James Dyson Posted November 28, 2019 Report Share Posted November 28, 2019 Hello! I'm making this thread to document my games of Malifaux, 3rd Edition. This will be similar to my 2nd edition thread, which focused on Parker Barrows and Outcasts. I'll start this one on Outcasts and Bayou - and I expect Neverborn, Arcanists and Ten Thunders games to join the party eventually as well. Feedback is appreciated, as I hope taking these notes and sharing them will help make me a better player. Arcanists Rasputina/ December Rasputina vs. Dr. McMourning - 3/14/2020 - Corrupted Ley Lines - 7-3 - Win Bayou Wong/ Wizz-Bang Wong vs. Youko - 50ss - 2/14/2020 - Vassal League Game 1 - Reckoning - 2-3 - Loss Wong vs. Mary "Blacktongue" Bonnet (aka Molly) - 50ss - 2/22/2020 - Turf War - 6-4 - Win Zoraida/ Swampfiend Zoraida vs. Titania - 50ss - 2/18/2020 - Vassal League Game 2 - Plant Explosives - 6-7 - Loss Zoraida vs. Nicodem - 50ss - 3/19/2020 - Practice for Vassal League Game 4 - Recover Evidence - 2-4 - Loss Zoraida vs. Zoraida - 50ss - 3/21/2020 - Practice for Vassal League Game 4 - Recover Evidence - 2-8 - Loss Zoraida vs. Lucas McCabe - 50ss - 3/28/2020 - Vassal League Game 4 - Recover Evidence - 5-1 - Win Zoraida vs. Titania - 50ss - 4/04/2020 - Vassal League Game 5 - Corrupted Ley Lines - 3-8 - Loss Som'er Teeth Jones/ Big Hat Som'er vs. Brewmaster - 50ss - 2/29/2020 - Reckoning - 5-4 - WinSom'er vs. Captain Zipp - 35ss - 11/24/2019 (Round 1 of Tournament held at Comic Quest in SoCal) Som'er vs. Colette DuBois - 35ss - 11/24/2019 (Round 2 of Tournament held at Comic Quest in SoCal) Som'er vs. Barbaros (Outcast) - 50ss - 7/12/2020 - Public Enemies - 2-2 - Draw (Opponent Concedes) The Brewmaster/ Tri-ChiThe Brewmaster vs. Sandeep Desai - 50ss - 12/08/2019 - Round 1 of TournamentThe Brewmaster vs. Mah Tucket - 50ss - 12/08/2019 - Round 2 of TournamentThe Brewmaster vs. Sonnia Criid - 50ss - 12/08/2019 - Round 3 of Tournament Captain Zipp/ Infamous Captain Zipp vs. Albus Von Schtook - 3/12/2020 - Vassal League Game 3 - Corrupted Ley Lines - 3-3 - Draw (Opponent concedes) Ulix Turner/ Sooey and PigUlix Turner vs. Sandeep Desai - 5/07/2020 - Vassal League Game 6 - Symbols of Authority - 3-3 - Draw Ulix vs. Mary "Blacktongue" Bonnett - 5/22/2020 - Vassal - Symbols of Authority - 6-8 - Loss Mah Tucket/ Tricksy Mah Tucket vs. Dashel Barker - 5/25/2020 - Vassal - Corrupted Ley Lines - 3-1 - Win Explorer's Society Lucas McCabe/ Wastrel McCabe vs. Tara - 5/17/2020 - Symbols of Authority - 6-8 - Loss Guild Nellie Cochrane/ JournalistsNellie vs. Hoffman - 50ss - Recover Evidence - 7/25/2020 - 2-3 Loss Charles Hoffman/ Augmented Hoffman vs. Mei Feng - 50ss - Recover Evidence - 8/08/2020 - 6-6 Draw Lady Justice/ Marshal Lady Justice vs. Yan Lo - 50ss - Public enemies - 8/09/2020 - 5-7 Loss - Dead Summer Round 1 Lucius Mattheson/ Elite and Mimic Lucius vs. Brewmaster - 50ss - Corrupted Leylines - 8/14/2020 - 4-2 - Win Dashel Barker/ Guard Dashel vs. Asami - 50ss - Corrupted Leylines - 8/15/2020 - 4-5 - Loss - Dead Summer Round 2 Cornelius Basse/ Frontier Basse vs. Kirai - 50ss - Symbols of Authority - 8/24/2020 - 4-5 - Loss - Dead Summer Round 3 Outcasts Von Schill/ Freikorps Von Schill vs. Reva Cortinas - 50ss - 11/26/2019 - Turf War - 7-1 - Win Von Schill vs. Kaeris - 50ss - 11/30/2019 - Corrupted Idols - 3-0 - Win Von Schill vs. Seamus - 50ss - Vassal - 12/14/2019 - Reckoning - 2-1 - Win (due to time, only 2 rounds played) Von Schill vs. Jakob Lynch - 50ss - DEMO - 12/17/2019 Von Schill vs. Lady Justice - 50ss - 2/15/2020 - Turf War - 4-4 - Tie Parker Barrows/ Bandit Parker vs. Seamus - 35ss - 12/21/2019 - Turf War - 7-1 - Win Viktoria Chambers/ Mercenary Viktoria vs. Shenlong - 50ss - 2/17/2020 - Plant Explosives - 4-8 - Loss Resurrectionists Reva Cortinas/ Revenant Reva vs. The Dreamer - 50ss - 12/31/2019 - Turf War - 3-2 - Win Reva vs. Collodi - 50ss - 1/04/2020 - Plant Explosives - 3-6 - Loss Reva vs. Youko - 50ss - 1/11/2020- Plant Explosives - 7-6 - Win Reva vs. Albus Von Schtook - 50ss - 2/20/2020 - Corrupted Idols - 0-2 - Loss Nicodem/ Mortuary, Zombie Nicodem vs. Euripides - 50ss - 1/25/2020 - Reckoning - 5-4 - Win 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted November 28, 2019 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2019 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 11/26/2019. It was a 50ss game between myself and a newer player (shoutout to Liam!) using the Round 1 pool from the upcoming SoCal Regionals on 12/08/2019. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up The Deployment, Strategy and Scheme pool were: Flank Deployment Turf War Harness the Ley Line, Dig Their Graves, Take Prisoner, Deliver a Message, Vendetta I announced Outcasts, he announced Resurrectionists. I announced Von Schill, and he announced Reva Cortinas. I admit I went into this game with the intent to play Von Schill, as I had just finished painting his crew. The crew I built was: 5ss Von Schill Steam Trunk Arik Schöttemer Hannah Lovelace Freikorps Librarian Drachen Trooper 2x Freikorpsmann His crew: 3ss Reva Cortinas 2x Corpse Candle Vincent St. Clair w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch Lampad w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch Lampad 3x Shieldbearer When it was time to choose schemes, I opted for Take Prisoner on one of his Shieldbearers, and Vendetta (Drachen Trooper on Vincent). My opponent ended up selecting Harness the Ley Line and Dig Their Graves. I did not want to do either Harness the Ley Line or Dig Their Graves with my crew, as I lacked any cheeky scheme marker placement abilities. Without them, I’d have to interact the old fashioned way - and with how mobile Lampads were, I did not want to get bogged down on the centerline. And I knew that my opponent would love me to move next to corpses to interact so Reva could attack me through them. Likewise, I didn’t want Reva to live, and expected her to sit back, so I didn’t take Deliver a Message either. That left me with Take Prisoner and Vendetta. The choices here were simpler - Shieldbearers are alright models, but are designed to tarpit - so perfect for someone I want to engage to score. Vincent was the best choice for vendetta due to his cost, and the Drachen Trooper had a long range, decent damage attack to score the first part. Deployment He was attacker, so split his crew into Reva, Vincent, Lampad, Corpse Candles in one group, and the rest in the other group. I asked him to deploy Reva’s group first, wanting to know where his threats were. He chose the deploy in an open corner, with a little severe terrain in his way. This also put me into a corner that was hemmed in by severe, dense terrain. He deployed his first group centrally. I deployed mine heavily on