The Transcredible Exploits of four Malifaux Newbies

[Vaiuri]

I wish you nothing but a swift end, vile necromancer!

Seriously though, the game I played using Marcus felt like I was getting pasted, turned out to be a draw!

I really struggled to know what to do about several if the models lined up against me, in particular:

Yin

Toshiro

Chiaki

Had I been playing Guild, I think I would have been able to handle two of these, but Yin really has me stumped! Any advice always greatfully received.

[Suvalas]

I wish you nothing but a swift end, vile necromancer!

Seriously though, the game I played using Marcus felt like I was getting pasted, turned out to be a draw!

I really struggled to know what to do about several if the models lined up against me, in particular:

Yin

Toshiro

Chiaki

Had I been playing Guild, I think I would have been able to handle two of these, but Yin really has me stumped! Any advice always greatfully received.

 

More axe/claw/sword to face?

 

Seriously though, as the above is my answer to everything, I can't really help having not seen or read about either Master. I did enjoy reading the game summaries, and it sounds like once again, great battles were had.

 

I'm intrigued by the potential 3-player game. Is that something that the rules accomodate, or something you've come up with yourselves?

[Swiglitz]

It's from the Wyrd Chronicles. Issue 4. The rules are for 1.5E but it's very easy to convert them over as only a couple of schemes need to change.

Quite looking forward to it

[Shadowfane]

'Twas a fun game.

 

Like we said after the game, whilst the biggest reason I struggled was the terrain, I did make some bad decisions:

1. Whilst having the Doppelganger move 36 inches on turn one was hilarious (and led to much swearing on Swig's part), I would have done much better holding her back and accessing mimicable abilities like Lure, Heed my Voice and Hardened Brilliance if need be - and then Bodyguard would have been much better placed on the Doppelganger, as she could contribute hugely, and then move out in turn 4 to start scoring.  Point here is that I should consider my options for who to put Bodyguard on more carefully.

2. A Lilith crew may have been more suited to the terrain - lots of flying and teleporting could have rendered my disadvantage moot, and made you think/panic a bit more to boot (oh dear, I'm rhyming....).

 

Things I learned:

1. I made much more of an effort to get Brilliance onto things before attacking them...and holy crap, it made a HUGE difference - Illuminated are just plain mean to models with Brilliance on.

2. Addict, for 1SS, is an awesome upgrade, as is Expert Cheater.  As well as managing to out-cheat Swig, towards the end I was even starting to cheat in Aces face down (that I could then pick back up) on duels I'd initiated that I knew I couldn't cheat to win, just to try and fake a higher cheated out of him.

 

As Vaiuri, Swiglitz and Suvalas will no doubt affirm, my preferred armies, in any game, are ones that either screw with my opponents forces, or screw with my opponents heads, and in the Neverborn I kinda feel like I've come home

 

More practice!  Need more practice!  So I've had a couple games with all three of my current Masters, so from now on it'll be down to who I feel like playing based on the strategy/schemes - Well, until Zoraida turns up... and the Dreamer....and Collodi... and Lucius... and all my Arcanists (come on Collette, I'm waaaaiting.....)

[Swiglitz]

Bit of a shorter update from our transcredible exploits this week.

 

I mentioned last week that we were planning on a three-player game using the rules from Wyrd Chronicles 4. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and it’s mainly my fault.

 

Due in no small part to the high temperatures currently cooking the UK I was in a foul mood on Friday and found myself unable to concentrate, and getting progressively more and more irritable. As a result, I elected to not participate in this week’s games, something that I now regret quite considerably. Instead, Vaiuri and Shadowfane had a normal two-player game with Vai trying out Lucas McCabe for the first time and Shadowfane refining his mastery of Lilith.

 

I must confess to not really paying a lot of attention to the proceedings but I do remember Vai having the most abominable run of bad luck with her master, flipping the Black Joker every turn. Four of those flips were on actions with Lucas and two of them on his ‘Take This’ action, I can only imagine Mr. McCabe getting over excited and hurling handfuls of pocket change and one of his shoes at his companions instead of the Strangemetal Shirt or Elixir of living a few seconds longer. Poor chap.

 

The Strat was Reconnoitre and the scheme pool: LitS, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Cursed Object & Take Prisoner. Both players chose Bodyguard and Cursed Object and scored maximum points from both. However, Shadowfane’s more aggressive play style and exceptionally violent crew selection forced Vaiuri into a defensive position quite early on. The constant pressure and inevitable toll on Vai’s crew led to her being unable to score Recon for three turns out of the six played thus giving Shadowfane a 10-7 victory.

 

From an observers point of view it’s difficult to say what I would have done differently had I been playing. It’s possible that Shadowfane’s alpha strike caused Vaiuri to panic, and huddle up to avoid more of the same. Had she responded in kind instead, it may have been a different outcome but given her luck with the cards I’m not sure. Additionally, Vai had picked a much more diverse crew and it’s unlikely much could have gone toe-to-toe with Shadowfane’s Nephilim. I’ll leave it to the players to give a more in-depth review of their thoughts and revelations.

