BatRep from GenCon Avatar Finals (Part 2)

[Icemyn]

My crew list for all three rounds of the finals:
Leveticus

- Pariah of Iron 1ss
- From Ash/To Earth Return (2ss/1ss) From ash only in the semis
- Desolate Soul 2ss
Ryle 10ss
Mechanical Rider 12ss
Ashes and Dust 13ss
Waif x2 0ss
Abomination x2 8ss

 

Quarterfinals: Stake a Claim Standard

Opponent is Mindshred Playing Outcast Tara. 

His List:
Tara
- knowledge of Eternity
- pull of the void (I think?? give something fast or slow it takes 1dmg)
Lazarus
Taelor
Johan
Sue
Void Wretch x3

This is a man who doesn't want to lose to Leveticus. The Wretches can fight Levi while he is buried and 2 Relic Hammers for all of my constructs seems bad, also welcome to malifaux can do work if I'm not careful. 

 

Deployment: For posterity's sake I'll mention that I forget to reveal my schemes like a dunce we get into a little debate about it we end up rolling off for it and I get to reveal my schemes which are Entourage and Protect Territory. I lose the deployment flip and ofc have to deploy first using my very standard spread deployment.  Mindshred deploys fairly centrally with 2 bugs on either far flank one in the middle. From left to right its Bug, Lazarus, Taelor, Tara, Bug, Sue, Johan,  Bug. 

 

Turn 1: He wins initiative with his positive flip on a 4, powerful. 

Highlights:

- Abom pokes ashes and walks. 

- Tara Reactivates gives Laz fast. 

- Abom pokes ashes and walks.

- The Flanking bugs double walk straight up. 

- Ashes triple walks to be very close to the far right bug. 

- Levi walks 2x fires off a shot destined to miss against Johan in cover and Sue's -ca aura and then 0's to sac ashes and draw 2 cards. This drops out the core ~3" from the bug and the Dust Storm in 3" melee of the bug. 

- Tara goes and redeploys in her deployment zone to try and kill the core with her 3 shots. Unfortunately for him sh5 vs Df7 and my ten cards in hand didn't go his way. 

- Dust storm hits the bug for weak and triggers pushing into base with the core, then hits him again killing him. 0 action reform with the core. 

- EoT Ashes comes back. 

 

Turn 2: He flips a 1 and a 2 or something equally silly with his +twist chooses not to stone so i go first. Also of note I had to discard down to handsize for turn 2 not drawing any cards. 

- Ashes walks and charges Tara I cheat for a straight flip and cheat the red joker for dmg he stones and takes 7 the second attack hits for weak and he stones taking 1 so 8 wounds on the Tara. 

- Tara goes and redeploys away, so she won't be reactivating this turn, giving fast to Taelor and Lazarus. 

- I decide I don't wan't the Mechanical Rider to die to Taelor walking and charging so she pushes 4" drops a metal gamin takes a chain spear shot at laz near the 8" max range and runs the hell away. 

- Taelor walks and charges Ryle instead, Ryle takes a whole bunch of D but with his df Armor 3 trigger and ss use he lives with 3 wounds left. 

- Levi Goes and eats Johan sacs himself making a waif. 

- The central bug (2) action munches on Levi actually hitting him.

- The metal gamin magnetizes Laz and then walks into his melee to tie him up, but not his own melee because I decided to magnetize first and not walk first. (magnetize push got stuck on a wall)

- Sue walks up and does a thing, honestly not sure what, likely ring of fire. 

- Ryle Self Heals and hits Taelor really hard like. She is alive though. 

- Left bug double walks straight down again. 

- aboms do things. 

- EoT Levi comes back centrally. 

 

Turn 3: He wins init again with 2 fairly low cards, knowing that he is most likely activating Tara first means I really don't care too much. 

- Tara activates gives laz fast again and puts the engaging metal gamin to 1 wound giving it slow and reactivates.

- Mech Rider pushes 4" drops another Metal Gamin to play with Lazarus and charges lefty bug squashing him. 

- Taelor tries really hard to kill Ryle failing again. 

- Levi kills Sue I think? or someone else kills sue? idk someone makes Sue really sad. 

