Gaston

The best part of write ups is I get to learn all the embarrassing mistakes I didn't know I was making...

Some more time wearing my favorite Chimera skin! Plant Explosives Take Prisoner [Marcus: kneeling Bandido] Harness the Leyline [Parker] Vendetta [Marcus: Crockett, Sue] Search the Ruins Dig Their Graves [Parker] Marcus, 5ss -Jackalope Paul Crockett Iggy Serena Sabertooth Cerberus Sabertooth Cerberus Lilitu Parker, 3ss -Doc Mitchell Mad Dog Hodgepodge Emissary Sue Bandido Bandido Ashes and Dust Going into this game, I wanted to put a lot more self-emphasis on finishing Schemes, getting that second point. Once my opponent announced Parker, I knew anything with scheme markers was a bad idea as he will just gobble them up, so that pushed me to the only two options, Vendetta and Take Prisoner. I was pretty ok with these, as I love Crockett and his 14” gun is great for Vendetta, and I wanted to experiment more with a solid Lure in a Marcus crew, which suits Take Prisoner well. I also added in Iggy for Arson to blow away scheme markers at range, to counter Parker’s inevitable scheming. Turn 1 Summary Parker stones cards, Marcus attaches Feathered Wings. Parker wins Initiative. Marcus attaches Camouflage on both Cerberus, fail Chimeracy another two times, and uses Primal Roar (stone for Surge trigger). Bandido charges Crockett for 2 damage and to make him drop scheme. Crockett, walks, focuses, and Kicks Up Dust. Sue misses Crockett and uses Man in Black. Jackalope and Doc mope around and focus. Serena removes the scheme marker and heals Crockett to full. Emissary gives a Floral Bonnet Ashes and Dust (conversion incoming). Lilitu pokes the Jackalope for a card. Ashes and Dust and Iggy walk around. Bandido charges Crockett and misses. Cerberus and Mad Dog move around, Mad Dog drops a Blow it to Hell marker to get rid of my cover. Cerberus leaps, charges Bandido, kills, gets bomb, walks back. Parker puts 2 damage into the Cerberus. Turn 2 Summary Marcus stones for cards, keeps Feathered Wings. Parker wins Initiative. Parker shoots down the Cerberus, uses Draw Attention twice to make Ashes and Dust drop a Bomb and a scheme on the centerline. Marcus uses Primal Roar and triggers Surge, attaches Camouflage onto Paul and Armored Plates onto Cerberus. He walks and drops a bomb. Sue puts no damage onto Marcus, Jackalope does nothing.Emissary pushes a Bandido, walks and attacks Marcus, miss. Serena charges Parker for 4 damage, 2 soulstoned away. Bandido goes fast, puts 4 damage on Marcus, (soulstone away 2). Marcus uses Butterfly Jump to engage and prevent shooting. So instead they use At Gunpoint on the Cerberus, to make it charge Lilitu, burn its Focus, but fortunately for me hits the Black Joker on damage. Cerberus charges Sue for 3 damage. Mad Dog attacks Cerberus with Cigar, does 1 damage, burning, injured. He tries to shoot, but fails terror. Paul shoots Sue, scores Vendetta and uses Forage to remove a Parker scheme marker from the centerline. Doc heals Sue 2. Lilitu uses Sadistic Glee on the Sweet Rabbit, Lures the Bandito. Ashes charges Iggy, Red Joker hit, Black Joker damage. Iggy punches Ashes, Black Joker damage. He then uses Arson to pick off the other scheme marker on the centerline. Marcus: 3 VP (Plant Explosives, Take Prisoner, Vendetta) Parker: 1 VP (Plant Explosives) Turn 3 Summary Marcus stones cards, keeps Feathered Wings. Parker wins initiative. Parker uses Stick Up on Serena for 2 damage, gets Ashes to place another Bomb. He then Sticks Up Crockett, 2 damage. Gets Sue to place a scheme marker. He uses Bandit Raid to push the Bandido and shoot Crockett for 2 damage. Marcus uses Primal Roar with Surge, charges Sue, hits twice to kill. He triggers Pouncing Strike on Mad Dog, but misses both remaining attacks. Bandito, tries to At Gunpoint the Cerberus again, but the cat is able to avoid it via discard. Cerberus instead leaps and kills Doc. Emissary does 2 damage to the Cerberus. Serena drops a Bomb, charges Parker, but misses. Then she heals Crockett 1 damage. Mad Dog puts 3 damage on the Cerberus. Jackalope...walks. Ashes uses focus to attack iggy, kills him and makes an Abomination. Lilitu, kills da Wabbit, grabs 2 Corpses, and grows up into a Mature Nephilim. Crockett decides to miss the Emissary twice, out of politeness. Game ends on time. Marcus: 6 VP (Plant Explosives, Take Prisoner, Vendetta) Parker: 2 VP (Plant Explosives) Lessons Learned: Don’t let the score fool you, ending on Turn 3 is way different than Turn 5. Crockett needed to make it out alive (and was on 3 health), not to mention he still had time for Leyline and Dig Graves. I --highly-- doubt I could keep him locked out of schemes completely. That being said, the game ended better than it felt. It really did feel like I was kinda barely hanging on and got a lot of lucky breaks to keep me going (he hit Black Joker on damage 3 times for example). Marcus also got off to a reallllly rough start with Chimeracy (literally did not get it off without cheating all game). Something about him and low target numbers just trips me up so bad. I also did miss Ancient Pact and the card draw aspects quite a bit too. It also still feels rough defensive stat wise on the Cerberusii (pretty sure my opponent thought I was being dramatic). That WP 4 just keeps getting picked on, the Bandido gave me flashbacks to Amina obeying them to attack each other. It kinda pushes me back towards the Rattlers, with better defensive stats, and potentially Huntress off Myranda. Also kinda makes you ask the question: is Marcus secretly a brick master? Keep everyone together and use Lures to pull victims in? @Kolath