my right flank, with Arik going to solo my left flank. I planned to put Rocket Boots on him to get over the buildings that blocked vision to him. He deployed the rest of his crew aggressively on my right flank in response. Notably, the Shieldbearer I had selected for Take Prisoner was the one he put furthest back, on the Turf Marker on his deployment zone. Turn 1 He won initiative this turn, and went first. HIs opener surprised me - he double-walked Reva to the turf marker on my left flank and flipped it! This meant she was dangerously close to Arik, and I had no real incoming damage to worry about for the rest of the turn. This set the tone for his play turn 1. He aggressively moved his crew forward, double walking most of his models (and pushing with the Lampads), while Vincent killed a Corpse Candle near the middle Turf Marker to drop a Pyre Marker. On my right flank, he gets a Shieldbearer and a Lampad to bodyblock me from getting to the Turf Marker, with a second Shieldbearer close behind. All this aggressive play meant that I was able to react and hit back. On my right flank, Hannah, the Drachen Trooper, and my Freikorpsmann all moved towards my right Turf marker, and put a little damage on his Lampad and Shieldbearers. I got a lot of mileage out of equipping Rocket Boots and copying the Leap to move everyone out of the Severe terrain. On my left flank, Arik used Leap from his own pair of Rocket Boots and charged Reva, putting some wounds on her early. It also put pressure on my opponent to cheat for next turn, or Arik would likely put Reva in the dirt. We both claimed our deployment zone Turf Markers. Von Schill spent most of his activation passing out upgrades, Charging out of terrain with Diving Charge, and focusing thanks to Shouting Orders on himself. Turn 2 This is the turn where the game swung heavily to my favor, and a major misplay. He wins initiative, and goes with Reva but between Armor, Stones and bad cards she is only able to put a few wounds on him. With nothing really threatening Arik, I go with Hannah who charges the Lampad. He uses the Shieldbearer’s ability to place and take the hit, but between high cards and a built in trigger for Sweeping Strike, she was able to kill both the Lampad and the Shieldbearer. My major mistake was misreading Adaptive Tactics - I read it as copying target Actions, not Tactical Actions, and so targeted myself with it to take an Ancient Words attack on his Shieldbearer, getting Glimpse the Void which did end up burying it. I’ll admit, I didn’t catch this error until I sat down to write this, and am not sure how it ultimately impacted the result. This did mean that I was able to claim the Turf Marker on my right flank with the Freikorpsmann uncontested. Arik used stones and Charged Fists to kill Reva, despite her stoning for prevention. I turned the Turf Marker next to Arik neutral, so I could claim it next turn. Von Schill charged to engage the Shieldbearer that was my Take Prisoner target, but not before nearly killing the Corpse Candle nearby through tossed Rocket Launchers. The unburied Shieldbearer went to my left flank, popping up behind Vincent. I ended up killing the Corpse Candle with my Drachen Trooper. At the end of the turn, we both scored the Strategy, while I scored Take Prisoner. The score was 2-1. Turn 3 He wins initiative again, and goes with the Shieldbearer on Von Schill to try and build up burning by attacking him while in the Pyre. Arik goes first for me, claiming the now neutral Turf marker and then tossing a grenade. The rest of this turn was unremarkable. He charged in on Arik, doing a good bit of damage and giving burning between Lampad and the Shieldbearer. Vincent swung to my right flank, but between my pushes I got the Drachen Trooper in range to drop Vincent to half wounds to score the first part of Vendetta. I was also able to give a Freikorpsmann Rocket Boots, and he leapt and spent two actions claiming the central Turf marker. The rest of my models just advanced, ready to kill Vincent next turn. At the end of the turn, I scored the strategy while my opponent did not, and I scored Vendetta. My opponent and I discussed the state of the game, and he revealed his schemes and that he felt that he could not come back for a win. Final score: 4 - 1 Projected final score: 7-1 Post-Game Thoughts The game was fun, as Liam was a great sport. We talked a bit about his scheme selection after the game, and how other schemes may have worked better for him in this particular match up (Drachen Trooper clearing markers to deny Dig points, general difficulty dropping markers while also claiming turf markers). For me, my crew ran well. General observations are that the Hand Pressure is real in this crew - Arcane Reservoir was a godsend, and I often stoned for cards to be able to meet TNs. I may have spent too many of Von Schill’s actions on Load Up - It did increase my crews mobility, but I wonder if I would have had better luck just taking a shot with him. The Librarian’s ability to push a friendly 4” towards another friendly was incredibly valuable. It extended my reach with Freikorpsmenn for claiming Turf markers several times. Arik was a beast, and did a lot of work operating solo as he did. If the game had continued, I do think my opponent would have been able to kill him, but with the rest of my crew locking down the right flank I wasn’t too worried. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted December 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 1, 2019 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 11/30/2019. It was a 50ss game between myself and a newer player (shoutout to Ash!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up The Deployment, Strategy and Scheme pool was: Corner Deployment Corrupted Idols Vendetta, Dig Their Graves, Breakthrough, Take Prisoner, Deliver a Message I announced Outcasts, he announced Arcanists. I announced Von Schill, and he announced Kaeris. The crew I built was: 7ss Von Schill Steam Trunk Arik Schöttemer Hannah Lovelace Freikorps Librarian Freikorps Scout 2x Freikorpsmann His crew: 4ss Kaeris Eternal Flame The Firestarter Fire Golem Elijah Borgmann Firebranded w/ Magical Training 3x Fire Gamin When it was time to choose schemes, I opted for Take Prisoner on the Firebranded and Vendetta (Freikorps Scout on Elijah Borgmann). My opponent ended up selecting Breakthrough and Deliver a Message. With Corner deployment, I did not see Breakthrough as a viable choice for my crew. I figured it would be hard to get the second point on Deliver against Kaeris, and Dig Their Graves involved more actions spent interacting than I wanted to do. The Firebranded wasn’t enough of a threat to me to be a target, so it felt like someone I could Take