- The rest of this turn is Lazarus fighting gamin because he hates himself. The center bug moving up. Ashes drops a scheme marker and stakes a claim because he is by himself with only a giggling waif to keep him company. Tara walks to my side of the table. Ryle kills Taelor etc. 

 

At this point the game is basically over and I could go though all the steps of the cleanup, but that doesn't seem worth it. 

Levi 9 - 3 stake, 3 protect, 3 entourage (levi sacs himself and pops out of the waif chilling with Ashes)

Tara 2/3 - All from Breakthrough I think?

 

Semis - Reconnoiter - Flank Deployment

This round i am playing against Nick and his Ramos. 

List:
Ramos

- combat mechanic

- Under Pressure

Joss

- Bleeding Edge minion heal thing

- Warding Runes

Electric creation

Metal Gamin x3

Ice Gamin (I assume because YOLO)

Brass Arachnid

Soulstone miner

 

We both Reveal protect territory hiding the other, mine is plant explosives. 

 

Again this seems to be someone who has played against Levi before and has a solid plan. Counterspell is good vs Levi and Triple Metal Gamin seems very strong, Its at this point I realize I should have taken 2 Metal Gamin instead of the 2 aboms. I lose deployment, but TWIST! he decides to deploy first, I have no Idea why. But he deploys the 3 gamin together in the south leg of the flank and everything else in a man/machine pile to the east. I counter deploy with most of my things to the west of the Flank L and some things to the north. 

 

Turn 1: I win init. 

- Levi Walks once and offs one of the Metal Gamin in the prayer circle, but don't worry I left them an abomination to play with. Wouldn't want them to be lonely. 

- He activates a Metal Gamin tries to magnetize the abom, but can't use 0's near his new friend. Hits him twice instead, but the abom lives. 

- Abom goes and tries to fight is unsuccessful and the Metal friends pass their df10 duels. 

- Electic creation walks to the North east and takes a dmg going to 2 wounds. 

- Ryle Goes pushes away from the waif behind him for his 0 then shoots the electric creation killing it, the explosion is fantastic, but ultimately harmless. 

- Brass Arachnid gives Joss reactivate. 

- Waif Stumbles about falls down a few times. 

- Joss double walks toward Ryle declares that he is not engaged with him. 

- Ashes decides that the best use of his life is keeping Ryle from getting killed by Joss so he walks and charges. doing fairly insignificant dmg maybe 2 total. 

- Joss hits ashes back not killing him which is pretty wonderful all things considered.

- North Waif giggles some walks into a tree.

- Ramos summons a spider from the electic creation scrap, but only 1 so yay.

- mech rider walks about.

- spider hugs Ryle, he needed it.

- aboms dance party to the southwest quadrant.

- Other metal gamin kills the abom friend, sad. I drop a corpse because it's an option. 

- Levi Comes back in the southwest. 

- Soulstone Miner unburies in the southwest corner as well. 

 

Turn 2: Win init I think?

- Levi makes one of those metal gamin into an abom again because reasons then "dies".

- Joss swings about killing nothing. 

- Mech Rider charges the ice gamin hits it to 1 wound and makes a metal gamin. 

- Ramos walks makes 3 spiders from the metal gamin scrap and magnetizes ryle moving back from whence he came. 

- Metal gamin magnetizes the spider killing it and hits the ice gamin to death it explodes putting dmg on the rider and itself. 

- Ashes swings at Joss once and successfully disengages walking into the southwest.  

- Brass Arachnid charges the newly summoned abom I think he was also lonely. 

- Ryle charges Joss doing some damage and then heals. 

- The rest of the turn is ashes dying reforming and Soulstone miner running the the southeast for table quarters. Also the 3 spiders mill about. Not much else happens. 

- Levi comes back near Ryle to help him out. 

 

I control 2 quarters to his 1. 

 

Turn 3: Lose init. 

- Ramos Electrical fires Ryle a bunch of times and magnetizes him, Ryle is sad. 

- Joss gets accompliced and kills the Ryle, I think I could have ss prevented a bit more aggresively to have him live C'est la vie. 

- Ashes joins the spider, brass, Metal gamin abom fight killing a spider. 

- abom dies. 

- Mech rider drops a metal gamin and walks toward the spider scrum. 

- Joss gets killed by magnetize I believe.

- Soulstone miner drops a scheme markers for protect territory. 

