Expert Cheater (Sanctuary UK 10th April 2016)

[Rikk]

Hi All,

 

I thought I would try my first battle report. This is a very noob-ish battle report from a very noob-ish player, so please forgive any mistakes and lack of significant detail.

The event was Expert Cheater, 10^th April 2016, at the Sanctuary Gaming Centre (UK). For anyone who hasn’t been, do go if you get the chance, a very spacious venue with friendly staff and as always a welcoming and very encouraging Malifaux scene.

Overall a fanrastic and we'll run event, even if 1 hour 45 mins seemed a little quick for a newer player like myself, I prefer 2 hours, but will likely be fine with more practise of the game.

My only feedback for these events would be to have a painting comp. as I do enjoy looking at everyone’s crews (Don’t get much of a chance during or in between games), however being smaller events, I do appreciate that this just ends up stretching what must be an already limited amount of organisation, timings, and funds for prizes.

Apologies, but there is no video, no pictures, just text of a post tournament report from what I can remember after a tiring drive home. It is also very one-sided from my point of view with little mention of what the gremlins use as prior to today I’ve never played against them, so can’t remember what things were called (A lot of things managed to take damage and get extra AP).

Hopefully next time I will take some notes and the odd photo to make this a bit more enjoyable to read.

This was my third Malifaux tournament and this is from my third and final game against a friendly and helpful player (Thanks Tim).

Also thanks to my other opponents, James and Mark, also fun games, but I’m not going to be able to remember enough to put into a BR.

 

Game 3

 

Corner Deployment

Strategy – Collect the Bounty

Schemes – Convict Labour, Covert Breakthrough, Undercover entourage, Show of force, Take Prisoner

 

My Crew:

 

Seamus + Red Chapel Killer, Mad Haberdasher, Bag o’ Tools (6 soul stones)

CCK

Sybil + Bleeding Tongue, Not too banged up

Valedictorian + Unnerving Aura

Yin + Unnerving Aura

Rotten Belle

Rotten Belle

 

I chose Show of force and Undercover entourage on Seamus (I considered covert breakthrough, but with Seamus not being able to interact when using Back Alley, and I wanted to make the most of his flint lock… I also didn’t go for take prisoner, as the only viable thing I was unlikely to try to kill was the pig-a-pult…darn 8 SS peon)

 

Tim’s crew:

 

Ophelia + upgrades (Cache 6 I think)

Gracie + upgrades

Burt Jebson + upgrades

Lenny + upgrades

Trixibelle +?no upgrades

Pig-a-pult and I think 2 pigs to be hurled

 

Tim’s schemes – Undercover entourage (Ophelia) and Covert breakthrough (I’m unsure why he didn’t go for SoF, but possibly as he could probably tell that’s what I also had and potentially knowing the centre board would be a bloodbath, it could have been considered a bit risky… why I didn’t also spot that risk)

 

 

 

Seamus grinned as he looked upon his loot, hard thought but truly enjoyable taking it right from under those unsuspecting Guilds noses.

 

But something didn’t sit quite right, the air smelt funny and Sybil was fidgeting again, which only meant there would be trouble.

 

Quickly, Seamus sent out a couple of mental commands calling the Belles in close and summoning the Valedictorian and Yin.

 

If something or someone was out there after his loot, they would have a hard time getting to it…..

 

 

 

Turn 1

 

Having never played Seamus before I was a be overwhelmed by my options to get started, I had been given a few pre-game hints about Seamus’ late activation especially after Belle’s bring models out into the open. Back-alley, focus, shoot, CCK in, shoot…rinse and repeat, while the rest of the team do their thing. Yin is great at staying alive and I rate the big V a lot (Though I should probably throw Yin in the middle first and then V…never-mind I might learn for next time).

So I open up by throwing Valedictorian into the centre, as… well, why not

There is a lot of Gremlin, pushing, pulling, and luring models forward to the centreline without any of them activating which was a bit worrying seeing them get up close and personal and knowing I’m likely to be multi-charged straight off the bat.

The Belle moves up and lures Sybil, followed by another belle, which in hindsight I could have summoned into base contact with Sybil and saved 2 AP….

It feels like most of the Gremlins open up a can of woo-pa on Val and she is left with 2 wounds… clearly not trying to kill her on turn one and miss out on Bounty points for the next turn.

Yin moves up very cautiously (After 6 games with her I really should realise how hard she actually is to kill and be more cavalier with her/him/it).

Gracie does lots of movement shenanigans and even gets a re-activate (Instantly becoming one of my main targets, if something gets to go twice a turn it can’t be good for my side).

Seamus pops out 10” as I don’t have a very good hand and can’t get the trigger for a longer range. Now at this point two things happen, I shoot and take a fair bit of damage on Gracie, I stuggle to damage Ophelia, but also the CCK pops up and somehow I take a gamble on shooting into combat with Val and 3 gremlins. With fair warnings from Tim and the odds in my favour, I promptly hit Val, having to cheat to negate damage (I can see myself burning a new deck each tournament). I think Seamus did the Val and CCK did the Gracie damage, but managing to kill nothing (Thankfully as would also have been no bounty points).

 

Turn 2

 

Another stone as I have 1,2,3,5,5,7 in my starting hand with a 1,9 from the stone….

Feeling a bit more confident of how much damage Seamus and CCK can do on their own, I’m now a little nervous of how quickly they, along with Val will go down in a hail of Gremlin attacks.

One of the Belles is slain and blast damage (For 5 each on another Belle and Sybil) kills both belles, but Sybil stones to stay alive…for now…

The Val takes a beating but stays on 1 wound, is pushed out of range of the centre bubble (push against models with flight is just not fun) as Tim must suspect I have Show of force (There was a fair bit of jesting about how much upgrades were heading to the centre and I honestly thought he had the scheme as well as myself – good bluffing there).

