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May-Lifaux Bournemouth 27th May


Dogmantra

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I don't get to travel much for tournaments for a few reasons, which is why I'm glad we have such a great local Malifaux scene with events fairly often. Yesterday's* tournament was a ranked 3 round 50ss GG2017 tournament, standard stuff no gimmicks at LvL Up in Charminster, run by the lovely @Doctor Dave. We got a record turnout for Bournemouth with a total of 17 players and it was nice to see some "repeat customers" I recognised from previous events.

*technically the day before yesterday by the time I post this, I guess this took a lot longer to write than I thought it would.

I wasn't taking notes at the time (when I try, I often stop doing so quite quickly because I get too caught up in the game) so all of these are from memory, but I thought I'd do a quick rundown of my 3 games with some thoughts as I go. I ran my beloved Gremlins of course, and there was a pretty high Gremlin turnout. Gone are the days of Neverbourne 1 and taking best in faction by default because I'm the only one. There was every faction represented too, which is always nice to see.

 

Game 1: Ben Sime (Arcanists)

Standard deployment, Extraction.

  • Claim Jump
  • Frame for Murder
  • Leave Your Mark
  • Last Stand
  • Hidden Trap

The last time I faced Ben, he totally destroyed me with Mei Feng so I was determined to make sure this didn't turn out quite so disastrously. The board was Dr Dave's swamp terrain, which looks amazing and I wish I had photos to show yall. Essentially, there was a rough line of tall blocking terrain along the right side of the board, and then on the top slightly less tall blocking but decent cover. In the bottom left corner was a large patch of swamp with a bridge over it, which was quite open. And in the centre was a patch of empty swamp. Scatter was mostly small plants for soft cover, with some crates as well.

My crew:

  • Som'er Teeth Jones with Family Tree + Dirty Cheater
  • Old Cranky
  • Sammy LaCroix with Encouragement
  • Francois with Stilts
  • Burt Jebsen with Dirty Cheater
  • Merris LaCroix
  • Slop Hauler
  • 2x Bayou Gremlin

Ben's Crew (sorry I don't remember all the upgrades)

  • Sandeep Desai with Commands & the Academic one
  • The Essence of Power
  • 3x Oxfordian Mage (2 had wards, 1 had Well Rehearsed)
  • Carlos Vasquez with Practised Production
  • The Valedictorian
  • Arcane Effigy

I took Claim Jump and Frame For Murder on Francois. Ben took Claim Jump and Leave Your Mark.

I lost the deployment flip and had to deploy first. So I took advantage of the terrain and chose the right side of the board (thank goodness for mats that can rotate easily), putting the big swamp in Ben's corner rather than mine and giving him slightly less cover to choose from. I mostly deployed in a bubble towards the right, with Burt & Francois taking a more central position, and Merris on my left, hopefully protected by the large patch of severe terrain that the swamp represented. Sadly, The Valedictorian took that flank and could ignore the swamp with flight. Carlos took the other flank and then the rest of Ben's models hung out roughly in the middle.

 

Honestly the turns are kind of blurred together in my memory. I'm pretty sure we played four turns (we ended due to time). Essentially, Ben was playing a somewhat experimental crew (although he has been playing a lot of Sandeep this year). The Valedictorian gunned down the left for Merris but due to some very lucky flips early on, she held on for a turn longer than she really deserved to. The only summoning I really did was to bring two new Gremlins out on the first turn for some extra activation, then Som'er transitioned to shooting. He really benefited from the fairly low Df of Ben's crew, and between Encouragement and some nice hands I managed to get off a lot of good shots. Francois's job was simply to be an unignorable threat, and he managed that although I think I quite obviously telegraphed FFM, because he died to a Mage rather than Sandeep. I managed to deny all the points in turn 2, pulling the Extraction marker towards me. Sandeep focused mostly on attacking with the Essence of Power giving him bonuses on Ca (that was the experimental part) but he did get out a couple of Wind Gamin.