With the Beta wrapped up (I guess?) it’s time to get back to this. I have been working my way through the Neverborn masters, playing them until I get comfortable. Thus far has been Lucius, Pandora, Euripidies, Titania, and now Marcus. I must confess I am hitting a bit of a wall with him, something is just not firing right for me. In that vein, I have been trying to plan and think through Marcus a bit more, and come up some “rules” to how to play him better. One thing I definitely have noticed is that the target numbers can be a significant drain on your hand. This surprised me a little, as they are fairly low, and I was dismissive of the impact, but maybe I just suck at flipping 4’s and 5’s. To that end, I was looking to really up my card draw game, by adding in Ancient Pact for two instances of Nefarious Pact, as well as focusing on the Surge trigger on Primal Roar and cycling Myranda’s upgrades to trigger Primal Domain. In addition to the built in card draw mechanics, I was trying to get further use from the Jackalope. While I conceptually understand its place in the crew as a useless pile of garbage...I mean charge blocker...I was also wondering if it would be possible to cut it up into little pieces. To that end I looked into Lilitu for Sadistic Glee (as well as growing into a Mature Nephilim mid/late game and the Lure) and the Black Blood Shaman for Blood Clot, Blood Sacrifice, and Blasphemous Ritual. For Marcus himself, my basic rule of thumb is only bother to set up Mutations on Turn 1, then Turn 2 onwards he goes combat master. I am particularly keen on combining Pouncing Strike with Serrated Teeth and Claws to apply Adversary to opponents and then have the beasts key off of that (it also makes them more efficient without cheating from my poor hand). Beast-wise I have previously tried Rougarou and Cerberii, and I wanted to explore Rattlers a bit. From a stat perspective, Rougarou are Def 4/Wp 5, Cerberii are 5/4, and Rattlers are 6/5. I hoped that combining Def 6 with the positive flip from Huntress would yield good results. I also wanted the explore the Poison theme with Scorpius (and +2 Armor). All that in mind, time for a game! Reckoning Claim Jump Deliver a Message (Marcus, Zipp) Assassinate Power Ritual (Zipp) Take Prisoner (Marcus--Iron Skeeter) Zipp, 3ss -Earl Burns Mancho Roja Burt Gracie Flying Piglet First Mate Iron Skeeter -12 Cups of Coffee Marcus, 5ss -Inhuman Reflexes Jackalope Lilitu Scorpius Razorspine Rattler -Ancient Pact Razorspine Rattler (Proxied by Rougarou) -Ancient Pact Myranda Turn 1 Summary Gracie uses Ride with Me on Burt, then walks and Concentrates. Marcus mutates Feathers onto the right Snake, Armored Plates onto the Scorpius, Camouflage onto the left Snake, and Horns on Myranda. He uses Primal Roar, and gets Surge, then he uses Call of the Wild to walk the right Rattler. Zipp builds a Piano fort and Earl helps! Myranda, cycles her upgrade to Feathered Wings for card draw, walks. Most everything else walks or positions and uses Concentrate as needed. Turn 2 Summary Marcus walks, adds Thick Horns onto Scorpius. He uses Primal Roar, Call of Wild to make Scorpius charge Gracie, Severe damage (down to 2), Poison. Gracie activates, takes 1 damage, uses Ride with Me on Burt, charges Scorpius, does 5 damage (down to 3), attacks again, 2 damage (down to 1). Scorpius, focus attacks Gracie, gets her down to 2 health, attacks again and misses. First Mate walks, Leaps, kills Rattler in two swings. Lilitu draws off Sadistic Glee, walk/charges Gracie, 1 damage. Zipp makes 2 Pianos. Jackalope walks, Leaps, and does 2 damage to Flying Piglet. Skeeter uses Ride with Me on FIrst Mate, Walks, schemes. Myranda transforms into Cerberus, walk/charge Roja for 3 damage. She takes 2 back from Cage Fighter. Earl makes a Piano marker, attacks Jackalope for 3 damage. Rattler uses Ambush, then charges and kills the Flying Piglet. Roja heals, attacks Cerberus for 4 damage, Injured 1. He then charges Rattler, but misses. Burt tosses a Grenade which does 1 damage to Scorpius. He charges and kills it. The he does another 4 damage to Lilitu and gives her Slow. Gracie dies to Poison. Marcus: 1 VP (Reckoning) Zipp: 2 VP (Reckoning, Power Ritual) Turn 3 Summary Marcus charges in and kills Burt. He uses Chimeracy to attach Armored Plates to Cerberus and heal it 2. Zipp charges and kills Lilitu, shoots Cerberus for 1 damage. Rattler walks and charges Earl, kills him and Repositions. Roja walks, charges and kills the Cerberus. First Mate Delivers a Message to Marcus, does 4 damage to Rattler. Marcus: 2 VP (Reckoning) Zipp: 4 VP (Reckoning, Deliver a Message) Turn 4 Summary Rattler Delivers a Message and does 4 damage to First Mate. Roja kills the Jackalope...twice. Marcus chases down the First Mate and finishes him off. Skeeter schemes, Zipp makes all the Pianos. Marcus: 3 VP Zipp: 4 VP Turn 5 Summary Zipp escapes Marcus using Blast Off and the Rattler cannot catch up with the Iron Skeeter. Marcus: 3 VP Zipp: 4 VP Lessons Learned My opponent definitely outplayed me by deploying on the right flank and then withdrawing once I had committed a Rattler and Myranda. I had the speed to bring them back in, but made a mistake setting them into Roja rather then supporting other models. I failed to score Take Prisoner, as I thought I was fast enough to keep up with the Iron Skeeter, but that ended up being untrue. I was pleased with Marcus’s offensive performance, as he managed to pick off Burt and the First Mate, although I did not get to leverage Teeth and Claws as I had hoped to do so. I was also disappointed in my ability to take damage and more importantly make my opponent miss critical attacks. I also under used Lilitu, although with the Pianos it was difficult to get solid LoS. It is a bit frustrating that there is no access to Blow It Away in Neverborn, instead I would need to pay to hire both Pandora and the Poltergeist to get access to Telekinesis. Final mistake was putting attacks into Zipp rather than working to the the Rattler over to the Skeeter. Cost me a VP and a tied game. Retrospectively, Claim Jump or Power Ritual would have been better choices. Mistakes aside, thus far this was my best outing with Marcus which I think gives hope for the future?