 

This week we are four players again and should be looking to begin our narrative campaign. I’ve decided to treat this as a closed beta of sorts with the four of us testing the rules and mechanics in our little group and posting our thoughts and battle reports for your perusal. Once a decent rule set is worked up and we’re happy I’ll pop it on here for you guys to tear apart and re-write.

 

Hopefully I’ll be in better mood this week. See y’all

[Vaiuri]

So, I elected to try out Lucas McCabe on a bit of a whim.  With Recconoitre up I thought having a rapidly moving Master would help me out.  I took the Strangemetal Shirt, Elixir of Life and Badge of Speed as his Upgrades.  Sidir had Promices, then was joined by 2 Wastrels, an Oiran, Luna, a Witchling Stalker, the Guild Pathfinder and a trap.

 

Basically, I was on the back foot from Turn 1.  Shadow has really got the hang of Lilith and I was forced into a defensive stance very early on.

 

The models I had just seemed to crumble under the pressure and it seems that McCabe HATES me.  Or the deck hates McCabe, I can't decide which.

 

2 Black Jokers for 'Take This!', followed by another 2 Black Jokers when he tried to Reactivate other models.

 

By that point I was just laughing at what my deck was turning up and was fully at peace with the loss.

 

Ah well, better luck next time!

[Swiglitz]

It’s Monday Morning (in the UK), it’s time for more Transcredible Exploits.

 

This week we were still sans Suvalas so we decided to have a go at the three-player game we were supposed to play last week. If you haven’t tried playing multi-player games before I heartily recommend it, although make sure you give yourself plenty of time to play as it takes a while, as we found out.

 

With three of us playing, we used the deployment map shown in Wyrd Chronicles 4 and flipped for deployment out of sync so we knew who would be in the middle. The result was Vaiuri and I deploying at opposite sides of the board to each other and Shadowfane deploying in the centre. Due to the alternative nature of the game we knew that not all schemes would be appropriate so took a few minutes to discuss what changes we thought would need to happen. For the most part the only real differences we decided on were; no one could take Line in the Sand, as Shadowfane would be deploying, more or less, on the centre line. Any scheme that required a player to take an action or end the game in his opponents half of the table we altered so the player had to be in any of the deployment zones instead. In retrospect we probably could have made a change to LitS so that scheme markers had to be in opposing deployment zones, two in each for example instead of four along the centre line, but that’s something we can try at a later date.

 

We flipped for strategy and got Claim Jump. Since this was a three-player game, Shadowfane could choose his strategy and he opted for Monkeywrench. In short, this meant that Vaiuri and I had to place a 30mm marker in each other’s deployment zones and we scored VP’s if we ended the game with more models around the marker we placed than our opponent did. Shadowfane, however, would score VP’s if he could stop either Vaiuri or me from achieving our objective. A final complication arose from the fact that Shadowfane, as the middle player, would get an extra 15ss to help him. There would be no alliances, just outright carnage from the start.

 

Because we had ruled out LitS our scheme pool consisted of only what we flipped. The results were; Assassinate, Protect Territory, Deliver a Message & Outflank.

 

We set the board up using a mixture of Terraclips buildings and some GW trees. I wanted it to look like a nobleman’s fortified estate so we deployed a large, mansion style building just off-centre, a couple of guard towers on the right, a bridge on the left and a smattering of trees throughout.

 

I knew from the outset that my crew selection would have to combine speed and aggression in order to cross the board and take control of my Claim Jump marker but also a smattering of strong defensive models in order to stop Vai from doing the same to me. I was tempted to field Nicodem again but decided I would risk something new in this slightly bonkers game. I chose:

 

Yan Lo w/ Fortify the Spirit, Reliquary & Brutal Khakkhara.

Soul Porter

Toshiro w/ Command the Graves

Chiaki w/ Pull of the Grave

Yin the Penangalan w/ Unnerving Aura

2 x Ashigaru

Necropunk

 

I decided to take Outflank and Protect Territory as my schemes. Due to the changes in the scheme’s I would only score Outflank if was In Vai’s deployment zone and within 3” of a table edge or corner. Figuring that I was going to be pushing into Vaiuri’s deployment zone anyway as part of the strategy I thought this would be a good fit. I also thought I could drop a couple of scheme markers in the last turn or two to help score protect territory. With this in mind, I deployed my crew in three groups. Yan Lo, the Soul Porter and Yin would drive down the bridge towards the Claim Marker. Toshiro, the Ashigaru and Chiaki would hold back and defend Vai’s Claim Marker while my Necropunk would sneak down the opposite board flank to grab the second Outflank position in the closing turns of the game.

