, and felt her arms wrap around the small shoulders of the spirit-woman. She is warmer than I expected.

The guard felt tears on the back of her neck, and air rushing into her lungs. She opened her eyes in time to see the spirit mouth the words, “Thank you.” As she faded away.

High in the darkness of the rafters of the factory a metallic bird perched, its one eye blinking redly. It had seen many things in its years of service, but never something like this. It would have to report back to its masters. It would be nice, they would tell it how everything made sense and nothing ever changed.

If I write a sequel, I'm sure things won't go as smoothly...

I'm glad you liked it!

Hmm... I could see it either way. And either way I've been running it wrong, just one of many abilities I've forgotten sub-clauses of. Ah well, it's still a great way to make a single threat just go away.

I'll second 4thstringer.

Show ya the door might be my favorite push in the game for it's sheer flexibility. Throw two models six inches with no ill effects? Run a doppleganger half way across the board late game? Drag Izamu into a corner where he can spend the rest of the game mucking about in severe terrain? Fantastic.

That being said, he will probably kill nothing and die relatively quickly. He reliably scores me 2-3 points when FFM is in the scheme pool though...

I've not used Tannen effectively with Lucius though, how do you get him to work?

Ten Thunderer Brothers become absolute beasts with Lynch. Hang onto an ace of rams and you can discard it to gain defensive, cheat it for dance of heavens to draw a card, then discard the ace and it comes back to your hand. Nothing like a bunch of SS 5 models rocking DF 7 and frontloading your hand, plus providing buffer activations, to annoy the hell out of your opponent.

Duly noted. "Make sure your opponent is playing by the rules." Is probably a decent tactic as well...

I'm honestly not sure, 10 Thunderers as a faction haven't really caught my eye, so I just took it on faith that there was some upgrade that allowed it. I'll glance through the book.

The upgrade is Smoke and Shadows, the action is Shadow Stride. He wasn't flipping any cards for it though, so that might have been part of my problem.

Just reread it, and it specifies minions. This is what we get for playing too much proxy-faux.

I'm pumped! Great ingredients across the board.

In a completely unrelated side-note; the Guardian is Relentless, does that mean that any time Lucius walks within 18" of it I can Commanding Presence it for free? Or does it mean that it can't be targeted because it can't take the horror duel?

I played another game with my core Lucius list today;

50ss

Lucius - 7ss

Surprisingly Loyal

Secret Objectives

Mr. Graves

Doppleganger - Useless Duplications

2x Guild Rifleman

Guard Sergeant

Guild Lawyer

Performer

I was up against a Misaki list that basically buried everything turn one and popped up engaged with me at the bottom of the turn. The strategy was Reconnoiter, both my opponent and I took Assassinate and Frame for Murder. On my first turn I spread out, took defensive stances with a handful of things, threw down some Scheme markers for Lucius to play with, and killed the one enemy model my Rifleman could draw a bead on - a poorly deployed Hans (though not before he killed my other rifleman, and knocked a few wounds off the performer). Misaki covered the whole board in the last activation of the turn and everything unburied off of her.

Turn 2 I cheated a 10 for initiative, he spent the stone and flipped an 11. Yamaziko had unburied right next to Lucius, hit him with Master Tactician (even though I discarded for Highest Authority), and proceeded to drain my hand, then she attacked once and braced her Yari. I activated Graves to stop Ototo getting involved with Lucius, Ototo killed Graves scoring me full points for FFM, I tried to pull my remaining Rifleman out of combat with my Performer, Mizaki charged Lucius and offed him to score Assassinate in full. I ran my Doppleganger off into a corner to score Reconnoiter. 

The rest of the game was a shuffle in the center as his Oiran slowly overwhelmed my Lawyer, Sgt. and Rifleman. He scored twice for the strat on 4 and 5 ending the game at 5-4.

I was well set-up to receive a charge, but the charge never came. If I'd gotten luckier with the initiative I could have gotten something to happen, since my control hand was quite good. Spreading out definitely helped me to keep from getting locked down quite so easily, and having FFM in the scheme pool helped keep me from getting completely behind on points. The doppleganger can be quite survivable so long as your opponent doesn't go for a mixed arms approach, and Graves is a fantastic candidate for FFM.

Comments? Critiques? I know the list I was up against wasn't technically a slingshot, but it had a similar sort of fast engagement plan.

Also, thank you Omenbringer for confirming that the problems I've been running into around countering the move aren't mine alone. Putting more defensive buffs into play will definitely be a Thing. Hopefully when the guild constructs come out in plastic they look less awful (I'm looking at you Guardian, Warden).

I think exploring the pathfinder will help, and trying to spread out more. I'll report on my success (or more likely my lack-there-of).

Killing the monster at range isn't a huge problem (though even with plus flips to the horror duel I seem to end up paralyzed as often as not), or it wouldn't be if I weren't out-activated six ways to Sunday by night terrors and crooligans.

I will admit that I'm bunching up too much. Yan Lo teleported in and ended my game today on turn two by locking down basically all of my minions. But it seems geometrically impossible to spread my models out and still give them the mutual support they need to accomplish anything at all.

I love this game but I really am frustratingly bad at it.

I want to be clear, I know the slingshot is a common combo, and I'm not trying to bitch about it. In fact, were it not for the absurd out-activation he has going on I'd probably be able to deal with it just fine.

Based on your advice I'm thinking prepare a defense in depth - focused Riflemen up front to Stand and Fire, Witchling Handler or some high WP fighter to charge in at the top of turn 2, support models behind the line, and some mobile element out scheming? For Sonnia replace the Riflemen with Witchlings.

Honestly though, I'm more interested in finding some way to stop the combo before it gets to me. Even one or two Rogue Necromancy activations can ruin my day when Molly's behind him summoning in Students of Viscera with wild abandon... Pathfinders would help me get more out of clockwork traps and seem like one of my few options for a model that can actually touch the enemy turn one, in standard deployment, in a meaningful way.

Thoughts?

Oh yeah, I think Neverborn Lucius can be quite nasty. It's on my list of Things to Try Out.

But then, very little isn't.

Maybe it's just the local meta (a generous label when it's really just two or three guys), or maybe it's my love of minion heavy, crew dependent masters (Sonnia and Lucius particularly), but it seems like every game I play I'm getting hit with a serious beat stick at the bottom of turn 1.

The most recent example is a nasty Molly list where a couple of Doxys get a Rogue Necromancy moving, summoned Doxys accelerate it, and a handful of three point buffer activation horrors means that by the time the combo gets going I've activated everything.

Short of taking a Pathfinder and a Friekorps Trapper in every list I'm at a loss as to how I can stop the slingshot, and short of buying constructs (which might be an option when they are released in plastic) I can't seem to find anything in Guild that can stand up to whatever Thing is coming at me, even with substantial defensive buffs.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm open to ideas.

Honestly I'd consider running Lucius as Neverborn just so that he can use a Depleted or two as cost effective soulstone batteries...