Prisoner on - and Von Schill could isolate him after he activated with the Pull! Trigger. Vendetta fit into my gameplan - Elijah was a threat that I needed to remove, and doesn’t have the pesky armor that the Fire Golem had. Deployment I was attacker, so I split my crew into Von Schill, Steam Trunk, Freikorpsmann and the Librarian in the group which he had me deploy first. I placed them all on the edge of my deployment zone, behind the large building. I picked a corner that I felt would be more detrimental for him to be in. I opted to deploy the Scout with From the Shadows, to cover my left flank. Turn 1 He won initiative this turn, and went first. The first idol ended up on the center. His first turn was unremarkable, with him dropping a few Pyre Markers and mostly walking his crew through the fire. He did push towards the center of the board, and I figured that he might force the idols to drop centrally, where he could build up Pyres or at least use the terrain to limit my guns. I gave out some upgrades with Von Schill, and charged over the building with Diving Charge. In a gross misplay, I failed to remember Diving Charge on Arik, and spent several cards giving him, and using, Rocket Boots for leap on him. I ran my second Freikorpsmann up my right flank, in case any Idols would drop there. Notably, the Scout was able to kill the Eternal Flame with a Focused shot, giving me equal activations. I was also able to maneuver the central Freikorpsmann into the Idol marker, and tossed it. I was also able to end the turn with the same Freikorpsmann having a Reinforced Assault Shield, to hopefully survive a first turn attack. Turn 2 I win the initiative this turn, and drop the Idol on my right flank, far away from anyone other than my Freikorpsmann. The Librarian pulled the Freikorpsmann back and healed him up before my opponent went with Kaeris, pushing a Pyre marker through Hannah, Librarian, Von Schill and the same Freikorpsmann and nearly killing the Steam Trunk. She also stripped all the shielded, and thus the upgrade, from my Freikorpsmann. I responded with Von Schill, using Load Up with the Give Em Hell trigger to destroy the Pyre markers with the ‘Blow it to Hell’ action on the Rocket Launcher. After giving out some more upgrades, he took a focused shot on the Firestarter who managed to Red Joker the damage prevention. The Firestarter went reckless, charged the Steam Trunk but failed to kill it, and ended the turn in my deployment zone. Realizing he was going for Breakthrough, I sent Arik after him. Unfortunately I once again forgot Diving Charge, and spent cards Leaping and charging him but ultimately couldn’t kill the Firestarter. The rest of the turn went uneventfully. We tossed the Idol back and forth, but it ended up on his side of the board. I cheekily used Fire Extinguisher to clear the Steam Trunk’s Burning. Hannah and the Scout spent actions trying to injure Elijah, but because I had exhausted my hand I was unable to get more than a few pips of damage. At the end of the turn, I scored the strategy. The score was 1-0. Turn 3 He wins the initiative, and the idol drops in the center again. He opens by disengaging with the Firestarter, and flying to the top of a building to hide from Arik. Centrally, Hannah and Elijah punched each other a few times. He had to spend his Golem’s actions pushing the Idol, which I kicked back over with the Freikorpsmann and Von Schill himself, who killed a Fire Gamin in the process. Kaeris killed the Steam Trunk, and did some damage to the Librarian. In reply, the Freikorps Scout managed to reveal Vendetta on Elijah, and kill the Firestarter. I recalled Arik’s Diving Charge, and walked him back to where he was the previous turn. Von Schill was an all star this turn - he Charged into the scrum, killed a Fire Gamin, kicked an Idol back over the line, and got into position to protect my Scout from the pair of Fire Gamin heading his way. At the end of the turn, I scored the Strategy again, along with the first point of Vendetta. My opponent did not score anything. Final score: 3 - 0 Turn 4 He won initiative, and the marker dropped on my left flank, close to the Scout. He opened with the Fire Gamin, Delivering a Message on Von Schill. I reply by killing Elijah with Hannah, setting up the second Vendetta point. At that point, my opponent concedes as he felt that he could not make enough of a come back. We briefly discussed how the game went, but did not really get into a full post-mortem. Post-Game Thoughts Corner Deployment was a definite challenge, especially with the terrain set up. I feel that my scheme selection went according to plan, although I didn’t have a chance to get the Take Prisoner. I did get greedy charging in with Von Schill and leaving him open to Deliver a Message, and I will have to keep that in mind in future games. Kaeris as a crew is an interesting one, and I look forward to my opponent getting better with her. I think the combination of being able to destroy the Pyre markers with Rocket Launchers and remove burning with the Steam Trunk gave me a leg up, as did all the Shielded and Armor in my crew. As far as my crew and play choices, this game gave me three major takeaways. Firstly, I need to rethink ‘playing faster’ as ‘playing with purpose’. I had Focus on Hannah and Arik as early as Turn 1, and over Turn 2 and 3 made multiple attacks and kept forgetting to use the Focus (despite planning to do so immediately before the activation). I also kept forgetting Arik’s Diving Charge - which put some serious strain on my Fate Hand in turn 2. In general, I played Arik poorly this game. While he did threaten the Firestarter, I think he would have been more useful actually putting the Firestarter in the ground. On the other hand, the Freikorps Scout was an absolute MVP this game. He killed two models, scored me a VP, and was on track to score at least 2 more points. 14” was plenty range to take pot shots, and the combination of abilities to ignore Cover, Concealment and Friendly Fire meant that I could land a shot when I needed to. Thank you for reading! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