 

Vaiuri and Shadowfane took Sonnia and Pandora respectively, although I’ll leave them to discuss their crews. I will say, watching Shadowfane deploy a 65ss Neverborn crew only 4 or 5” from mine was quite distracting.

 

The change in dynamic a third player brings is really quite startling.Facing the actions of two players burns through your control hand very fast and I think if we try this again I might suggest upping the control hand by a card or two for each player over two involved in the game. Also, the starting position of the third player is a massive game changer as it’s quite easy to be engaged in the kind of life or death struggle you see in turns 3 and 4 from the very beginning.

 

For the most part my plan worked, or rather it was working as we only played 3 turns before realising how late it had gotten and called it quits. I made a stupid error in the opening moves by running my Necropunk off on his own only to get him shot and set on fire by one of Vai’s Witchlings, he promptly burned to death at the end of the first turn.

By the end of turn two, Toshiro and his minons were staring down a combined charge by a Teddy, Baby Kade and the Widow Weaver, with Pandora not far behind. While my attack force was weathering the fiery destructive powers of Sonnia, Samael and a Witchling Stalker. Vaiuri was being particularly clever with her use of Sonnia, setting Shadowfane’s minions on fire with the Witchlings, and then lobbing bloody great big fireballs into the midst of them to catch my models with the blasts, thus bypassing my Hard to Wound and Incorporeal defences. I lost the Soul Porter in turn two meaning that my opponents were now able to remove my Chi condition further weakening me. However, Chiaki once again proved her invaluable worth by slowing Shadowfane’s terrifying group of models and gaining a point or two of Chi she later passed to Yan Lo. As for the big man himself he started throwing his weight around during turn three, zapping a Witchling Stalker and putting the Terracota Curse on three of Shadowfane’s fastest little gribblies. He quite cleverly side stepped this through judicious use of lure’s and pushes but it cost him a bunch of cards to do so.

 

By the end of turn three I was primed to launch my assault on the Claim Marker with Yan Lo, Yin and Chiaki, while Toshiro and his Ashigaru braced for impact. However, with the hour already very late, we decided to end the game prematurely. Shadowfane suggested that he not get the 4 VP’s he was due for preventing both Vaiuri and I from achieving our Strategy and instead we scored our schemes. I had done nothing, losing my Necropunk early on and being out of position to score with any other models. Vaiuri had dropped her first Protect Territory marker earlier that turn so scored one, and Shadowfane’s bouncing Sillurid had delivered a message to Sonnia that very turn netting him 2 VP’s.

 

In conclusion, Multiplayer games are a blast but probably require a whole afternoon to play properly, also I think I need to go through the scheme’s and see what re-writes need to be done. I’ve already mentioned my thoughts on the control hand but it bears repeating, the sheer number of activations taking place each turn requires rock-solid concentration to get the most out of 6 cards so a slight increase might be in order. Having said that, concentration is not something in abundance when we play, the constant giggling and ‘ohmygodohmygodohmygod’ moments tend to get in the way.

 

I’ve still not really got a handle on Yan Lo, but I think I’m getting there. In particular, his Fortify the Spirit upgrade coupled with a couple of points of Chi makes him very tough if you have the cards or Stones for the trigger. Chiaki proved to be MVP again keeping the worst of Shadowfane’s aggression from me for a turn or two and I really must do better with my scheme runners.

 

We managed to snap a handful of photos of the game so I’ll try to get them posted over the coming days.

 

Next week we should be back to four players and starting the long awaited campaign. See you then

[Swiglitz]

 So …

 

This Friday’s game was a return to our usual group of four. As Suvalas had been away for the last three weeks he was itching for a game and I was glad to oblige him.

 

With the GenCon releases confirmed by Wyrd, Suvalas had been busy He’d picked up an M2E Misaki crew and a metal Leveticus crew to supplement his Viktorias. Because of these new additions, I knew I’d either be facing a brand new crew I’d never faced before, or an utterly lethal melee monster.

 

We flipped standard deployment and Turf War for our game, with a scheme pool of LitS, Bodyguard, Protect Territory, Make them Suffer and Take Prisoner.

 

I was torn with master selection. I knew that Turf War really played to Nicodem’s strengths and I was very comfortable fielding either him or McMourning, but I wanted to stretch myself and possibly throw Suvavlas off by bringing a different master. In the end, I chose a master I haven’t used before. Seamus.

 

My crew selection was:

 

Seamus w/Sinister Reputation & Red Chapel Killer

Copycat Killer

Madame Sybelle w/Bleeding Tongue & Not too banged up

Bete Noir w/Decaying Aura

2 x Rotten Belle

Dead Doxie

Necropunk

 

I chose Make them Suffer and Protect Territory (announced) for my schemes.

 

Our board was laid out using the Wild West style buildings from Micro Art. With a town square in the rough centre of the board, a smattering of small buildings ringing it, two larger buildings on my right flank, a handful of trees around the edge of the board and a gallows, some crates and a couple of walls breaking up LOS across the rough centre.