It looks like it's gonna be a great year for it!!!!

@Mason Thanks for all of your time, patience, and hard work. We really appreciated you and you will be missed! Best wishes!!!

Never alone! I will say what a difference a game makes. In my first game I was floundering a bit, in my second I found the niche for her to function in (until she got buried). My knee jerk was to actually leave her at home until I started fiddling with her a bit, she definitely seems to take practice. It feels like she is a piece that wants to go last-ish, toss her trigger on something big that has already activated, then get within 3". My learning moments were of course actually figuring that out (go figure!) and then the painful realization that the trigger is on a projectile attack, so engagement is a thing. I feel like if I am playing Voices Pandora I would want to keep her in, whereas if I am playing Box or Woe Pandora I was looking much harder at Aeslin who does similar things, but has more reliable damage and is more durable? Maybe? It sounds like @Rionnay knows better than I, but I may experiment with it anyways just for fun! @Rionnay Not past tense, we still pig it up. I do have the Hooded Rider done up, I was just trying to be cute with Bishop and target willpower and the the trigger to push models into Pandora's swirl in the middle.

Got in another game, trying to get these written and posted up before M3E wipes out everything. One thing I did want to make sure I did was explore a little bit all of a master, so not just Summon Pandora, but Voices and Boxes Pandora as well. Pandora (Neverborn) -Voices -Rile Them Up -Depression Poltergeist Candy Baby Kade Beckoner Beckoner Stitched Together The Tooth The core concept behind her upgrades is pretty simple: discard a card for Crows with Depression, use Rile Them Up for Incite as a (1) Action, then two Paralyzes as needed. Von Schill (Outcasts) -Nythera Aftermath -Oath of the Freikorps Steam Trunk Hannah Lazarus -Scramble Pride Talos Freikorps Engineer Strategy: Ours Schemes: Guarded Treasure (Von Schill) Set Up (Pandora on Talos) Undercover Entourage (Pandora, Von Schill) Recover Evidence Search the Ruins Pandora wins the flip, Von Schill deploys first. As always I’ll do my best to remember the order things happened, but it is from memory so please bear with me. Turn 1: Mostly indeterminate moving forward. The Engineer gets a scheme marker and puts extra armor and hard to hit on Talos. Hannah is able to copy it and do the same to herself. Von Schill attaches 3 Oathkeepers. Stitched together puts up creeping fog. Pandora activates towards the end, double walks up and Incites the Steam Trunk. Turn 2: Steamtrunk gets Incite’d to go first. Stitched puts up Creeping Fog. Engineer gives a Rams to Lazarus, moves up. Pandora Incites the Steam Trunk, burns a stone for a positive flip, Paralyzes Lazarus with Self Harm, Incites the Engineer as a (1) Action, scoots back behind the house. Pride walks up, tries to serenade Pandora, misses. Beckoner Lures Lazarus out of the woods to make hitting him with Self Harm a bit easier. Talos walks up, drops scheme marker. Candy advances, hits Talos with Wail and gets the Mood Swing trigger. Hannah copies the serenade from Pride, advances and pops the Stitched with it. Poltergeist walks to engage Hannah. Von Schill burns an Oathkeeper, walks twices, charges and kills the Stitched. Beckoner fails to Lure Talos up. Tooth double walks over. Baby Kade hides. I score Ours, he scores Guarded Treasure. 