Waldo

Hey Wyrdos, Within these days from rest to rest, Waldo hath doth his duct-tape gut armor and dove into thine fray once hence; layeth on his knave be there pauldrons woven with fork of plastic and gauntlets forged through grease and ladle; while sheathed at his side layeth thee Butter-Knife-of-Butt-Whooping. Our dearest knight in dining armor took up arms to face an ancient creature: So' Die’em Cth’lo-Ride, whose tears stain our very soul and taint our wares. So, whilst we prepare to fortify our barriers and man the battle lines for the upcoming grease gauntlet, may thee fix an eye on a new battleground. Download here! Gaining Grounds: Season 3 is here, and with it comes new ways to play our favorite game. In case you don’t know, Gaining Grounds is our yearly expansion of the Encounters within Malifaux Third Edition. This document provides updates to Strategies and Schemes, gives an overview of how to run a Malifaux competitive event, and provides a host of game variants to spice up games and fit the whims of your local community. With this new Season of Gaining Grounds, we have a lot to share. Let’s take a look at two new Strategies from Season 3. In Cursed Objects, crews are burdened with a series of mystical artifacts that are draining their owners of their very being. If you manage to take out an enemy while they have one such trinket, you’ll be granted a boon of your own (1 VP). Devious players may find it easier to protect their own models by shedding the trinkets onto weaker enemies and slaying them once they are burdened by such a curse. Guard the Stash returns from Second Edition and has been updated with a fresh coat of Third Edition paint. Players will need to defend Strategy Markers on their own table half while simultaneously controlling Markers on their opponent’s table half. In this way, players are provided multiple paths to victory. Whether focusing on late-turn movement control, low-cost high quantity units, or more “traditional” area control tactics; many playstyles are valid in this king-of-many-hills. This Strategy utilizes a never-before-seen layout of Strategy Markers to dynamically change the shape of the conflict based on Deployment. Along with the new Strategies in this packet comes a wide selection of Schemes. Fan favorites such as Assassinate and Breakthrough will be returning, and several Schemes like Sabotage have been updated to better reflect the state of the game. To round out the options, we have included five Schemes new to Third Edition: Load ‘Em Up, Public Demonstration, Set the Trap, In Your Face, and Secret Meetup. If you are seeking to get your hands on physical copies of these new Gaining Grounds Encounter cards, fear not! These cards are available on WargameVault for print-on-demand and will be made available at your local game store in a combined pack with the February 2022 Errata Cards later this year, just as we’ve done so in the past. The Malifaux Crew Builder App will also be updated with the latest Gaining Rounds Season 3 Strategies and Schemes here shortly. Keep checking to see if your app needs an update! For those that are brave enough to test their mettle in just a few short weeks, we are going to be running several Malifaux events at Gen Con 2022: On Thursday, Aug 4th, we will be hosting the first-ever Double Random Rush. This event is a great way to meet players across the community, as in each round you will be paired up with a random teammate to face off against new opponents using the Double Rush format. Every round, players will rotate from table to table, with a new random partner, new random opponents, and a new random Crew. Did we forget to mention that last part? Models will be provided; simply bring yourself and a willingness to try new things! More info here. Friday, Aug. 5th will have a Henchman Hardcore event, featuring rapid-fire rounds and small crews you’ll be sure to test your skills. More info here. Saturday, Aug. 6th we will be hosting a Gaining Grounds Season 3 Tournament, comprised of three rounds showcasing the new Strategies and Schemes. Additionally, every player that participates will receive a free set of GG3 Encounter cards from WargameVault. More info here. On Sunday, Aug. 7th, come on down to the Honeypot Casino for a Bonanza Brawl, a special community-created format from the Steam Powered Scoundrels. This event will have you bring one non-Master of your choice to the Casino for a chaotic and ridiculous good time. Additionally, every player that participates will receive a free set of newly updated Bonanza Brawl Loot cards, printed from Wargame Vault. We are also hosting a variety of other events this year at Gen Con, ranging from speed painting to TOS Titan Smashes, and everything in between. If you haven’t yet had a chance to sign-up, head over to the Gen Con Events page now! That’s it for now. We’ve got to go finish assembling some models for next week. They should be pretty simple to construct, but we’re sure some of you would still call them a nightmare anyway.

Hey Wyrdos, This Week, Waldo’s taken a joyride to his local swamp. We bog-ed him not to take the company truck but ultimately couldn’t stop him from quagmiring it. Visions of driving such a big truck had been racing through his mind, so when he marshed up to us demanding the keys, we just stood there like our feet were stuck in the mud. So, while we drudge up the courage to get our truck back, let's take another quick look at the new Expansion for Bayou Bash: Hog Wild. Hog Wild is all about variety and the spice of life; giving racers new ways to make their way down the track and various new options for play. Hog Wild cards can be introduced at the start of any race, adding wrinkles into the plan of any jockey. These cards can be played by themselves or combined to suit the racing style; whether you want to have more ramming and player fighting, or to encourage a good clean race to the finish (as clean as Gremlins can be that is). In addition to the newly added Hog Wild Cards, this Expansion introduces multiple new game modes, including Big Bayou allowing for eight racers on the track at the same time! Within Big Bayou you’ll be racing along a double-wide track for a straight shot at the gold medal, so be sure to grab 7 of your closest friends and head down to the racetrack. And for those of us that don’t have 7 friends, fear not, for the Greenbellies have arrived. Greenbellies are old and cranky racers who don’t have much left in their racing days but have instead chosen to live out their lives on the track itself. In a race with as few as two players, they can add a new level of exciting racing strategy. These exciting new thrills have caught the attention of yet more peculiar participants. In addition to the Toad Twins and Whiskey Gamin, two more Racers are joining in on the chaos: The rough terrain of the landscape can’t stand up to this Rigor Mortis Tortoise. The Giga-Turtle has its eyes on the prize as their monster truck wheels allow them to carefully weave around or trample any terrain in their path. So, if you think slow and steady wins the race, then you’ll be shell-rocked by this racer! Often times the quickest path between two points is not straight through, but up and over, which is exactly how this bird-brain thinks. The Undead Raptor hovers and flies over the local terrain, avoiding all those pesky rocks below. They can even fly back onto the track should they fall off when using their Jetpack Setback ability! If you are excited at the prospect of 8 player races, undead racers, mysterious mushrooms, and all things wild and crazy, be sure to pick up Bayou Bash: Hog Wild when it releases later this Fall or during our Gen Con Sale!