Between Practised Production and Well Rehearsed, Ben was dropping lots of Scheme Markers outside of scoring position, and Sammy managed to turn one into a Stuffed Piglet that acted as a blasting point for Burt to kill a Mage and then on the next turn walked right up to the Effigy (who was on 1 wound) and the Essence (on full) and exploded, killing them both. Sandeep brought Banasuva out after this but the only place he could be summoned was fairly far back due to a lack of Gamin, which meant he had to take the no cheating upgrade. If he'd come in with extra range and able to cheat right in my face it would have been different (and this was just a forgetful moment where he flipped before remembering Jealous Fire Lord, not a tactical blunder at all). Burt killed him pretty handily - Encouragement on Charges is silly good. Once I'd taken down two of the mages and the rest of the support, Ben was pretty much on the back foot and so just for laughs he threw Sandeep in to see if he could get off a last hurrah and kill someone, which ended with him dying.

Ultimately I managed to deny all of the strategy points and most of the scheme points. I forget the exact final score but it was either 7 to me and either 2, 3, or 4 to Ben because I forget exactly how many times he scored off Claim Jump and LYM.

This was an interesting game and the only case I've seen Last Stand be worth taking. Pretty much as soon as we started playing Ben said he regretted those schemes, and it makes sense because despite how many models he lost, Last Stand would still have scored him 3 just because of the sheer volume of Henchmen and Enforcers he had. It also felt like the hands were coming out in my favour. Sandeep seemed to struggle with hitting attacks while I had plenty of face cards available (Old Cranky and Sammy helped there of course, as well as losing a couple of Bayou Gremlins for Survival of the Fittest).

 

Game 2: Ben Leslie (Gremlins)

A gremlin-off!

Flank Deployment, Guard the Stash

  • Claim Jump
  • Accusation
  • Leave your Mark
  • Undercover Entourage
  • Show of Force

This wasn't a particularly pleasant scheme pool, the only schemes I really like here are Claim Jump & Leave Your Mark. Undercover Entourage is ok, but I usually take it with Zoraida due to Animal Shape (which usually goes onto Sammy) and I had already decided to run Som'er all three games because I'm just much more confident with him. There were three large blocking pieces in spread out roughly along what would be the centreline, with one half of the board being a bit more open, with a blocking plateau and a forest. There wasn't much scatter here.

My crew:

  • Som'er Teeth Jones with Family Tree + Dirty Cheater + Liquid Bravery
  • Old Cranky
  • Sammy LaCroix with Encouragement
  • The First Mate with Where The Captain Can't See
  • Burt Jebsen with Dirty Cheater
  • Merris LaCroix
  • Slop Hauler
  • Bayou Gremlin

As you can see it's almost exactly the same crew because to be honest I was going for almost exactly the same schemes and I find Guard the Stash wants mostly the same stuff that Extraction wants. Liquid Bravery got added because I was fairly confident I could outfight a fighting master but I didn't really want to get screwed over by Brewie or Zoraida. Only one Bayou Gremlin with Family Tree was a bit of a weird decision but since it was 1 stone cheaper and I couldn't afford a second Bayou Gremlin (I later realised I'd miscalculated, adding Quality Mash Liquor to Crewfaux which is 2ss instead of Liquid Bravery which is 1). First Mate instead of Francois basically for a second Merris - she would run one and he would run the other.

Ben's crew (again not sure I have all the upgrades):

  • The Brewmaster
  • Apprentice Wesley
  • Trixiebelle
  • The First Mate with Where the Captain Can't See + one other (I want to say Treasure Map?)
  • Taxidermist with Do Over
  • Performer
  • 2x Akaname
  • 2x Stuffed Piglet

I took Claim Jump & Leave your Mark, Ben took Claim Jump and I don't know his other scheme. I'd guess LYM as well from his crew, but it could also have been Entourage on Trixie or the First Mate.

This already started out as a great game because while we were setting up we were talking Gremlins and I mentioned I'd been playing Mah recently since I got my hands on an LE card for her. Ben asked if I'd be willing to trade for a Som'er card and I got very excited and obviously said yes. I was starting to doubt they actually existed and now I own one so that was a great outcome :D

I lost deployment again and had to go first. I deployed so that the three large blocking bits were essentially channeling Ben's crew into two kinda narrow paths to get to the Stashes. I deployed mostly in a blob in roughly the middle, but towards the left Stash. Merris went off as far left as possible, and The First Mate and Burt sat up near the forest, in position for the right stash. Ben went mostly central, able to swing either way, with Wesley and Trixie towards the right.