1-1 Turn 3: Pandora wins Initiative. Poltergeist walks to engage both Hannah and Von Schill. I force Talos to go first, he is paralyzed by Sweets. Pandora activates, Incites Von Schill and Hannah for (1) with trigger, gets Crows with Depression, Paralyzes both of them. Incite’d Steam Trunk is next, it moves up. Beckoner successfully Lures up Talos. Incited Hannah goes next, Paralyzed. The Tooth charges Talos, drops 2 scheme markers with her triggers. Incited Von Schill goes next, Paralyzed. Baby Kade pokes Talos twice for a couple damage, Talos is down to 6 HP. Incite’d Engineer goes next, advances, drops a scheme marker, buffs Talos’s armor. Beckoner tries to pick on Hannah, fails. Lazarus charges Poltergeist, only 1 damage gets through. Pride sings 2 damage onto Pandora. Candy tries to escape the Talos, but fails the disengaging strike. I score 2 for Set-Up, he scores 1 for Ours. 3-2 Turn 4: I flip a 1 for initiative, he flips a 2. I soul stone to reflip, get a 3. How’s that for efficiency? Pandora immediately goes first, locks down Von Schill and Hannah. Incite’d Steam Trunk goes next, does Steam Trunky things. Baby Kade drops Talos down to 1 HP. Talos gobbles up Candy, heals all the way back (bastard). Poltergeist swings on Lazarus, gives him slow. Pride sings at someone, but misses I think. Beckoner starts in on Von Schill with Despicable Promises. Lazarus swings on Poltergeist to no avail. Beckoner #2 brings Von Schill down to 2 HP. Engineer charges The Tooth. The Tooth swings back for some damage, drops a scheme marker with the trigger. He scores Ours, 3-3. Turn 5: Big initiative flip...he gets a 12 and goes first! Von Schill makes a break for it to finally get out of dodge, he burns Oathkeeper, charges and kills a Beckoner, and double walks to my deployment zone. Pandora goes, locks down Hannah, kills Lazarus with a Red Joker flip on Self Loathing. Incite’d Steam Trunk spins its treads. Baby Kade jabs Talos. Pride walks around and drops a scheme marker. Poltergeist moves to engage Talos and the Engineer. Distraction creates a fun interaction where he cannot cheat to keep Candy in the tank, so she pops out. Talos then just swings a few times. Candy Self Harms the Engineer. He then activates and dies to Sours. I score Ours, he scores Entourage, 4-5. Lessons Learned: This was a crazy game, I did come out of it feeling like I learned so much. First off, Voices Pandora seems to be quite strong right out of the box, but I can very much see her being a bad NPE. It will be interesting seeing how she functions going forward into M3E, as I would assume that her hard control playstyle will be toned down, but they appear to be focusing more on a soft control style for her? Other learning points/mistakes: -I did a very poor job understanding and reading the strategies, that resulted in me playing them wrong and cheating myself points (especially on Entourage) -I did a poor job setting up to score on Set-Up, with the Beckoner placing the scheme marker. The concept was to pull the Talos into range of it, but I ended up setting it too far back so that Baby Kade could not place another marker in the correct spot. -Conversely, the Tooth was awesome at Set-Up! -I also played Candy poorly in several respects there, not keeping in mind what attacks have a projectile and which do not. I had burned a red joker to get Mood Swings off, I could have dropped a scheme marker then for Set-Up. Also when I Lured the Talos I pulled him into engagement range of Candy which prevented her from Mood Swinging the Talos again. -I think a big thing is that I had a perfect set up for Turn 3, which I was pretty solidly behind the wheel….but did nothing with it. I failed to kill off any models, to really score much in the way of points. I think this may be a combination of crew and poor gameplay, I did find myself struggling to get damage to stick on a lot of his models. It wasn’t until Turn 5 when I actually killed anything. Overall, it makes me really excited to get deeper into the game, faction, master and new edition. I am grateful for my opponent’s patience with all my newness and playing a Paralyze caster too. I have been kind of trying to filter down which Pandora is best when, and was thinking: Voices - Spread strategy, elite crew Box - Central Strategy, mob crew (perhaps summoners) Summon - Central Strategy, non-mob crew