 

My plan was to move Sybelle, Bete and the Dead Doxie up into the scoring zone. I thought I had enough killing power and staying power with those three models to do a good job of holding the centre and scoring every turn. Also, Sybelle’s baked in trigger to make damaged models Peon’s and insignificant would be very handy when it came to the grand melee I was expecting. The rotten belles would flank this group on either side, these lovely ladies would use their powerful Lure action to drag any of Suvavlas’ models out of the scoring zone if I started to struggle. My Necropunk would loiter on the far right, concealed by the large buildings and drop protect territory markers as the game wore on. Finally, Seamus and the Copycat would do what they do best and back alley around sniping enemy minions for Make them Suffer and helping in the centre as and when they were needed. I was pretty confident.

 

It didn’t last.

 

Suvalas ended up taking the Viktorias. I’ll leave him to discuss the minutia of his crew selection and plans, but from my side of the board, it was a very elite set of models, including Lazarus, Vanessa, and a convict Gunslinger. I was nervous to be facing such a concentrated amount of firepower but also feeling good about how few minions and peons he was fielding, thus making my Make them Suffer job that much easier.

 

On seeing the amount of shooting attacks ranged against me I decided to deploy Bete Noir rather than start her buried as I thought her Tenebrous Aura would serve my scoring group well. My first turn was promising, I moved my Turf War group up as planned, drew Vanessa away from the pack of Suvalas’s crew and off the centre line and managed to get Seamus all the way down one flank, murdering a Ronin along the way. Going into turn two I felt confident my plan would work despite a couple of minor wounds on my Belle’s and Doxie.

 

Early in turn two Viktoria of Blood charged. I’d seen this before, the devastation she can cause when given the opportunity is pretty mind-blowing, but I thought I was fairly safe. This was not the case. Discarding her Oathkeeper upgrade to gain fast, she walked forward and charged Bete, who had been lurking at the back waiting for a counter charge. The carnage that followed is now the stuff of legend amongst my gaming group. Thanks to Suvalas’s keen understanding of her mechanics and a decent control hand she killed all three of my models in one activation. Bete and Sybelle from full wounds to dead and the Doxie, already injured, seemed like an afterthought. All I can say about this is; Whirlwind stings. The final salt in the wound was not having a ten in my hand to guarantee Bete’s safety and not flipping one. In one activation, my whole plan was reduced to three corpse markers and a blood drenched Viktoria.

 

After staring in shock for some time I decided I needed a plan B, and quickly.

 

Seamus raised a new Belle from the remains of the Ronin and, with the help of his evil midget sidekick, sniped a desperate mercenary, earning me a valuable VP. My Necropunk trotted out from hiding to drop the first Protect Territory marker. My remaining belles continued their efforts to deny Suvalas a foothold in the Turf War zone tying up Vanessa for a second turn, and dragging Vik of Blood away from the rest of my crew.

 

In the end, it was too little to save me. We called the game at the end of turn 4 as it was getting late. By that time I had managed to drop a second protect territory marker and killed off the Student of Conflict earning me a second VP for make them suffer. Because I had previously announced I was taking Protect Territory I managed to snag the full three VP for that. But Suvalas had scored off Turf War each turn and gotten his VP’s for Protect Territory and Bodyguard giving us a final game total of 8-5 in his favour. Had we played to the end I have little doubt he would have scored his final 2 VP’s from Turf War and Bodyguard netting him a grand total of 10.

 

Despite my loss and utter ass-kicking at the hands of Viktoria and her twin blades of death it was an enjoyable game. I’ll admit following that killing spree at the start of turn 2 I was tempted to throw in the towel but I have seen Malifaux games turn around when everything seems hopeless before. Sadly, this was not one of those times for me.

 

In conclusion, I was moderately happy with the way the crew worked. Seamus and the Copycat Killer proved to be a deadly pairing, more or less doing exactly what I wanted them to, as did the Belles. It’s difficult to conjecture about the usefulness of Sybelle and Bete as they were both killed before really getting the chance to do anything. In retrospect it was my own stupid fault they died, I should have paid more attention to where they were positioned, and known about Oathkeeper giving fast. Also, I was so stunned by the bloody swathe Vik cut through my crew I totally forgot to spend Soulstones for damage prevention on Sybelle, which could have meant her being alive (figuratively) at the end of Vik’s rampage to exact to some well-earned vengeance. Alas, my swiss-cheese memory sealed her doom. If I were to play the game again I would do much the same, except maybe hang back a bit further and draw Vik away from the main group with Belles, or Take the Lead, thus denying her the whirlwind attacks.

 

Not sure what the next week will bring us, hopefully the first of the campaign diaries, providing I get off my arse and distribute the rules to everyone.

 

Until next week …

[asrian]

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...   

Entertaining, and probably still feeling the sting of that onslaught I'm sure. 

[Swiglitz]

Yup ... It still hurts ...