 

First turn involved more stalling, but this time I was out activated, losing initiative and having to go first with "only" 8 activations, up to 9 with my 1 summon. I mostly moved towards the left stash which was flush with extra blocking terrain, giving me a nice big area to hide behind. My worry was that TFM and Burt would get pulled out of position and bullied by the Performer and Trixie if I moved them too early, but I managed to go late enough that it wasn't an issue. Ben did a pretty interesting thing with the Akaname which I thought was neat. I've been fairly critical of the poison synergy because I don't think it's worth it spending the AP to poison your own models usually, but he used the Stuffed Piglets to take heals off Brewmaster, giving them both Poison +2, which the Akaname took when they activated. He had pretty lousy luck though because apparently his hand didn't contain a 5+:mask and he didn't get one on either activation for a corpse to get himself a new Stuffed Piglet. The piglets got pushed up a bit by Performer + Trixie, and by the end of turn 1, his force had split with Brewmaster, Wesley, Trixiebelle, the Performer and 1 Akaname towards the right stash and the others towards the left. Burt and The First Mate had a bit of a bad time of things. I lost initiative and they each had a bunch of poison on them, and they also each got given a stack of Swill, followed by a Drinking Contest.

On the other side of the board, I lost a Bayou Gremlin who was quickly turned into a third Stuffy, and the Taxidermist hid on the opposite side of the stash, pretty much out of sight. Som'er transitioned into shooting as was the game plan. He managed to just get LoS on the Taxidermist, and Encouragement let him ignore the cover. 4 damage onto the Taxi, and then a SS and Encouragement to shoot the unactivated First Mate killed him (he'd taken some damage last turn). Meanwhile, Merris drops a Claim Jump marker and chooses to walk into position for LYM. Sadly I was about 1" out of being able to get one down that turn. I finally had to turn my attention to The Brewmaster, so Sammy activated and Jynxed him twice, denying Triggers (I did NOT want Burt going back to the deployment zone). Burt then activated and very luckily managed a walk while on -2 Wp and :-fates to get into range of the Stash, followed by two Encouragemented hits on Brewmaster. Luckily, Encouragement is all duels resulting from the action, so I was at straight flips for Drinking Contest, although I didn't need to cheat because I got some really nice high flips. I was just in range of Som'er's Do It Like Dis for the extra Ram, and am amazingly lucky Red Joker damage flip for 9 meant Burt managed to kill The Brewmaster, just out of Wesley's respawn range. A focused Leap from The First Mate let him drop the second Claim Jump marker, but he was denied by Trixiebelle who also managed to get both Claim Jump markers down herself. Some shuffling around from Ben and he managed to pull Burt away from the Stash and tie him up with a Stuffed Piglet just for good measure. I didn't score on turn 2, and Ben got the strat and Claim Jump.

Turn 3 was pretty bloody, Som'er continued to use Encouragement to ignore cover and killed the Taxidermist, while Sammy just sat there and dropped a marker for Claim Jump. Burt managed to get off some lucky high Ram defense flips, killing the Akaname who charged him, as well as the Stuffed Piglet, getting back to the Stash Marker and hiding so he couldn't be pushed away. I ended up killing plenty of enemy models and got all 3 points, denying all 3 as well. Eventually, I managed to get him down to Trixiebelle on one wound and two Stuffed Piglets left, which was essentially the end of the game as he could no longer score. I won 9-2.

 

Game 3: Liam Coupland (Guild)

We don't really have many local Guild players, my most common opponents are usually playing Arcanists, 10T or Neverborn so I always like to play against Guild and I have a soft spot for them since Lady J was the very first master I ever played in my intro game.

