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The Transcredible Exploits of four Malifaux Newbies


Swiglitz

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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

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Here are my conspiracy members:

 

Masters

Lucas McCabe

Lucius

 

Henchmen

Sidir Alchibal (9 stones)

 

Totems

Luna (4 stones)

The Scribe (2 stones)

 

Enforcers

Guard Sergeant (6 stones)

 

Minions

2 Guild Hounds (2x 3 stones)

1 Wastrel (4 stones)

1 Guild Pathfinder (6 stones)

1 Guild Rifleman (5 stones)

1 Hunter (7 stones)

1 Watcher (4 stones)

1 Guardian (8 stones)

1 Guild Lawyer (6 stones)

1 Witchling Stalker (5 stones)

1 Guild Austringer (6 stones)

2 Guild Guard (2x 4 stones)

 

Upgrades

Expert Sleuth (1 stone)

Secret Assets (2 stones)

Badge of Speed (2 stones)

Glowing Sabre (2 stones)

Strangemetal Shirt (1 stone)

Promices (1 stone)

Plant Evidence (1 stone)

 

Cache

4 stones

 

I'm a bit worried I don't have any really heavy hitters, but I'm relying on crew synergy and buffers to make my Minions a lot more dangerous if I need them to be.  I nearly didn't take The Scribe, but for 2 stones, the buff to Mimics defence seems worth it to me - plus, I have a personal mission to flurry glove slap in every game I take him.  Other than that, I deliberately didn't take Francisco because I don't feel he fits the story even if he is just damn awesome.  Who knows, maybe I'll find a narrative reason to include him later on.  I also wanted to take the Brutal Effigy for the possibility of getting another SLow condition in McCabes crew, but with a Sh 4 he didn't really stirke me as bringing enough to the crwe to justify his place in the pool.  Again, if things go well I might hire him on at a later date.

 

Thoughts aside, I have every expectation of losing my first few encounters, as I don;t really know what to expect from Lucius - Lucas will screw me over at every available opportunity, but I'm expecting this!

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Ahoy,

 

Our first week of the campaign proved a successful, if sedate, one. With our plots determined and our conspiracies hired, all that remained was the initial placement of our masters on the city map of Malifaux.

 

Previously, Vaiuri had gotten us an A3 glossy print out of the Malifaux city map and it was this, rather beautiful, piece of art that would serve as our campaign map. We flipped for initiative and took turns deploying our masters. The campaign rules state that masters may only be deployed in Neighbourhoods that do not contain any Locations, thus limiting us to about 7 different areas. This, initial deployment, proved to be rather more tense than I expected.

 

Suvalas won the flip and chose to place his first master, Von Schill, in the New Construction Zone on the Northern edge of the city. I went second, popping down Nicodem in the Slums surrounding the Little Kingdom. Vai came in third placing Lucius in the Southern NCZ and Shadowfane brought up the rear with Lillith in the North-Western Slums. So far, so good. The second round of deployment proved to contain a couple of surprises. As we ran out of empty locations, some of us were forced to deploy in the same Neighbourhoods as other players. Of course some of us chose to do this. *Cue McMourning’s diabolical cackle*

 

Suvalas’ second deployment proved to be Viktoria of Ash in the central NCZ, right next to Lucius. I followed this up by placing McMourning in the Northern NCZ, threatening Von Schill. Vaiuri placed McCabe in the central Quarantine Zone, between the river and the Slums where Nicodem was hiding. Finally, Shadowfane dropped Zoriada into the North-Western Slums, alongside her compatriot Lillith.

 

Each turn of the campaign would now follow the same rough format. At least until we discover something doesn’t quite work as I was expecting and we make some changes. We’ll flip for initiative, take it turns to activate Masters, resolve any encounters and then work through the post-game injuries and rewards before starting the next turn.

 

We flipped for initiative getting, quite by chance, the exact same order we’d had for deployment. Suvalas kicked things off for us by running Von Schill out of the NCZ, into Downtown and out through the city gates into the Badlands.

 

We had previously discussed when masters would flip for encounters/avoidance and determined it would only happen when a Master moved into a Neighbourhood containing an enemy Master, rather than when trying to leave. This meant Von Schill was free to escape the clutches of McMourning, but if I chose to chase after him I would get the chance to encounter him in the Badlands.