Unfortunately my ordering did not exactly go as planned, so I ended up with just the Pandora box and the grab bag of random other models that I already had to work with. Poor Poltergeist didn’t even have a base yet! Pandora (Neverborn) -Woe is Me -Rile Them Up -Aether Connection Candy Baby Kade -Depression Beckoner Beckoner Stitched Together Bishop Misaki (Ten Thunders) -Recalled Training -Misdirection -Untouchable Ototo Yamaziko -Smoke and Shadows Torakage Torakage Fermented River Monk Fermented River Monk Thunder Archer Strategy: Turf War Schemes: Outflank (Misaki, Pandora) Assassinate (Misaki, Pandora) Distract Plant Evidence Vendetta As always I’ll do my best to remember the order things happened, but it is from memory so please bear with me. Turn 1: Stitched moves up and uses Creepy Fog. Ototo leads the charge. Beckoner goes to Lure him, learns the hard way that he cannot be lured. Yamaziko drops smoke bombs. A Torakage moves up to help Ototo. Pandora moves up, Incite on Torakage (miss), discard Incite on Torakage (miss), Self Harm Torakage, weak damage. Everything else just moves up on both sides, River Monks gain Poison. Turn 2: Pandora puts Incite on the Torakage, summons a Sorrow on him, Incites again (miss), Self Harms the River Monk. Ototo moves up and swings on Pandora, she cheats up to make him miss and let her scoot away. Archer shoots at Baby Kade, misses. Beckoner walks over, Lures the River Monk forward and kills him with Misery. A Poltergeist is summoned. Torakage charges Beckoner, 2 damage. Baby Kade charges Ototo, takes him down to Hard to Kill. Torakage charges Beckoner, 1 damage. Stitched Kills Ototo. Misaki moves up to assassinate Bishop, after the dust settles she manages to discard my hand and do 3 damage to him. Bishop does 3 damage in return. Yamaziko moves up and swings on Bishop. Candy fails to heal Bishop. Beckoner uses Lure to put more Misery damage on the other River Monk. We both score Turf War. VP: 1-1 Turn 3: Pandora goes, applies Incite to a Torakage, summons a second Sorrow, pumps both Torakage with Inflict (they were in range of the Poltergeist aura), and takes them out. Misaki takes out Bishop (we hardly knew you). Poltergeist moves to engage the Archer and River Monk, hits the monk with Melancholy to triple down on Misery and kill him. Yamaziko goes for the poor Beckoner, still fails to kill her, puts up Brace. Baby Kade moves up to engage Yamaziko for next turn. Archer sneaks away from Poltergeist, shoots at Pandora (misses). A Beckoner Lures the Archer forward, back into range of the Poltergeist aura, Misery and Stitched kill him. VP: 2-1 Turn 4: Baby Kade activates and kills Yamaziko. Misaki kills Kade in revenge, concedes. Lessons Learned: I think a big one right off the bat is a difference in information. I read forums like crazy whereas my opponent was less in tune, so I came to the game with a better idea of my crew synergies despite this being a first game for both of us with our respective crews. That being said, there were so many mistakes and learning moments here. I was constantly forgetting to push Pandora with Incite so that she would be in melee, then I was looking to her projectile spell to get her into dodge so to speak, but that required shooting in combat...it was a mess every time I activated her. So I need to focus on learning my master better (go figure). I was also terrible at managing stones and cards (go figure) so need to work on that better too. Basically just gave away poor Bishop, he really didn’t deserve that.