 

On a more positive note, here are some photo's of my shameful and sob-ridden defeat.

 

 

The board set-up. note the large gap in the centre, it was soon to be filled with corpses. Resser corpses.

 

 

My deployment. Chiaki once again doing sterling work in pretending to be something other than she is. In this case she's standing in for Bete Noir as I don't have the new plastic yet.

 

 

Suvalas' depolyment. Consider the number of guns pointing in my direction, now discount them as you notice Viktoria of Blood eyeing up Sybell and Bete.

 

 

 Positions at the end of turn 1. From my perspective all is going according to plan.

 

 

Positions at the end of turn 1. From Suvalas' perspective body parts commencing flying in 5...4...3...2...1...

 

 

Erm ... Where has my crew gone? I say, would you mind awfully if I asked you to stop striking me in the face quite so hard?

 

 

Seamus takes careful aim at a Desperate Mercenary, blissfully unaware what has occurred to his beloved Sybelle and co.

 

 

Positions at the end of turn 2. Not pictured, Swiglitz silently weeping into his drink while Vaiuri tries hopelessly to console him.

 

 

Positions at the end of turn 3. By now I have come to conclusion that I am not doing as well as I perhaps hoped.

 

 

Positions at he end of turn 4 and the end of the game. Suvalas takes pity on me at last, murdering the final remnants of my crew, leaving Seamus and Copycat Killer to hightail it out of there.

 

Nevermind eh? There's always next week.

[Suvalas]

My own musings on Friday’s game;

 

Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, I’ve been thinking a lot about a second Master, in preparation for our upcoming Campaign. I really love the new plastics, but Outcasts seem to be a little slow off the mark, and I’ve only really had use of the Viks recently. I’ve had the offer to borrow Misaki, but there’s something about having your own models. It definitely adds to the enjoyment of the hobby.

 

As Swiglitz stated, seeing Von Schill on the GenCon spoilers excited me a lot, but, I still will have to wait for them, but knowing that it was them coming out, and not either of Hamelin and Leveticus, allowed me to splurge and buy one of their respective boxes. I’ve read long and hard about their play-styles, and finally decided on Leveticus. (That being said, the brand new re-packaged Misaki was in the shop also, so I quickly went from 1 Master to three )

 

I decided to stick together the whole Leveticus box, alongside two additional Waifs, and a Hodgepodge Effigy, all with the intention of using them no matter what. When we flipped Turf war as the Strategy, it screamed Leveticus, but I still didn’t want to take the plunge using a new crew, especially as I am getting more and more used to the Viks.

 

The Viks it was then, with the following roster:

 

Vik of Ashes – Sisters in Fury

Vik of Blood – Mark of She’zul / Oathkeeper

Student of Conflict

Vanessa – Synchronized Slaying

Lazarus

Convict Gunslinger

Ronin

Desperate Mercenary

 

5ss in the cache

 

I decided, that with Turf War being up, a lot of the focus would be around the centre of the board, and figured that Protect Territory would go well. Either by placing the required markers far away from the action, or if things went well in the middle, placing them there instead. It turned out that the latter fit better for me, as it allowed me to keep all my forces together. The swiftly dispatched Ronin is proof that sticking together is better!

I also opted for Bodyguard, and placed it on Lazarus. He’s proven himself tough to get rid of already, and just loves it up in the middle of the board. By creating a crew with enough distraction, I hoped he would be left alone.

 

With the above in mind, my general strategy was to try and take control of the centre, whilst the Ronin ran off dropping markers. I deployed the Ronin on my left flank, and Vanessa on the right flank, where she had easy access to the Centre line and ‘some’ defence in a wall. The rest stayed mostly central. I was hoping that the Gunslinger and Lazarus would provide the firepower, to whittle down any opposing attempt on the centre. As it turned out, great positioning from Swiglitz’s core team kept Lazarus out of action for a turn, and the Gunslinger with a tough choice of advance fully but get Lured, or hang back in relative safety but forgo his shooting. Some fine maneuvering later, and a dead Ronin and Turn One was over.

 

I realised quite quickly that I couldn’t really prevent the Necropunk from scoring, and decided that I needed to score from Turf War to have a chance at winning. (I was quietly confident at this point that Lazarus would stay alive a while). I’ve learnt from past games, that it’s often the Strategy that I’ve been losing points from, and decided to change that. With some deliberation, I threw the Vik of Blood at the group of three, charging Bette, to position me between the three Resser models. A spent soulstone on a crow for the whirlwind trigger, and flipping one on the subsequent charge attack and there was a lot of damage being put out. With the Mark of She’zul, she’s clearly the best option I have for hurting the undead models who, swiftly died. A final Melee expert swing finished off the last of the three. Swiglitz was unfortunate in not being able to bury Bette, and in one activation, the battlefield looked a lot healthier. (From my eyes of course)

 

From here it was a case of protecting the models important to Swiglitz’ scoring, namely the Student, and to keep Lazarus alive whilst holding the centre.