 

As it was, I chose to activate Nicodem first. I moved him South into the Little Kingdom and ducked inside the Qi and Gong. Could this be the location of Professor Shrubane’s arcane lab? Was Nicodem about to engage in a heinous act of sabotage? As I had run out of AP we would have to wait until next turn to find out.

 

Vaiuri chose to activate Lucius first, moving him North into the Industrial Zone before waltzing into the offices of the Malifaux Record. Perhaps the sinister secretary was searching for some hidden information on a certain prospector and landowener.

 

Shadowfane went next, moving Zoraida through the dimly lit streets of Downtown before following the Captain of the Freikorps out into the Badlands. Clearly both players had agendas out in the wastes, as they both chose to avoid, rather than encounter. Hmmm … What are they planning?

 

Our second set of master’s movement gave us our first encounter of the game. Victoria of Ashes crept out the central NCZ, hot on the heels of Lucius and swooped into the Malifaux Record building after him. Currently, Masters are not permitted to choose to Avoid an encounter inside locations as they are too small. Thus, Vik and Lucius would meet in and around the offices of Malifaux’s most illustrious newspaper.

 

My second activation saw my original plan stymied by the arrival of the Viks, so instead of sneaking into the Malifaux Record to assassinate Lucius, Dr. McMouring chose to wait it out in the Industrial Zone, ready to pounce on which ever enemy Master showed weakness first. The Campaign rules, allow for multiplayer games, but only in Neighbourhoods. This was done to stop a player from being able to attempt a plot encounter because too many other masters pile into the location he’s in.

 

Vai, swiftly followed up my moves by shifting McCabe East into the slums where he choose to wait things out. Presumably aiming to head off Nicodem when he emerges from whatever nefarious activity he’s doing in the Qi and Gong. I’m on to you Lucas.

 

Finally, Shadowfane ran Lilith through the streets of Downtown and into the relative safety of the Southern NCZ. Whatever plan the Neverborn Mistress has, remains secret. For now.

 

With our first activation phase over it was time to set up the encounter between Lucius and the Viks. As neither player has performed an Interact action, this will be a standard encounter, not a story encounter. With the hour already growing late we knew it wasn’t worth starting the game and instead chose to perform all the necessary flips for strat and schemes ahead of time so we could begin immediately next week.

 

We flipped Reconnoitre for the strat, and LitS, Assassinate, Breakthrough, Outflank and Make the Suffer for the scheme pool. With this to draw from we have decided that the game will take place just outside the Malifaux Record offices, with both Masters attempting to find the best way in when they stumble upon each other.

 

Little touches like this are a big reason why I think campaigns of this nature are ace. What could have been just another standard encounter now has an extra layer of depth and plot and, hopefully, the players can find something else to get excited about following the game’s outcome.

 

That’s it for now. See you all next week for the first encounter write up.

 

Cheers,

:)

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Well, with our first game done, it was Lucius who came out on top with a sneaky 4-3 victory.

We has recon for the strat and the schemes were LITS, Make Them Suffer, Assassinate, Breakthrough and Outflank.

The Vics took Make Them Suffer and Assassinate, and I was expecting just that! Still, nothing could really prepare me for the gradual destruction of half my crew! Injuries to be rolled later. I took a Guardian and the Scribe to give Lucius some defensive buffs once I saw Assassinate in the pool. I them split the rest of my crew into teams to score Recon and hopefully push across the table for Breakthrough. Things did not go to plan.

My pair of Guild Hounds was quickly reduced to a single Guild Hound, so I commited him to a forlorn hope and fired him down the table to contest a table quarter. To my surprise, he lasted quite a while in combat with a Librarian, who could NOT work out the words to command the dog! Eventually she worked it out and with a stern 'Bad Dog', beat him into submission with a rolled up newspaper.

In my table quarters I had an Austringer and Lawer pair on the left and a Rifleman and Sergeant on the right. I also committed a Hunter on the right, thinking I could race him towards the other side of the board for schemes. Sadly, Bishop put pay to that idea and the Hunter was no more by turn 2! Still, I got some measure of payback as the Sergeant and Rifleman teamed up to take Bishop down. The Rifleman also did a good job of scaring the Vics into cover, although Blood soon tired of the hiding and cut him to ribbons.

I think I scraped the win simply by being more defensive once I lost the first Hound and the Hunter. Lucius did what he does best, walking around issuing orders and glaring at people until they did something useful. I 'got' how he works around turn 3 and it started to 'click' in my brain what I could do with him.