admiralvorkraft Posted December 1, 2019 Report Share Posted December 1, 2019 I'd look back at pyre markers - I don't think they are actually destructible (though I could be wrong, not looking at the rules atm). 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CD1248 Posted December 1, 2019 Report Share Posted December 1, 2019 58 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said: I'd look back at pyre markers - I don't think they are actually destructible (though I could be wrong, not looking at the rules atm). You're correct, they are not destructible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted December 1, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 1, 2019 Thank you both @admiralvorkaft and @CD1248 - we missed that, and it would have made a difference! Rereading the rules on Drop vs Create, I realize that we also played the Pyres as Dropped, not Created - so that'll be another correction for us. Thank you for taking the time to provide that correction! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted December 18, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2019 This is an after-action report for a game played via Vassal on 12/14/2019. It was a 50ss game between myself and friend Warsor generating using the Malifaux App. Unfortunately, due to time zone differences (and me needing to run an errand) we only got through the first two turns. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up I randomly determined the map from Vassal’s options (read: used an online dice roller). The terrain was mostly scatter terrain, with several forests, and a pair of impassable terrain pieces in the top left corner. The pool was: Flank Deployment Reckoning Take Prisoner Vendetta Power Ritual Search the Ruins Breakthrough I announced Outcasts, he announced Resurrectionists. I announced Von Schill, and he announced Seamus. The crew I built was: 8ss Von Schill Steam Trunk Hannah Lovelace Arik Schöttemer Lazarus Freikorps Librarian Freikorps Engineer His crew: 6ss Seamus w/ the Whisper Copycat Killer Asura Roten Dead Doxy w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch Manos, the Risen w/ the Whisper Archie w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch My opponent’s crew featured three of the most mobile, durable, and killy models available to Resurrectionists. And of course, this was in a killy pool. I figured that I would not want to try any of the scheme marker options - any solo runner I sent would get mulched by one of his big trio, and I’d need every action available to get those Reckoning points. Vendetta was a snap pick, given all that. I gambled and picked Lazarus on Archie. I figured that Archie would run down a flank (as he has done the last few times I played Warsor), and Laz could anchor said flank. Archie would want to get stuck in to do damage - and Lazarus was able to tank and hit back. For my second scheme, I selected Take Prisoner on his Dead Doxy. It was either her or Asura (given how easily the other models in his crew could get out of engagement), and Asura was worth more Reckoning points and would be better to kill. In hindsight, I should have picked Asura - While she was worth more Reckoning points, the synergies between engaging the Doxy and helping Seamus out really played against me (and if the game had continued, it would’ve been even worse). Deployment As the pictures show, I deployed using the terrain to block line of sight from our crews, while limiting my opponent’s options for teleporting Seamus. Turn 1 I win initiative this turn, and have him go first. He opens with Asura summoning a Mindless Zombie in my half of the board, close to the blocking terrain. It was pretty clear he wanted to teleport Seamus there and use it for Cause for Celebration. She summoned another zombie, and failed to Reanimate the Doxy. I have the Engineer go to use Tools for the Job on my decent initiative flip, Strengthen Armor on Arik and move and focus. The Doxy used Blasphemous Ritual off the second Mindless Zombie to pulse out Focus to his crew, before moving up and concentrating. Between the Steam Trunk and Von Schill, I give Lazarus some Land Mines, Arik and Von Schill the Rocket Boots, and Hannah and the Librarian both the Reinforced Assault Shield. Von Schill also concentrates as a bonus thanks to his Shouting Orders. My intent was to help me unpack a little, and set me up to tank Seamus’ eventual damage, and retaliate. His Copycat Killer walks and uses Mistaken Identity to slingshot Seamus to a spot near blocking terrain further up the board, in range to get to the Mindless Zombie. Hannah walks and focuses, failing to use Adaptive Tactics. At this point, my hand was pretty bare so I let it fail. Archie in turn failed to leap, and just walked up. This left him in grenade range of Lazarus, who takes a shot. It’s then I realize Archie’s stats made him an ideal target for Lazarus’ grenade launcher, a fact I banked for next turn (and scoring Vendetta). Laz made some landmines. Manos goes, using Whispers and a failed leap to burn bad cards out of his deck. He walks up and concentrates. I move the Librarian up into the forest, and kill the Mindless Zombie. I realize immediately after that I might as well have concentrated instead, since it didn’t matter for Seamus’ Cause for Celebration. He last goes with Seamus, teleporting up and shooting Arik twice, thanks to Cause for Celebration, and cheats the Red Joker for damage. Thankfully, due to having the Shielded, Armor, and generous spending of stones Arik only takes 4 damage total. Seamus then teleports away. For his part, Arik uses Leap to get into the forest and toss a grenade into Seamus and the Doxy, hoping to get some incidental damage (and mask the fact I took Take Prisoner on Doxy). At the end of the Turn, I felt reasonably good. Aside from a misplay with the Librarian, I felt that I had endured the brunt of Seamus’ alpha strike well, and was in a good position to strike back. Turn 2 On this turn, I cheat a high card to go first. The Engineer goes first to reclaim it thanks to Tools for the Job, then shields up Arik again and gives herself another walk and focus. Manos goes next, and I remind my opponent of Gravity Well while he is looking at cards for Whispers. Manos then charges Arik, hitting twice but doing little damage before Leaping away from him, outside of the aura. I reply with the Librarian pushing herself into range to heal Arik for three, putting him back into a healthy spot. Asura summons more zombies, and Reanimates the Doxy to pulse out more focus with Blasphemous Ritual, spending a couple stones to hit various triggers. He then accomplices into the Doxy, taking Seamus by the hand and charging Arik. At this point, I realize the impact that she has with Seamus (giving him bonus flips and ignoring friendly fire for engaging Arik) and reply with Von Schill. He gives himself a Grenade Belt for the push to be in range to Leap next to the Doxy. I stone for the Pull! Trigger, and toss her behind my backline. I fail the resulting projectile attack from the Engineer, but that’s fine. He then shoots Asura for weak damage, eating more stones. Seamus goes, teleporting as close as he can (while avoiding Arik’s Gravity Well), using Focus to shoot my Librarian. I spend a high card to avoid it. He then charges and uses Bag of Tools twice (once with Cause for