 

I didn’t get much opportunity to learn about the Seamus crew other than; Sybelle’s upgrade/ability that makes lures more effective, is very useful; there’s not much you can do about Seamus and his Copycat Killer from bouncing around doing their thing, which invariably is shoot very hard!

I did learn that the Convict Gunslingers are pretty nifty in their own right. Being relentless is very useful, as failing Terror duels to even do anything can be very demoralising!

 

All in all a decent game. I was glad to play having missed a few weeks, and it was nice to place an almost fully painted crew! Perhaps next time I’ll pluck up the courage to trial Leveticus… although we’ll probably flip Reckoning to lure me back to the Viks!

 

Suvalas

[cdhay]

Really do love your right ups. Great insights into thought processes and the like which is often lacking in many batreps. So keep it up guys! And sign up to the escalation league starting at nwgc in Stockport end of aug.

also if any of you need a random game let me know as have a board and scenery at mine or happy to play at yours. Spread the malifaux love.

[Wessex]

My girlfriend and I are about to start playing, I can't wait for her Viktorias to murder my poor Ramos and his spiders

[dancater]

Love you guys and girls enthusiasm. Going to keep track of this thread.

Worth noting from above Suvalas (I checked your list as I play Viks and am always looking for strats I have not seen), Vanessa cannot have the upgrade Sister's in Fury, this is restricted to one or the other Vik unless there has been some rules change or errata I am unaware of. I saw this tactic and thought it was a great idea, looked it up and was very disappointed it was not possible .

[Suvalas]

Love you guys and girls enthusiasm. Going to keep track of this thread.

Worth noting from above Suvalas (I checked your list as I play Viks and am always looking for strats I have not seen), Vanessa cannot have the upgrade Sister's in Fury, this is restricted to one or the other Vik unless there has been some rules change or errata I am unaware of. I saw this tactic and thought it was a great idea, looked it up and was very disappointed it was not possible .

 

It could very well be that I wrote it up wrong. Didn't have access to the cards. If you swap Synchronized Slaying and Sisters in Fury it's ok right? I know there's one that Vanessa can take

Think I just had the names muddled up when I did the write-up. Either way, I don't think I cast either this game. (I'll edit for no further confusion).

 

Glad everybody is enjoying reading the battle reports. It's good to know, to keep us documenting them. Hopefully it will be even more interesting once the campaign Swiglitz is planning, is underway

 

Suvalas

[asrian]

Vanessa has access to (barring Rare 1 restrictions and other sisters taking the upgrade first): Howling Wolf Tattoo, Mark of Shez'uul, Oathkeeper, Scramble, Sisters in Spirit, and Synchronized Slaying

[Shadowfane]

We are, for the most part, a somewhat shiny and enthusiastic group, with the added advantage that, whilst in terms of painting we might buy the same or similar things, in terms of playstyles and preferred forces, we have very different ways of thinking, so it's very rare of any of us to have similar crews/armies/whatever.

[Vaiuri]

Hopefully we should be able to show off some more fully painted crews over the next couple of months during the campaign - Shadow and Sulvalas put both myself and Swig to shame with thier awesome painting!  You should both slow down and paint some scenery to let the rest of us catch up!

[Shadowfane]

Pfft, I'm on Arcanists now while I wait for more neverborn models to show up

[Suvalas]

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

 

Suvalas

[Swiglitz]

I'm just lulling you all into a false sense of security ...

 

No ... Wait, the other thing. Lulling myself into a false sense of security.

 

Yeah, that's right.

 

[Swiglitz]

More Transcredible Exploits from four Malifaux Newbies!

 

Are we still newbies? We’ve been playing every week for a while now and I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on the way the game plays. We’re in no way Masters but I think we’ve successfully shirked our Peon station. From now on this will be the Transcredible Exploits of Four Malifaux Minions!

(Unless anyone can think of a better rank for us to hold)

 

Anyway, this weekend’s update …

 

It’s been an exciting Gen Con weekend, with all of us eagerly lapping up each new snippet of news that leaked from the forums. I’m also fairly sure we’ve put a good chunk of change in Wyrd’s coffers with our individual webstore orders (mmm Hanged). Despite the multitude of distractions we still found time for a game.

 

Suvavlas was ill this weekend (hope you’re feeling better dude), so with only three of us present it was a toss up to see who would get to play. Vaiuri and I briefly discussed playing a second three-player game but quickly dismissed the idea, as we didn’t think we’d have enough time. As I had played last week and Shadowfane was travelling to visit us for the game, we decided that Vaiuri should play him for this week.

 

While I was busy making a mess in the kitchen Vai set up the table using some of the Terraclips buildings left constructed from earlier. (I have photo’s to attach but will probably put them in a separate post).