I could have done a lot better, and threw away a couple of easy scheme points at the end from not paying enough attention. And while I have a win in a game, I also have a lot of injured models to think about...

Hope you enjoyed this update!

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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.

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Just as a quick addition to the write up's provided by the guys, it's going to be a couple of weeks before the next update as this weekend is given over to Suvalas's impending Stag Do! And subsequent recovery/finding his missing clothes and making his way home from the outer Hebrides. Oops! Spoiler Alert!

 

Cheers,

:)

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  • 2 years later...

Deep in the void something stirs ...

Echoes of a half-remembered dream. Blurred images drift in and out focus.

A horde of green creatures crawl from the Bayou, their gleaming eyes fixed on the City ... Towering nightmares of decayed flesh fused together by forbidden sorcery lumber forth from their concealed lairs ... A beautiful and deadly woman purrs soothing words to hulking monster ... Masked and sinister, a warrior of the Three kingdoms practises her kata ... An endless waterfall of cards ...

All across the City can feel it.

Something is coming ...

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After a 2 year hiatus, I can honestly say I feel like still a new player!  So much has changed!

I've opted to stray from my beloved Guild and plunge head first into the 10 Thunders after some dabbling last time around. I'm excited to get some painting done too! Though I fear my ambitions will far outstrip my ability on the painting front after so long away from the brush :D.  Anyone have any thoughts on a nice simple set of models to relearn how to paint on for 10T?

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So it turns out, changing jobs, getting married, losing a grandparent, having a child, and moving house actually takes time away from gaming.

Who knew?

We are, as Shadowfane so succinctly put, back. After 2 years of real life happening (see above) the four of us quite fancy a game or two of Malifaux. With so much happening in our absence I think we definitely feel like newbies again and we enjoyed writing this endless series of drivel so much last time we thought we'd do it again.

I will be staying with my beloved Ressers, but, in a similar vein to Shadow will not be using any of the masters I actually know how to use. So bring on, Molly, Seamus, Tara, Kirai, and Reva!

Who knows? I might even paint something this time around.

 

 

I won't.

 

Our debut game should be Wednesday night (UK Time) so look for the first battle report sometime after that. Feels good to be back :)

 

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"How do I play this game again?"

 

"I've done that wrong haven't I?"

 

"Ah, I probably should have done that differently."

 

"Oh yes, I forgot about that."

 

"Blimey, is that the time? We should probably call it after this turn."

 

Such was the magnificence of my return to the Fated streets of Malifaux. After an exciting week preparing for my first game in literally two years I, apparently, have forgotten how to play entirely.

It was still great fun though and made me realise just how much I had missed it, and just how much I'm looking forward to playing again.

There was some debate amongst the four of us about who was going to play. I think each of us was a little nervous about putting figures on the table again after such a long time away and it seemed everyone was eager to watch a game but slightly less eager to actually play a game for fear of looking foolish. As very little can happen to make me look more foolish than I already am, I volunteered to play. As both Vaiuri and Suvalas are both starting new factions we decided I would play one of them and Suvalas drew the short(?) straw.

For my triumphant return I decided to play Kirai. I've previously mentioned I'm not starting a new faction, but I am going to only play Masters I have little to no experience with, and I've wanted to play Ms. Ankoku since Wave 2. She's a summoner, and I've plenty of experience with Nicodem so naturally I thought 'How hard can it be?'

 

You remember when I said not a lot more can happen to make me look more foolish? Yeah, about that ...

 

Suvalas had set up a table for us prior to our arrival so once we'd decided who was playing I took a good look at the battlefield to be. We would be fighting over a border town, just on the edge of the Bayou, plenty of cover and a good number of buildings to create choke points and ambush zones. Given Kirai's penchant for Spirit models, and their tendency to have Incorporeal I was pretty pleased with the table. We flipped for strat and schemes getting Reconnoitre for the strat, and Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Protect Territory, Entourage, and Deliver a message for our scheme pool. Looking at the board and having re-read the descriptions of the various schemes and how they would interact with the strat, I plumped for Entourage, and Protect territory. I figured I would want to be advancing into Suvalas' half of the table to disrupt his scoring of Reconnoitre so Entourage was a good fit, and I wanted to hold onto my own table quarters, so Protect territory would be good there. I elected to reveal Protect territory so I would be in with a chance of getting the maximum VP's.