Celebration), getting the Execute Trigger once and eats a stone. Thanks to Armor and Shielded, she lived. Hannah goes next, copying the Healing Energies and hitting Purification to restore the Librarian to a healthy level of wounds, before walking and engaging the Doxy (to secure Take Prisoner). The Copycat trades places with Seamus, and swings twice on the Librarian, but at this point his hand is gone and he can’t connect, even with focus. Judging that it’s a good time for simple duels, I have Lazarus activate and shoot Archie twice with grenades, with him failing both tests. I reveal Vendetta and score my first point. Archie goes next, healing and using a walk and a leap to get around the Land Mines, before charging Lazarus. Even after a flurry, he only managed one point of damage on the robot. Steam Trunk walks up and heals the Librarian to full, but fails to give out any upgrades. Arik, my last model, goes for Bright Aether before walking and tossing another grenade, hitting Asura, Manos and Seamus for some more simple duels. At the end of the turn, neither of us scored the Strategy, and we both reveal Take Prisoner. The Score was 2-1. As mentioned earlier, it was at this point we called the game due to time. Post-Game Thoughts While this was a short game, Warsor and I talk often about faux and were able to digest it a good bit. My main takeaways from this game were: The Freikorps are very durable models. I’ve known this from a theory-faux perspective, but actually fielding a crew of models with that much damage mitigation - between Armor, Shielded, and healing - was oppressive. I’ve been so used to Seamus just eating a model a turn that seeing him fail to kill a 7 stone minion was really eye-opening. Again I picked Vendetta, and again it worked for me. Whether this is because Von Schill’s crew is good at it, or it’s more my playstyle, remains to be figured out. Gravity Well adds to the ‘denial’ elements of the crew, along with their durability. Being able to prevent Seamus from doing his teleport, or Manos and Archie from Leaping into my crew, gave me the space I needed to advance up and strike back. In the past, Seamus has been a true boogeyman for me, so I really rated this effect. MVP of the game goes to the Engineer. It was my first time fielding her, and she was a stand-out model. Tools for the Job allowed me to secure initiative for the cost of a card in hand. Which, coupled with the card cycling on Reinforce Armor, made me feel like I never had to stone for cards. The buffs on Arik alone were great, but I can see her using it on any of the bigger named models in the crew. Thank you for reading! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted December 19, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2019 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 12/17/2019. It was a 50ss demo game between myself and a local who was interested in the Honeypot Keyword (shoutout to Sean!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up The board was set up when we arrived, and was dominated by a building we could enter in the center. I spent some time going over the game and the crew building process with my opponent (who had played a few other demos before, but was curious about the Honeypot keyword). I happen to have all of the Honeypot crew that are out now, so talked him through the crew building process. The pool was: Standard Deployment Reckoning Breakthrough Search the Ruins Take Prisoner Claim Jump Outflank I announced Outcasts, he announced Ten Thunders. I announced Von Schill, and he announced Lynch. We then went through the crew building process described above. The crew I built was: 7ss Von Schill Steam Trunk Hannah Lovelace Arik Schöttemer Freikorps Librarian Freikorps Engineer 2x Freikorpsmann His crew: 5ss Jakob Lynch Hungering Darkness Gwyneth Maddox Mr. Tannen 2x Beckoner 2x Depleted 2x Illuminated Seeing as this was a demonstration game, I figured I would pick schemes that required a minimum of fuss. I selected Outflank and Claim Jump, with my Librarian the Claim Jump target. Deployment I was attacker, so I deployed in a line with my Freikorpsmenn wide on the flanks, and the rest of the crew closer to the center. My opponent deployed in a refused flank, with a handful of models (Gwyn, Beckoners) in the forest. Turn 1 We played this turn taking time to talk through each activation, which naturally led it to take longer than it may seem. At the start of the game, my opponent gave Von Schill, Hannah, the Engineer and my left Freikorpsmann a Brilliance Token. My opponent, for the most part, just walked his models forward and Concentrated. He did get to take a Derringer shot on Hannah with Lynch (I had moved her aggressively, trying to take an Ancient Words attack on one of his minions to soften it up), giving her a second pip of Brilliance. Having two Pass tokens, I also burned them to show off the value of drawing out activations turn 1. The most interesting part of my activations included Von Schill hitting the ‘Quick Reflexes’ trigger twice, and ended up giving out two Rocket boots (Arik and himself) two Reinforced Assault Shields (Hannah and the Librarian) and one of the Freikorpsmann the Land Mines. The Steamtrunk gave the other Freikorpsmann Land Mines to round out the Equipment. At the end of the turn, Arik tossed a grenade with Bright Aether active, hitting a few of his models. This was a great chance to show off simple duels, and as it turned out also got some damage on an Illuminated. Turn 2 Going into the second turn, I got to go first and buffed up Arik with the Engineer. My opponent opened with Lynch, and did his best to put some hurt on Hannah, and mostly succeeded. She lived, but lost her Reinforced Assault Shield and a few wounds to boot. My opponent did cheat a few times though, and I punished him by having Arik toss two Bright Aether-buffed grenades, hitting 5 of his models each time. This barrage spread a bit of damage and Distracted around, and killed one of his Depleted. After Gwyneth moves up and cycles cards, I try to finish an Illuminated off with Hannah but an untimely Black Joker from me/ Red Joker from him saved the model. The Illuminated goes next, and we walk through how with Brillshaper and Regen the illuminated was brought back up to a few wounds. However, I go with Von Schill next. I use Load Up to push for a cover-free line of sight on the Illuminated and Depleted, giving him the Rocket Launcher. I shoot the Depleted first with the Rocket Launcher, blasting onto the Depleted and dropping the Illuminated to 2 wounds. Von Schill then kills the Depleted with his Custom Clockwork Rifle, and her demise kills the Illuminated thus securing my first Reckoning point. The rest of the turn was walks and