 

We flipped standard deployment and Squatter’s Rights for the strategy. Our scheme pool turned up LitS, Assassinate, Protect Territory, Cursed Object & Vendetta giving a nice spread of fighty and schemey tasks to choose from.

 

With Vaiuri playing Guild and Shadowfane playing Neverborn I wasn’t quite sure what models were going to hit the table. Both of these guys have a varied spread of Masters and both have a fair amount of experience with all their crews. I’m sure the guys will want to talk about their crew selection and tactics in depth so I’ll leave that to them. In the end, Vaiuri took Perdita with a heavily themed crew of Family models and Shadowfane brought out Jacob Lynch, again with a heavily themed Dark Debts crew.

 

As I wasn’t playing I was given the unique position of being to analyse and enjoy a game without worrying about how I was going to play it, which was great fun. I must say I was surprised by some of the crew selections and tactics employed by my friends. Vaiuri is developing something of a reputation whenever Vendetta enters the scheme pool, using her Guild Austringers to great effect, however she chose neither the scheme nor an Austringer for her crew. Instead, she took the brave step of choosing Assassinate, a scheme I think can be insanely difficult to achieve. I really felt she was going to struggle, despite having a very shooty crew, especially when Shadowfane revealed he was playing as Lynch. As a support/ranged master guys like Lynch don’t generally expose themselves to much danger and I thought Vai was going to have to work extremely hard to earn those VP’s.

 

By the same token, Shadowfane had chosen Vendetta and elected to put it on Nino, and one of his Beckoners. Again, I thought this was going to be hard work. Nino has the ability to set up outside of his deployment zone and usually goes in some remote, almost inaccessible location where he can cause all sort of mischief with his rifle and Spotter ability. While Beckoners have the Lure ability, pretty much guaranteeing Shadowfane the initial VP for first attack, they don’t have a lot to follow up on that thus making it more difficult to get the extra VP’s for finishing the Vendetta target off.

 

It was going to be an interesting game.

 

The first couple of turns were fairly ordinary, a lot of manoeuvring for position and grabbing the first couple of Squat markers to start scoring. Vaiuri used Abuela (subbed this week by a spare Beckoner of all things) to marry The Judge into the family and coordinated an assault by Santiago and Francisco to kill off one of Shadowfane’s Illuminated. In response to this, Shadowfane used his Beckoner to Lure Nino out of hiding scoring himself an easy VP and causing Nino to leap off a perilously high vantage point, causing a couple of wounds. He also began a long sprint by a Terror Tot down his left flank towards Vaiuri’s deployment zone.

 

In keeping with what seems to be a tradition, Turn 3 saw some extreme violence. Perdita, obviously incensed over some comment Jacob made about her new betrothal, loaded up her Peacemaker with a Vengeance Bullet and let rip. The end result of which was Jacob running for his life on a solitary wound. Unwilling to let her daughter’s quarry escape, Abuela trundled over in her sturdy wheelchair and promptly blew his head off with both barrels of her shotgun.

 

Ouch.

 

At this point, it was starting to fall apart for Shadowfane. He rallied though and threw the Hungering Darkness into the fray in an attempt to drive the Ortega’s off the Squat Markers. Meanwhile a second Illuminated and the Vendetta Beckoner advanced on Nino. Alas, it seemed that fate had other ideas for Shadowfane’s crew as a second coordinated assault by Francisco and Santiago banished the Hungering Darkness back to its pit beneath the Honeypot Casino.  The lone Terror Tot continued his marathon race for Vaiuri’s deployment zone, seemingly unnoticed by the Neverborn hunters.

 

The closing stages of the game further cemented Vaiuri’s grip on the VP’s. Nino and The Judge killed off the second Illuminated although Shadwfane took a modicum of revenge by finishing off Nino with the Vendetta Beckoner, grabbing the full 3VP’s. The long distance running Terror Tot dropped two Protect Territory markers deep in Vaiuri’s deployment zone and settled in to wait out the game. Unfortunately Perdita had other ideas and dropped back to bring the demonic baby into her sights. Living up to her dead-eye reputation the Ortega Master promptly put a bullet in the Nephilim’s head prompting the newly-wed Judge to reconsider his question about the future of their children. With his crew rapidly dwindling before him, Shadowfane started to get sneaky, using Beckoners and the Doppleganger to pull Vaiuri’s models away from her Protect Territory markers thus denying her more VP’s, but it was too little, too late. The Oretga’s aren’t bereft of movement shenanigans themselves and were able to push, other models back into position to ensure the markers were covered. The final score was a 10-5 to Vaiuri, giving her, her first 10 point game.