 

My Crew selection was actually pretty rapid, which probably should have been the first warning sign I didn't know what I was doing.

I went with:

Kirai (+Unforgiven & Swirling Aether)

Lost Love

Datsue Ba (+Spirit Whispers)

Izamu (+Spirit Beacon)

Jaakuna Ubume (+Unnerving Aura)

1 Onryo

1 Flesh Construct

 

My General plan was split into 2/3 groups. The Flesh Contruct, Jaakuna Ubume, the Onryo and Lost Love would hold my left flank, occupying a table quarter and dropping Scheme markers for Protect Territory. I thought I had some good staying power with that selection of models and planned to summon off the Flesh Construct if things went badly. The combo of Adversary off the onryo and Jaakuna Ubume locking down and slowly murdering things appealed to me and keeping Lost Love nearby meant I could heal Jaakuna from the inevitable attacks that swing her way and any attacks on the Flesh Construct would bring about Ikiryo.

The second group would move up my right flank, preceded by a wall of Seishin and either push into Suvalas' half to disrupt his scoring, or hang back and summon into it depending on my cards. My intention was to keep Kirai as central as possible to spread the Malevolence aura as wide as I could and, so she could dash over to summon onto the Flesh Construct if needed. A quick sprint into Suvalas' half of the table late in the game should score me Entourage.

At least, that was the plan.

 

Suvalas has chosen to make Gremlins his faction of choice for the foreseeable, a faction I have done zero research on. A fact I shall soon remedy. I'll leave him to talk about his crew selection and plans. From my side of the table all I could see was Somer' Teeth Jones, Lenny, and a small ocean of green skin, beady eyes, and rusty shootin' sticks. My first thought was 'Bloody Hell there's a lot of them.'

Due in no small part to me not remembering the rules terribly well we only played three turns before realising Midnight was upon us and calling it a day so this report will not be terribly conclusive.

I think, my plan was working, for the most part. Although I doubt I would have had any chance of stopping Suvalas scoring Reconnoitre every turn as there seemed to be an inordinate amount of Gremlins scattered about the table and I was doing very little to thin their numbers. I made a lot of pretty serious mistakes concerning how my crew actually works too. I seemed to constantly be just out of range with most of my auras and really struggled with activation order. Every time I thought I'd got something right I'd re-read the card only to discover I probably should have done something else earlier, or the action I was planning wouldn't actually net me anything as it was too late in the turn.

In particular I struggled with Kirai, at first I was holding her back, to get the most from Manipulative. but doing so meant my other models either had to move out of Malevolence range to get anything done, or stay close by and not really achieve anything. It also meant I was holding on to good cards late in the turn so I could summon something badass, but letting my other actions suffer because I wasn't willing to cheat in good cards. Later in the game I reversed my choices and activated Kirai early but found I was lacking Seishin to sacrifice and became increasingly paranoid about getting shot to death by the fifty gremlin guns that seemed to be constantly pointing her way. Also, through a combination of bad positioning on my part, and clever target selection by Suvalas, I never once summoned Ikiryo. An unforgiveable mistake.

Throughout the whole game I felt I was just getting by, never really applying any pressure, but never really looking weak either.

On the plus side it taught me a whole lot about what to do better next time :)

 

Despite my tactical ineptitude I really enjoyed playing again and can't wait for my next game. I'm torn between sticking it out with Kirai and learning her various quirks and foibles, or saving her until I'm re-acquainted with the core rules again and using someone like Reva or Molly in the interim.

Anyway, hopefully the others will chime in over the next few days and offer their pearls of wisdom and, as always, we love hearing from you guys. especially tips on how to use Kirai effectively.

 

Cheers,

:)

 

P.S. No photos this time around, as we forgot the camera. :(

 

 

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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 :D

 

Suvalas

 

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So I played my first game in YEARS last night against Shadowfane and his Neverborn.

Scheme was Reckoning.  Strats were LitS, Power Ritual, Plant Evidence, Bodyguard and Breakthrough.  I took Power Rit and Plant Evidence.

We ended the game at the end of turn 4 (it was late!) and had scored 2-2 at that point.  My initial impressions were that he had absolutely hammered me, so I was surprised  at the 2-2 outcome.  Thinking ahead though I was definately on the back foot with my Master on 1 would and most of my crew in the dirt.