concentrates from both sides, with Hungering Darkness attempting to Obey Hannah but failing. I use the Librarian’s push and a walk to get into scoring position for Claim Jump, and walk the Freikorpsmann into Outflank position. At the end of the turn, I score the Strategy and both of my Schemes. My opponent did not score anything. Due to time, we called the game there and spent the rest of our time talking about the Honeypot crew. Post-Game Thoughts This was a demo game, so I went into it with an attitude of teaching. My opponent was excited after the game despite losing, so to that end I consider it a success! As far as observations, it’s really hard to draw much for myself from this game, so instead my takeaways will be of demo-run games: It’s very helpful to establish an open dialogue at the start of the demo. Talking through every activation, including reminding him of the abilities on his cards. There’s a lot going on in a Malifaux card, so having redundant abilities on multiple cards was helpful to reinforce the ‘check for abilities’ message. I saved my comments about actions until after the game, letting my opponent make his own choices. The ‘aha!’ moment when I pointed out how you can use the Beckoner, Lynch or Mr. Graves to push his own models around was a great thing to see. Demo games really do take a long time. I either need to budget a proper amount of time, or stick to smaller size games. MVP of the game goes to my opponent. He was a great sport, a quick study, and a good opponent. Thank you for reading! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebo Posted December 20, 2019 Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 On 12/18/2019 at 9:46 PM, Diceman87 said: The Freikorps are very durable models. I’ve known this from a theory-faux perspective, but actually fielding a crew of models with that much damage mitigation - between Armor, Shielded, and healing - was oppressive. I’ve been so used to Seamus just eating a model a turn that seeing him fail to kill a 7 stone minion was really eye-opening. But, as far as I understood, the librarian survived thanks to Seamus failing the shot (you cheated higher), with def 5 I don't know how this means anything about Freikorps durability. No saying they are not tough, they are, but Seamus can one-shot almost every model in the crew without you doing anything to prevent it. Well, every non-Drachen minion, at least. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted December 20, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 56 minutes ago, Zebo said: But, as far as I understood, the librarian survived thanks to Seamus failing the shot (you cheated higher), with def 5 I don't know how this means anything about Freikorps durability. No saying they are not tough, they are, but Seamus can one-shot almost every model in the crew without you doing anything to prevent it. Well, every non-Drachen minion, at least. That's fair. Upon reflection I think I was conflating Arik's tanking of Seamus's alpha with the Librarian surviving, as it was two instances of Seamus failing to kill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebo Posted December 20, 2019 Report Share Posted December 20, 2019 Yes, Arik with shielded + ss is a pain to bring down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted December 22, 2019 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2019 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 12/21/2109. It was a 35ss game between myself and one of our locals (shoutout to Liam!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up Corner Deployment Turf War Breakthrough, Search the RUins, Assassinate, Dig Their Graves, Take Prisoner I announced Outcasts, he announced Resurrectionists. I announced Parker Barrows, and he announced Seamus. The crew I built was: 2ss Park Barrows w/ Servant of Dark Powers Doc Mitchell Mad Dog Brackett w/ Servant of Dark Powers Midnight Stalker 2x Prospector His crew: 8ss Seamus w/ the Whisper Copycat Killer Madame Sybelle 3x Rotten Belles My opponent was keen on trying out the Redchapel crew, having recently built it. I built my crew knowing that Seamus was a major threat - but at 35 stones, he would likely be scoring one scheme by himself, not both. I figured that Assassinate was a viable choice for him, as was Take Prisoner - with all the lures and engagement that the Redchapel keyword has, it made sense to me. I didn’t expect my opponent to select either Breakthrough or Search the Ruins, given his only model for it realistically was Seamus, and Dig their Graves was a lot of work to make happen. Despite that, my opponent selected Assassinate and Search the Ruins. For my schemes, I opted for Search the Ruins and Breakthrough. I gambled on the Midnight Stalker being able to score Breakthrough for me, figuring that Seamus would be too busy to hunt him down, and the rest of the Redchapel crew not being a threat to him. I figured Search the Ruins would be easy with Parker’s Draw their Attention. Deployment I was attacker, so split my crew into the Bandit models, and the Versatiles. He had me deploy Parker first, and I did so putting Parker and Mad Dog both with lanes to take full advantage of Herald for them. My opponent’s deployment was as expected, with Seamus near some blocking terrain, and the rest of his crew at the edge of their deployment. I put the Versatiles in place to advance to the flanks, with one Prospector in base contact with my deployment Turf marker. Turn 1 My opponent won initiative, and chose to go first. His activations were all the same this round - spending both actions to walk his models up. My activations were a little more complex. Parker went first, having been in position (thanks to Herald) to shoot his first activation, a Rotten Belle that had double walked. I made three shots, netting three Draw Their Attentions and a pair of Highway Robbery triggers, which in turn left me with a scheme marker next to Mad Dog, a marker next to a Prospector, and a Turf Marker in my control. I used the marker from the first Prospector as a Dowsing Rod point for the second one, who mined for soulstone, walked and drew a card from Appraise. The second Prospector followed suit, mining for soulstone before walking twice. Mad Dog used Life of Crime to gain fast from his own Marker, and took a walk to be in range to shoot the Disguised Rotten Belle. The shot hits and kills her, and I use Fistful of Scrip to drop a scheme marker next to the terrain for Search the Ruins. I also set his deployment zone Turf Marker to Neutral. At this point, Seamus had been swapped with the Copycat Killer so Mad Dog was in range to Run and Gun a shot on him, but failed the Terror duel. My last activation was the Midnight Stalker, who walked twice and