 

In terms of analysis, this one is quite tough to call as I’m not privy to what was going on in the player’s heads as the moves were made. However, I can say I saw a couple of things that I would have done differently, given the opportunity. Vaiuri did little wrong, playing to her strengths and employing her entire arsenal of abilities, attacks and actions throughout the game. I think, once Shadowfane revealed his Vendetta scheme against Nino I would have legged it in an effort to deny him the VP’s. Instead, Vai chose to stand his ground and take a couple of wounds of the Illuminated who was later killed by the Judge. I also think she took quite a risk waiting until the final stages of the game to take care of the Terror Tot, had she flipped a poor card on her attack there may not have been enough time to finish it off and Shadowfane would have scored another 3 VP’s. However, I learned later that Vaiuri had something of a stellar control hand that turn and wasn’t unduly worried.

 

Shadowfane didn’t do a lot wrong tactically, at least from my viewpoint. With the possible exception of bringing Lynch too close to the action, he made very few missteps. From my experience, the key to beating the Ortega’s is move to engage them as quickly as possible. The longer you wait to get stuck in, the more damage they do. Shadowfane did try to move up quickly but I think he lacked the hitting power to achieve much once he got there. Given his choice of scheme’s I expected to see a plethora of hard-as-nails Nephilim and Illuminated in his crew, but instead saw two Beckoners and a Doppleganger. Effectively three support models, at least to my eyes. I think this is what let Shadowfane down in the end, I’m sure he has his reasons for picking the models he did, but I think I’d have played it differently.

 

With Suvalas away for the Bank Holiday Weekend we will be three again this week, so it’s more than likely it will be Shadowfane versus me in the next report.

 

As an update to the campaign; everything is now written and safely stored on my PC (there’s a kiss of death). However, with the next few weekends a bit disjointed I have taken the executive decision to postpone the Beta test until the middle of September. For those of you waiting to read about my attempts at design and our own brand of in-character diaries I’m sorry, but you’ll have to continue to wait.

 

Toodles.

[cdhay]

Great write up again. Don't forget that there are plenty of other players in the Manchester area to make up a 4th if needed...

[Swiglitz]

Photo's as promised

 

Some shots of the board set up.

 

 

Lynch's deployment over-view

 

 

Huggy in a house ... Sneaky.

 

 

The Vendetta Beckoner, strutting about on her balcony, the hussy.

 

 

Ortega's deployment over-view. Note the Abuela stand in, who'd have thought granny Ortega was that lithe ... And beguiling.

 

 

Nino hides behind a wall ... But not that well it turns out.

 

 

The end of turn 1. So far, pretty evenly balanced.

 

 

 

 

The End of turn 2. Starting to get a little heated, an Illuminated is already dead by now.

 

 

 

The end of turn 3. Oh crumbs, Lynch and Huggy both gone

 

 

 

The end of turn 4. Nino bites the dust or cloud of brilliance or whatever it is Beckoners do to people they don't like.

 

 

Perdita finally notices the slightly gribbly child hiding in her deployment zone.

 

 

The end of turn 5 and the game.

 

 

All over bar the shouting/rejoicing/crying/don't put that away yet I haven't taken the photo yet aww damnit nevermind.

 

Also, I've just noticed that the photo's are actually pretty shoddy this time around. Sorry about that, I'll try to do better next time.

 

Have fun

[Vaiuri]

On seeing the strat and schemes for this game, my first instinct was to retreat to my 'safe' Master, Lady Justice. I'd started formulating a crew for het when I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and give Perdita a whirl again. My plan was to have to crew go around in 2 groups-

 

Group 1 - The Judge and Santiago heading off to my left flank to pick up the markers there, then either holding their ground and dropping Protect Territory markers late game, or re-inforce the middle if I couldn't weather the Neverborn assault.

 

Group 2 - Perdita, Francisco, the Enslaved Nefilim and Abuela with Nino to support.

 

I was very lucky turn 1 drawing a nice hand with a couple of face cards, these I kept back, knoing I would want to use them turns 2 and 3.  I think the deck was kind to me this game, which evens out the truely terrible twists of Fate dealt to poor Lucas a few weeks ago!

 

Personal mistakes:

 

Once Vendetta was revealed on Nino, I should have high-tailed it out of there, but I forgot all about it, particularly in Turn 3 where I was determined to end Lynch!  I paid for it later when Shadow killed him with his Beckoner.  I basically threw VP's at Shadowfane by leaving Nino out in the open.

 

Turns 4 and 5 Fancisco got too far away from the main group, meaning his buffs were wasted.  I was planning to use him to drop Scheme Markers, but ended up just running away to try and keep him alive and keep my activation superiority - again, a mistake as he had done his job by that point and it didn't really matter if he died.

 

Leaving the Terror Tot to its own devices.  Although I was confident Perdita had enough movement/activation points to kill it, it was a risk leaving only her activation to kill the Tot.  Worked out though!

 

 

In conclusion:  For me, this was a game where the stars aligned, I GOT the crew, was contantly planning ahead and adapting my strategy as the game progressed and never felt particularly helpless against what I was facing - something that often crops up!  I agree with Swig, that if Shadow had perhaps invested in a couple of heavy hitters, I'd have had a much harder time defending against him.