I took:

Asami with Heavenly Design, Borrowed Time, The Fate of Mortals

Amanjaku

Yasunori with Recalled Training

Shadow with his Master specific upgrade

A Terracotta Warrior

Ten Thunder Brother

Tengu

 

Things I learnt:

Asami has so many auras in this set up that I really struggled to remember them all and what they were needed for.  Fate of Mortals did nothing for me and I should have used the Warrior to swap it out for something else.  Balancing Borrowed Time was a bit of a headache for me as well as learning a new mechanic (never used a summoner before).  Dont summon Jorogumo just because you can.  Jorogumo at the right time however can become an annoying pain to get rid of.

Yasunori is a machine on the right target with not too much set up, and took a lot of activations to go down in retaliation - the initial strike was against Shadowfanes Emissary, and he stuck around a fair while soaking up damage before being brought down.

In this case I think a Wandering River Monk would have been a better idea for scheme running because he can be really really quick when he needs to.  I had planned to summon another Tengu to leapfrog them up one side of the board, but Asami ended up somewhere totally different and my positioning was all over the place.

I dont know what to do about Nekima.

 

Further musing to follow post lunch :)

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Another day, another game where I get to prove to my friends and my peers that I have absolutely NO clue what is going on in general....

 

As Vai said above, I played her Ten Thunders  last night with my Neverborn.  Although she's given the strats/schemes there, I'll repeat them here for clarity:

Standard Deployment

Strategy: Reckoning

Schemes: Line in the Sand, Power Ritual, Plant Evidence, Bodyguard, Breakthrough.

Sidenote: I HATE Reckoning, it's easily the hardest of the Standard Strats to score.

Given that I've put Lilith and Lynch away to concentrate on Masters I didn't use last time (my normal Master for Reckoning is Lilith, to be honest), I had the choice of Collodi, Pandora, Dreamer, Zoraida, Lucius and Titania. As much as I think Pandora would be good in this Strat, and I could see a use for Beaty Dreamer or Collodi, the fact that I'd 99% finished painting Titania meant I was taking her out for a spin, along with a bunch of models I've never used to see how they worked.

Did I mention I'm not the most tactical player?...

 

Anyway, my list was:

Titania - Pact with the Grave Spirit, Audience with the Queen, Aether Connection.

Nekima - A thousand faces (which turned into Fears given form later on)

Primordial Magic

Mysterious Emmisary - Primeval Conflux

Mysterious Effigy.

The Tooth

Rougarou

Cache of 6.

I took Breakthrough and Plant Evidence as schemes (neither revealed, I'm trying to get used to how the later schemes are all hidden till you start scoring them)

 

I'm not a massive fan of alpha strikes, so the basic plan was to move up the board and engage, taking advantage of the Tooth and Rougarou's apparent synergy as one group, Titania and the Effigy as a second group, and the Emmisary spitting out Changelings, and punch through Vai's forces in about turn 3 in order to move into her half and start scoring the schemes.

 

That plan had a rather large spanner in the works at the start of turn 2, when Yasanori came in and quite efficiently murdered the Emmisary dead, leaving Yas in the middle of my crew (and me only summoning one changeling!... bah humbug).

It took me almost my entire crew's activations that turn to get rid of Yasanori, as leaving her there free to attack again next turn was NOT an option, and that slowed me down somewhat. the result being that by the time we finished after turn 4 (we're getting faster, Swig and Suvalas only managed three turns!) I was just about done with the "punching" through part, and next turn would have been able to start scoring schemes whilst starting to deny Vai's.  But, such are the problems with time...

 

Things I learnt:

1. Yasanori is horrific. That is all.

2. Titania is FAR harder to kill than I gave her credit for.  A full turn of being whaled on by a Jorogumo resulted in her losing 2 wounds, and next activation my Effigy wandered up and dropped a scheme marker, healing her up - I can only imagine how hard she is to kill with royal indignation up...

3. The Tooth/Rougarou synergy is real! Although I didn't live the dream, I WAS in a place where both the Tooth and the Rougarou where essentially in base contact with Asami (who was on 1 wound) - if I got initiative next turn, she was dead, no questions asked.

4. I need to be a bit more cautious with the Emmisary if I plan on using him to summon - although I can see that with other Masters (eg Zoriada) his focus might be less on that and more on his other abilities.