Seamus summons a belle from one of the corpse markers.  Damages more gremlins as does CCK (Again not a great hand to cheat with).

Val gets lured into bubble to try to get SoF, but promptly dies as Sybil is brought down to her final wound. I’m feeling less and less confident with this list.

End of turn 2, Tim is up 1 VP to 0, I didn’t realise at this point he didn’t announce SoF, but I think he mentioned we were on a draw at 2 upgrades in the centre bubble each, so I guess I didn’t twig.

 

Turn 3

 

The turn I start to get somewhere.

Sybil dies as does Gracie to a focused Seamus and CCK.  (Val may have made it to this round to die, I can’t remember).

The pig-a-pult tries to do some more damage but Yin remarkably stays alive (Though I have by this point almost ran out of soul stones).

Seamus takes a beating and has to use his hat which is picked up by CCK.

Ophelia is remarkably strong and after an early attempt on her as my first target I can only get her to 9 and then 7 wounds, I swiftly moved to Gracie.

I score 1 for SoF and Tim gets 1 for Strat putting us at a 2-1 to Tim.

 

Turn 4

 

Apologies but this round was fairly quick and I can’t recollect much of what happened.

CCK kills Lenny.

Seamus goes down early with nothing in my hand to help him and no hat. This also means I’m out of a potential 3 for undercover entourage putting my max score at a possible 7.

Pig-a-pult has to move 2” forward to try to attack something but is struggling with the range.

Yin goes in and damages Burt with the + poison managing to kill him off.

CCK promptly takes out Trixie belle.

With Tim having just 2 models left on the table and myself 3 (Ophelia and pig-a-pult vs. CCK, Belle, Yin) I have to admit to myself I am feeling confident of a win… (I must remember, this is Malifaux…Bad things happen).

Ophelia has made a bit of a dash toward my deployment zone, dropping a scheme marker, and it finally dawns on me that I have forgotten that Tim has not announced any schemes and that I seriously need to get her away from my deployment zone (The scheme marker does disappear from thoughts, though I don’t think I’m in range to do anything about it anyway).

I score 1 for SoF and 1 for Strat putting us at 3-2 with a lead for me.

 

Turn 5

 

I’m now a little nervous that we are into the final turn of the game with precious little time left on the clock (Though also very impressed we’ve made it to the full 5 turns).

I now have a difficult decision to make, though with hind sight and probably more experience there are/were other options open or at least I shouldn’t have spent a good 2-3 mins trying to decide.

Do I Charge Yin at the pig-a-pult knowing I would unlikely kill it, do I get Yin to safety as if Yin dies (4 wounds left) to the pig-a-pult, I seriously could lose a Strat point to Tim. Do I try to lure and slow Ophelia with the Belle, or double lure into engagement with the Belle. The CCK was too far out, but with a double lure, or lure and then walk from CCK, there might have been range to shoot.. but I also knew I only had one activation before Ophelia would leg it to the far corner of my deployment.

In the end, I went for getting Yin to safety, assuming I could try to lure out Ophelia and either hold her, or shoot her.

Little did I remember she is Tim’s crew’s master, with 3 AP, and that she promptly pegged it not into far corner of my deployment, but around a rock outcrop in my deployment, out of sight and  dropped another scheme marker with her 3^rd and last AP.

At this point I was a bit lost as what I could do next, a quick summary of the field and the facts, was that I had been very cleverly outplayed in the dying moments of the game.

Neither of us score for the Strat and I max on SoF, I’m now at a maximum of 4 that I can score and with a Belle and CCK left but nothing to do (And 9 mins left on the clock) I shake Tim’s hand in slight disbelief that on the last turn, last few activations of a game I lose … such is fate … and I’m reminded that in Malifaux, Bad Things Happen….

Tim declares and scores 3 for undercover entourage and 2 for covert breakthrough.

The final score is 6 – 4 to Tim, thus putting me at 0 TP, -11 Diff and 11 VP and gaining myself the wooden spoon for my efforts but having had an absolute blast.

 

A quick chat with Tim afterwards and there really was nothing in the last turn I could have done to deny his swift gaining of 5 points. On reflection, even if I had spotted this on turn 4, I think with Ophelia’s defensive trigger to push away from attacks, even CA one’s I probably would have handed Tim the 5 points sooner and possibly a 3^rd point for Covert breakthrough.

 

This was definitely the most fun game I have had yet with Malifaux and many thanks to all my opponents, the team at Sanctuary and everyone else that I met and had a chat to today.

 

 

 

Seamus pulled himself up against a ledge. It had been a while since he had taken such a beating, not that he would admit it to anyone.

 

He’d also now have to visit that infernally deranged doctor and his halfwit of an assistant to get that nasty gash on his left side patched up.

 

No doubt he would have to endure an hour of twattle while he got fixed up. The thought really put him in a bad mood.

 

As Seamus climbed over the rocky outcrop at the back of the ruins, he surveyed the broken crates where his once not so recently acquired precious loot had been stashed; the annoyance of having to visit McMourning was suddenly forgotten as he began to feel a bitter rage build inside of him.

 

Damn that little green pixie and her silly hat. The next time he caught up with her he’d make a nice little bonnet out of that silly hat… now that would be a grand idea… a little, pretty, green  belle… “Pixie Belle”… yes, that would be her name… once he was finished with her…

 

An evil grin formed on the hatters face as he contemplated what would hopefully be a soon to be re-visited grudge match…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mutter]

Thanks for the report! Any chance of coverage of the other games, too?