failed to Leap. Seamus was in position to take a shot at Mad Dog, hitting Weak damage (which I stoned 2 off) before using Secret Passage to jump next to the Midnight Stalker, slapping him a few times with the Bag O’ Tools. Turn 2 My opponent went first this time, and he opened with Seamus swinging on the Midnight Stalker. Unfortunately, both my opponent and I forgot Seamus had Ruthless (I should know better), and so he failed to connect. He then used Secret Passage to teleport away, hiding from Mad Dog’s retaliation. I respond with Parker, using Run and Gun to shoot Sybelle and be in base contact with the central Turf Marker, using Draw their Attention for Mad Dog to drop a marker. I shoot Sybelle a second time, and use Draw their Attention on myself to claim the Turf marker while getting a Highway Robbery trigger. I failed my third attack on Sybelle, not wanting to spend the card to cheat it. I then use Cash Out to draw two cards. Sybelle walked and charged into Parker, before setting up her Undivided Attention aura. Doc responded by healing Parker up, and the Copycat Killer swapped placed with Seamus. Mad Dog uses life of crime to walk and then Run and Gun at the exposed Copycat Killer, killing him but not before getting a Drop It! Trigger. My opponent moves a Belle to support Sybelle, and I have a Prospector make a soulstone, move up and drop a marker to slingshot the other Prospector. He has his last Belle walk and try to lure a Prospector, succeeding. I make a stone with the other Prospector, push up with Dowsing Rod and walk before Appraising to draw a card. To end the turn, I have the Midnight Stalker Leap and walk into position to drop my second Search the Ruins marker. At the end of the turn, I score the strategy and reveal Search the Ruins. My opponent doens’t reveal any schemes, and doesn’t score the strategy. The score was 2-1. Turn 3 My opponent went first again, and he opened with Sybelle attacking Parker, getting a Crit Strike that I stone some damage off of before turning on Undivided Attention. I have the Prospector go, walking into base contact with the Turf marker and dropping a scheme to help slingshot the other Prospector. Seamus goes next, reclaiming his Turf Marker. Remembering Ruthless, he then walks to take a shot at the Midnight Stalker, and I burn the Red Joker to avoid the hit. He then charges thanks to Cause for Celebration, but doesn’t kill him. I go with the Midnight Stalker next, who was Fast. I escaped with Leap, then proceeded to drop a pair of scheme markers for Breakthrough, while also being far enough away from the rest of his crew. He charges his Belle into my Prospector, landing a moderate damage swing. The Prospector pushes out of engagement with Dowsing Rod, Appraises the marker for a card, and drops another Search the Ruins marker. His other Belle moves and neutralizes the central Turf Marker, preparing to take it over next turn. Mad Dog goes Fast again, takes a shot on Seamus but fails to connect. Deciding to not waste more time attacking him, I walk to be adjacent to the Turf Marker and drop a scheme marker, planning to claim the Turf Marker with Parker’s activation. Parker goes next (my opponent being down two models) and shoots Sybelle, declaring Highway Robbery and ditching a card to have Mad Dog claim the Turf Marker. I Black Joker my next attack, but land a third attack with Reposition, getting out of engagement. I Cash Out for an extra card. Doc heals Parker a bit to round off the turn. At the end of the turn, I reveal Breakthrough, and score the Strategy. My opponent scores the Strategy but reveals no schemes. The score was 4-1. Turn 4 After we stone for cards, my opponent cheats to go first. He opens with Sybelle, charging to engage Parker once again and getting a blast off the attack, hitting Doc Mitchell for 3. I use Bedside Manner to pull Parker to safety, so in retaliation she kills Doc and sets up Undivided Attention. I open with the Midnight Stalker, who schemes, leaps and schemes before Concentrating. Seamus retaliates by Secret Passaging to take a shot on the Midnight Stalker, triggering my Demise (Eternal). Seamus charges in with Cause for Celebration for another attack, but doesn’t kill the Stalker. Mad Dog now resets Blow it to Hell, before walking to shoot the Rotten Belle, hitting a Red Joker to leave her on one wound. I shoot again, killing her and dropping a Search the Ruins marker. His last Belle walks over to the Turf Marker and neutralizes it. My Prospector reclaims it, while my second Prospector moves to secure Search the Ruins/ Breakthrough if need be. As the last activation, Parker uses Run and Gun to shoot sybelle, reclaiming the Turf Marker in the center, and uses Stick Up on Sybelle to regain a card. At the end of the turn, I score the Strategy while my opponent does not. He also fails to reveal any schemes. The score was 5-1. Turn 5 My opponent decides to play the next turn out, so we opt to do so. I go first this round, opening with the Midnight Stalker who leaps away from Seamus, and drops a third Breakthrough marker. Sybelle is his first activation, once again engaging Parker and pushing him off the Turf Marker, ending him 1.1” away so he was engaged, but not engaging, her. Mad Dog concentrates to shoot Sybelle despite the Friendly Fire, declaring Drop it! But eating stones to keep her up. Seamus goes, walking and shooting the Midnight Stalker, once again hitting Demise (Eternal) without a way to follow up. He then removes my Breakthrough marker, leaving me in a bit of a bind. I move one Prospector to engage his Belle, but fail to do any damage to it. My opponent burns pass tokens as I move my second Prospector into range to drop a marker in his deployment zone (if Parker can Draw their Attention). Parker goes, walking around Sybelle (but remaining engaged) and on the first shot, she flips the Red Joker on defense. Stuck with my last action, I manage to land a hit with Highway Robbery and Draw their Attention to get my third Breakthrough point, but he stones most of the damage away. I cash out to draw 2, but in the end his Belle doesn’t have what it takes to kill my Prospector. At the end of the game, I score both of my scheme secondary points, but fail to score the fourth Strategy point. My opponent fails to reveal, and announces he had Assassinate and Search the Ruins. The score was 7-1 in my favor. Post-Game Thoughts First off - huzzah to getting a full 5 rounds in! While I feel the game would be different if we had remembered Ruthless when Seamus first went after the Midnight Stalker, I’m confident that with the hand I had, I would have survived (at least enough to trigger Demise (Eternal)). In the end, my opponent did a decent job making scoring harder for me, but I felt in