- Levi Kills him for his insolence. 

- a bunch of irrelevant things happen. 

 

I control 2 territories to his 1 again. 

 

Turn 4: win or lose init doesn't matter much. 

At some point during this turn I realize I have plant explosives and could have easily done it the turn before, but now I needed to finangle it to get the full points. 

- Ramos Runs about. 

- Levi chases him because nothing is more thrilling than a Geriatric fight. 

- Ashes engages 3 dudes the plan is to hold them there for plant explosives. 

- spiders fight and try to disengage

- abom walks up and drops the explosives. 

- he also had plant explosives and manages to drop a marker for 2 points. 

 

I hold 3 quarters he holds one.

I get 3 for plant he gets 2. 

 

Turn 5: He wins init. 

- Ramos kicks his hoveround into high gear and drops a scheme marker. 

- nothing else happens that matters. 

 

Levi 10 - 4 Recon 3 Plant 3 Protect

Ramos 3 - 2 Plant 1 Protect 

 

 

Finals: Turf War - Close Deployment. 

Against ETA Hoffman playing summoning dreamer. 

Summary: The board was one sided, It was very open and there wasn't any where for him to hide really. 

Turn 1: He lost 3 models. 

Turn 2: It was 4+. 

Turn 3: We decided that the game wasn't worth continuing. 

 

Sucks that the finals of the tournament was so anti-climactic. 

 

Anyway thanks for reading, if you have any questions about schemes strats or my thoughts on matchups or model choices lmk.

[Math Mathonwy]

Thank you for the write-ups - these were really interesting!

A couple of comments. First of all, according to the forum wisdom, I don't think you are allowed to make a list and stick to it! You must be a complete noob

But seriously, interesting that you went against three different factions with three different strategies and still took the same list every time.

As for the final game - why did your opponent go with a summoning Dreamer for a Close Deployment Turf War on an open table? That seems like a really bad idea. I would think that the Neverborn would have something else up their sleeve for a situation like that, especially since the strat+deployment was known well in advance.

But yea, congrats on the win! Well done!

[Icemyn]

I've personally been a fan of the take all comers approach to wargames, I'm not going to say it's ideal in Malifaux. 

There are a few models I need to pick up and paint to fill out the levi crew, highest on this list would be necropunks as I feel that stake a claim easily the hardest strategy for Levi to win. 

Normally I have more variety in my lists/masters, but the GenCon format forced you to announce your master with your faction and I had a feeling that if I announced Hamelin I would never win a game. 

 

I don't know why ETA Hoffman went with the crew he did in the finals game, maybe he will chime in to let us know, 

[Math Mathonwy]

Thank you for the thoughts! Much appreciated.

Interesting the Master announcement - it seems like it would indeed make some Masters far less desireable than would normally be the case. It also allows you to load up on Ca attacks against Kirai, taking Armor ignoring stuff agains Ramos and making full use of the Steel Zombies, etc.

Kinda strange that the premiere Malifaux tournament uses such house rules.

Did you feel that it was a good addition to the game?

[Icemyn]

No. I personally feel that announcing your master is detrimental to game balance. 

 

Some masters are unplayable in that format as you touched upon. 

As you touched upon "themed" masters are the biggest losers I.E. swarm, construct, undead, incorporeal etc.

 

The other side of that is some masters are actually much stronger in that format. 

Levi and Zoraida are the clear winners as their hiring pool is so massive that they can hire effective counter units for whatever your opponent may be trying to do. 

 

Keep in mind going into the tournament there was no mention that this was going to be the case beforehand so no one was as prepared as they could have been. If I had had access to the students(University of Transmortis) for example that would have been really unfair. 

 

Malifaux seems balanced around the fact that you don't know which of the ~7 masters your opponent will be taking so you can't effectively go all in vs a specific master. I have seen tournaments in the past be 50ss but you have to declare an ~75ss hiring pool and that's all you can use for the tournament. That format might work with declaring masters because you can't take every hate unit possible and still be balanced. 

 

TL;DR: I don't think that GenCon used the most balanced ruleset, but it's possible that it could be workable with a few other tweaks. 

[SevenSins]

Well done, to bad the finale was such a wash.

Predetermined masters.... Not good in malifaux I'd say...