With a new edition on the horizon, it seems like a good time to jump into a new (old?) faction. I knew I wanted Neverborn as I like the look and feel of the models, as well as the concepts of dangerous flora and fauna. When it came down to what master to start with, I consulted the oracle that is eBay and found a sweet $20 deal on a Pandora box set. So...looks like Pandora is first up! Kinda full circle as my first box in 2010 was S’omer Teeth Jones and my regular opponent only had the Pandora box...so many memories of farting her to death... Moving from there, I knew I wanted to start out with two masters whose boxes complimented each other, so I selected Titania. It feels like both crews have a lot of willpower targeting overlap, but are different when comparing durability and approach. Additionally, I suspect that Pandora can benefit from the increased hardiness of Titania’s crew (armor and hard to wound). I also benefit from having been around for a long time, so I had a random grab bag collection of models that I could already leverage in order to flesh out my master choices: x2 Beckoner x2 Stitched Together Hooded Rider Bishop Freikorps Trapper Johan Aionus Seriously random, but it covers a lot of bases. One thing I did feel that I was missing out on was a 4-5 ss model to act as a scheme runner. I waffled a bit over Gupps, Insidious Madness, and Changelings, but ultimately settled on Changelings. They feel very flexible across a range of situations, and also help pre-plan purchasing the Mysterious Emissary. One thing I do try to pre-plan is a paint scheme. In addition to trying to get models that catch the eye, I try to focus on making it easy to paint, as I am all about the adulting and having a job and family now, meaning less nerdy bachelor time. With that in mind, I zeroed in on the idea that the Neverborn are the local flora and fauna of Malifaux and wanted something reminiscent of seeing a fox at night--the shadow, the outline, and the glowing red eyes. I had an old metal Hooded Rider, so I did a test scheme on him with two different glow techniques, white paint with a red wash and then just paint layers. Needless to say the wash wins the day for being faster and way more effective. With that in mind, I later on did these guys too:

Looks like it!

You could use her ram push trigger to move them into combat and get 2 or 3 swings.