5. I suspect Bodyguard on Nekima might have been a good idea - at the time I would have revealed it to start scoring, there wasn't really much on the other side of the board she would have been afraid of, and with luck, Asami wouldn't have been around to summon anything else :P

 

As always, any thoughts and feedback is always welcomed :) 

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I hate reckoning. I think it's one of the hardest strats to score, and is doubly difficult to pick a crew for, requiring a mix of killy-death beatstick models to actually murderise things and core you points and super-tanky models to deny your opponent points. Plus whatever scheme runners you choose to take.

Yup, hate it.

That being said, I think I'd have chosen different schemes to you. Breakthrough and bodyguard seem like a better fit to me. Bodyguard can be an easy enough 2VP's if you take the right henchman, and play it defensively and Breakthrough doesn't seem too out of play as you'll be advancing on your opponent anyway. In turn, I think staying away from marker related schemes also allows you to avoid playing squishy scheme-runner type models and giving up easy kills because of them. In fact, the 1VP Shadow scored off the strat was because he killed your Tengu and Ten Thunders Brother, two models generally taken to be scheme runners.

I think you set yourself I high bar with learning a Summoner and a new faction all in one night as summoners can be a bit tricky to work out straight away. Having to balance resources (especially a new resource in Flicker) with performance isn't easy and definitely takes practice. It's always tough when you look at your hand and see a few good cards to not immediately blow them all on summoning stuff. From what I saw last night Asami looks very much like she's a quality over quantity summoner so it's going to take a few games to get a handle on what to summon, and when to do it.

Plus, yeah, Nekima is mean ...

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It's not my fault Suvalas and I have a languorous pace to our games.

We relish the tactical to-and-fro, the elegance of thrust and riposte, and the almost constant referral to the rulebook because I'd forgotten what a Charge action actually meant.

 

*ahem*

 

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1 hour ago, Swiglitz said:

I hate reckoning. I think it's one of the hardest strats to score, and is doubly difficult to pick a crew for, requiring a mix of killy-death beatstick models to actually murderise things and core you points and super-tanky models to deny your opponent points. Plus whatever scheme runners you choose to take.

Yup, hate it.

 

I think that's one of the reasons I like it (at least in concept). You will see a different list to most other games and the list has to meet some of the challenges of the game. I know I've won reckoning games because my Bishop was able to keep clear of combat and drop the required schemes. 

Its good to see you guys back and playing again. I also like that you are seeing what you missed in the games, and hoping to put it into action next time. 

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5 minutes ago, Adran said:

I think that's one of the reasons I like it (at least in concept). You will see a different list to most other games and the list has to meet some of the challenges of the game. I know I've won reckoning games because my Bishop was able to keep clear of combat and drop the required schemes. 

Its good to see you guys back and playing again. I also like that you are seeing what you missed in the games, and hoping to put it into action next time. 

I can appreciate that. The need to change up your game dependant on strat and scheme pools is one of the things I love about Malifaux. You can't rely on a set group of models to accomplish every game objective.

I think I probably hate Reckoning because I'm mostly bad at it :)

 

Also, it's good to be back. Playing again, and writing nonsense about playing again is a joy I didn't know I missed so much until recently.

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I like to think we bring something different to the forum - we're not particularly competitive (in a tournament sort of way) and so we're more the casual gamer sort of group that sometimes gets missed in the shouting about tournament competitiveness that inevitably starts to dominate a lot of forums out there.

 

Thats if I was being nice - if I was being uncharitable, I'd say we brought an utter inability to play and random conversations that occasionally make someone else laugh? :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

After a week off it will be myself and Suvalas playing this Wednesday. I am playing Thunders vs his Gemlins. My reasons for posting are mainly self indulgent, but I'm also hoping someone might have some advice for me.

I suffer from the Curse of Indecision.

I pick a Master. Do some reading, build a crew based on a strat and scheme pool. Then I change my mind, diligently undoing all the work so far to start again. Sometimes I change which schemes I want to take. Other times I get excited by the possibilities offered by a different Master. Sometimes I fall prey to a plague of doubt - Is this really the best Master for that strat? Do I have too many new models to learn? Am I crippling myself by not taking this or that? I've had terrible luck with McCabe, maybe he just hates me.

I hope this is a symptom of the 'newness' of Malifaux again and that I will soon narrow down which models are for which roles and where the synergies lie. But right now I'm just overwhelmed, paralyzed by indecision.

Does anyone else get like this?

Don't worry Suvalas, you won't be facing McCabe! Or will you....?

I don't know.

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