Close Deployment, Reconnoiter

  • Claim Jump
  • Dig Their Graves
  • Accusation
  • Hunting Party
  • Mark for Death

Not a scheme pool I was particularly confident about, but definitely an interesting setup. Close is always a weird one. I knew I was taking Claim Jump but I had no idea which other scheme to take. The terrain on this board was a little sparse, with a large building in each table quarter, a forest just to the left of the centre, a big old Grim Reaper statue which I use for Guild Ball because it's the most appropriate football terrain and some barrels for scatter. The buildings were papercraft templates that Dave had bought off Wargamevault for 79p and for that price they looked really nice! I was hoping the fact half the terrain on this board was mine would give me some kind of "home turf" advantage.

My crew:

  • Som'er with Family Tree, Dirty Cheater and Liquid Bravery
  • Old Cranky
  • Merris LaCroix with Do Over
  • Burt Jebsen with Dirty Cheater
  • Slop Hauler
  • Lightning Bug
  • Pigapult
  • 3x Bayou Gremlin

You can probably guess my tactic. It's not as effective in Recon as in Interference, but with such a lousy scheme pool I was basically playing for seven points. I figured if I could manage 3 table Quarters or 2 and a tie each turn with the Pigapult and score all 3 from Claim Jump, I'd be at 7 while Liam would be capped at 6, meaning any extras off my second scheme would be a nice bonus. Liquid Bravery was there because I anticipated Nellie after Liam had played her both matches so far and because Nellie is scary and last time I faced her I got totally destroyed.

Liam's Crew:

  • Sonnia (I forget the upgrades, sorry)
  • Malifaux Child
  • Francisco with Wade In
  • Phiona Gage (again I think she had some upgrades)
  • Brutal Emissary with Sonnia's Conflux
  • Brutal Effigy
  • Papa Loco
  • Watcher

I chose Claim Jump and Accusation for my schemes, reasoning Accusation because he had a lot of melee that would probably be contesting quarters and I could hopefully get off one or two points with a cheeky early Bayou Gremlin activation. Liam took Claim Jump and Hunting Party.

When I saw Sonnia I was not particularly looking forward to the game. Blasts are nice and strong against the bubble that's pretty much mandatory for my tactic. I had Merris but of course she's not that hard to kill, especially for a Master with a potential Ca9 and the blast immunity can backfire if she dies, giving everyone even more burning, and I was hoping the sparse terrain would work in my favour if I needed to blast stuff off the map with Som'er. I lost deployment and had to go first. This was the first time I was given first where I didn't want it which is pretty unusual for me, I really appreciated the asymmetry of the boards. But for this match I really needed to be able to respond to Liam's deployment for my strategy to work.

I ended up putting Burt all alone on the left, and the rest of my models hiding behind a house nice and far back in my deployment zone. Since it was positioned diagonally I couldn't get a particularly good angle. Liam deployed to pincer me and had Sonnia in position from the start to be able to walk in and hit at least one model from my right, with Francisco and Phiona able to come down the left of that building. He was concentrated on the right, with the Watcher right over on the left to be able to get LoS around the building I was hiding behind.

I immediately abandoned any illusion of getting summoning to work because it required just too much setup, so the Pigapult's first activation was to hurl the Slop Hauler and Lightning Bug off to the left half of the board. I figured I could at least get Claim Jump and Recon that way even if everything else died. I was holding off on Som'er for as long as possible because I wanted to get some damage off on some key models turn 1. Liam saw what I was doing and Malifaux Childed to drop a flame wall on one side, and used the Emissary on the other to protect Papa Loco. Old Cranky's :+fate Df aura meant I was swinging at Som'er with Bayous and Cranky himself and I got a nice couple of masks to push out for LoS past the flame wall. Som'er then managed a fantastic turn, dropping Rams for Do It Like Dis and killing the Malifaux Child, which removed the wall. He then had LoS to Papa Loco, who he killed with his other two AP. Papa exploded and hurt a bunch of models. Sonnia didn't manage to hit her one attack that turn. Liam told me his highest card was a 9 that turn, while I had 3 or 4 face cards, so hands definitely helped me out.

Som'er immediately activated next turn and went a-shooting. I made a silly mistake, wanting to drop a Severe onto Francisco to pop HtK and blast over to Phiona, then pick off Francisco with my last AP so I focused for the :+fate damage flip. Of course, Franc's Df is 5, which is the same value as Som'er's Sh, and my highest card was a 12, so I was matched on 17 and ended up on one negative anyway. I did manage a lucky Moderate, so Phiona took the same damage, but Francisco wasn't going to die that activation and while I managed to get him down to HtK with Som'er's 3rd AP, on his activation he charged in, killing Som'er, which was a little disheartening, and he healed up as well. Three shots would have been better because I'd have had a better chance to take Francisco down, but eh you live and learn (or in Som'er's case you die and learn). I had also made the mistake of going for three shots from the pigapult to try to finish him off before he activated, but they all missed since I was never planning to shoot with it so had no piggy ammo.

Phiona charged in and almost killed a Bayou Gremlin, remaining there on 1 wound for much longer than either of us expected, my Ml4s were just not enough to hit her. The Brutal Emissary also moved in to support Phiona and managed to get Burning off onto Merris. Luckily I could immediately remove it with with an interact from Old Cranky (top tip: vs masters like Kaeris and Sonnia, the interact to remove burning is an oft-forgotten rule that really helps you out). Meanwhile, Burt killed the Watcher and the Bug moved up to get Claim Jump on her own. Sonnia moved into melee with the Pigapult and a Bayou Gremlin, mostly using the Pult as a card draw engine, although it wasn't as effective as it should have been because I was getting some silly flips and several attacks missed. The Sloppy and some Bayous managed to take down Francisco. I scored turn 2 recon and claim jump, Liam got claim jump. From turn 3 onwards it turned into a really bizarre game of Liam trying to off my Gremlins but not too much because he needed the Hunting Party points, and the Bug and Hauler were way too far to kill so he couldn't get the auto-points. I dropped Accusation onto Sonnia and she didn't remove it, instead trying to finish the Gremlin she was with (who squeeled away) and the Pigapult which she dropped to 1 wound. Phiona died, so it was just the Emissary left, getting off ridiculous numbers of free attacks and getting a kill, but thankfully not finishing Merris. Burt killed the Brutal Effigy and the Bug did Claim Jump again.

And then was my "proudest moment". Merris wanted to help kill the Emissary, who was still engaged with a Bayou Gremlin. I needed that Gremlin to be assured Accusation next turn (one on Sonnia, one on Emissary, I'll hit whichever one doesn't activate first next turn), so I used Gremlin Cunning to stack the deck, ensuring I'd randomise into the Emissary, and then put a nice high card for the attack flip. So the top three cards of my deck were 4, 8, 12. I declared the attack. "I'll have to randomise," I said, "bayou gremlin" flip... 4. It's at this exact moment I remember that you hit the lowest card flipped, so I'm attacking my friendly with a 12 to hit. And the lowest card in my hand was a 10. I managed to cheat down to miss but dang that was the silliest thing I've done in a long time. The rest of the game was very simple. I got Accusation once more, my two remaining Bayou Gremlins died, giving Liam another for Hunting Party, and at the end we were simply trying to reposition in order to get Reconnoiter, and I denied a final Claim Jump point. The final score was 8-4 to me in one of the weirdest games I've played. It's always very intense when you're facing such a killy master as you try to activate in precisely the right order to make sure you can survive, and activation order totally dictated the flow of that game. It seems like whenever I face someone from Team Scum I have a weird game. Last tournament I played Dom Westerland with a similarly odd crew, and it was just as intense. Very enjoyable.

 

I ended up taking 1st out of 17 and I had a great time. I chose the big mystery box and got a translucent Lynch, who is a master I didn't have for a faction I actually play so that was a nice bonus, and I do love the whole casino aesthetic. The prize support was excellent from the store, with store credit as well as a 16 player prize kit all the way down to 6th place and credit for best painted as well, won by a local, so I got an extra swell of pride. There was talk of some of the Bournemouth locals seeing if we can band together to travel to some events in the future, and I'd love to do it, everyone who came down was lovely. :)

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