control the entire game. My main takeaways are: Parker felt like a powerhouse. Every activation felt like it contributed to scoring at least 1, if not more, victory points. Draw their Attention feels good from a thematic and game effectiveness perspective. Prospectors were great models. I liked the extra 3” they had from Dowsing Rod as a way to speed them up - and the resources they provided with card draw and soulstone generation were solid. I liked running the pair, but am not sure if I would do the same at 50 stones. I was unimpressed with the Rotten Belles, but Sybelle impressed me. Her engagement and minimum damage of 3 was a threat, but what really held her back was my ability to get out of engagement with her. She felt like a tank that couldn’t hold aggro. My MVP for the game goes to the Midnight Stalker. Perhaps because I informed my opponent of the rivalry in the fluff, but he drew Seamus’ attention early and for the rest of the game, Seamus was busy chasing the Midnight Stalker. I had just enough resources to keep him up, and in the end I feel it cost my opponent the game. Thank you for reading! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted January 2, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 12/31/2019. It was a 50ss game between myself and a newer player (shoutout to Kevin!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up Flank Deployment Turf War Vendetta, Assassinate, Take Prisoner, Claim Jump, Search the Ruins The terrain was set when we got to the store. We decided that all buildings were height 4, blocking, impassable terrain. The arch in the center could be walked through, and was also height 4. The pond of water was severe. The fences were height 1 blocking, climbable, impassable and the tree was concealing. I had just painted up Reva’s crew, and have decided to play them in our ‘New Year new Master’ league at the store. My opponent had been doing some painting as well. He had two proxies - the Bultungin were Stitched Together, and Pandora was Angel Eyes. I announced Resurrectionists, he announced Neverborn. I announced Reva, and he announced Dreamer. The crew I built was: 7 SS Reva w/ the Whisper 2x Corpse Candles Vincent St. Clair Wanyudo Restless Spirit Lampad Draugr Shieldbearer His crew: 7 SS Dreamer Lord Chompy Bits Angel Eyes Coppelius Doppleganger 2x Stitched Together Changeling I haven’t faced Dreamer yet, but I knew he was a summoner and was tough to kill given his Incorporeal, Protected (Nightmare), and other shenanigans. So I figured that Assassinate was a hard sell. I felt I had to keep him at arms length, and lock down a portion of the board with Pyre markers and so Search the Ruins was at odds with that plan. I opted for Claim Jump on Vincent, figuring he could stay healthy and help hold the center; and Vendetta on Angel Eyes with my Lampad. I wanted to kill Angel Eyes as she was his main source of ranged threat (which Doppelganger could copy and I didn’t want that), and Lampad would be able to get into position to plink a hit on her thanks to it’s push. My opponent chose Search the Ruins and Take Prisoner on my Draugr. He figured that the Draugr would get stuck in, so he wouldn’t have to work to get that point - which in hindsight, was brilliant. Search the Ruins was due to his ability to summon significant models, as well as Coppelius being a great scheme runner. Deployment I was attacker, and deployed first. I chose a corner that put my opponent into the most open side. I figured that preventing him from having terrain to hide behind would help Vincent project threat, and negate his ability to move around terrain with Incorporeal. I also had a nice protected corridor on my right flank, and a chokepoint to get to the Turf Marker there. I put Wanyudo and a Corpse Candle on that flank, relying on Wanyudo’s speed to get it early. I clustered the rest of my force around my Shieldbearer, staying in 3” for my Blasphemous Ritual. My opponent deployed conservatively, keeping behind what terrain he had. Turn 1 He wins the initiative, and gains a pass token. This turn went relatively quickly, as both of our crews advanced carefully. Most of my opponent’s actions were spent walking, using Lucid Dream when he could, and claiming his deployment zone Turf Marker. I tried out a ‘turn 1 plan’ that I had been developing for Reva, but I still need to work out the kinks. He opened with a Stitched Together, walking and Lucid Dreaming. I have the Restless Spirit claim my deployment zone Turf Marker, drop a corpse next to the Shieldbearer, then walk next to Vincent and use Strength from the Grave to give him shielded. My opponent next walks Lord Chompy Bits up and Lucid Dreams. One of his major threats already activated, I felt relief. I walked the Corpse Candle on my left flank twice, staying in charge range of the Wanyudo. He goes with his second Stitched (walking and Lucid Dreaming), and I walk my second Candle towards the center of the board. I planned to make the central Turf Marker as covered in Pyres as possible, to help secure Claim Jump. My opponent claims the Turf Marker with his Doppelganger, who then walks up. He indicated that he thought he could use Mimic to immediately take the action it copied, having intended to take a shot with Angel Eyes’ gun. I pointed out that it just gave him the action, not let him take it - so it was a learning moment. I activate the Wanyudo, charging the Corpse Candle and unsurprisingly killing it. Thanks to the Candle’s Demise (Smouldering Heart) and Wanyudo’s Funeral Pyre abilities, I dropped two Pyre Markers in the gap in the wall. I then push thanks to Burning Wheel, ending in base contact with the Turf Marker. I then claim it. He goes with his Changeling next, copying Lure from the Doppelganger and pulling my Candle closer. This was unexpected but beneficial, so I didn’t cheat to stop it. I go with my Shieldbearer, using Blasphemous Ritual to pulse Focus out to Reva, Vincent, the Restless Spirit, Draugr and Lampad. I then used Shield Bash on Vincent, relenting. I flip the Black Joker, but still manage to push him 2” up, his Shielded eating the damage. I then Charge up and Shield Bash Vincent again, cheating a low Mask for the Knock Aside trigger to give him 6” total movement for the price of a pip of damage. He runs Coppelius up, stopping to use Frighten Reminder on Doppelganger to get her closer to the middle. I go with the Lampad, walking and then using Hovering Flame to drop a pip of Burning on the Shiledbearer, ending behind Vincent. I then Concentrate, having nothing else to do. Dreamer goes next, Walking through the wall and using Manifest Nightmare to summon an Alp, spending a stone for the trouble. He then uses Your Nightmare on my Corpse Candle, which fails and the Alp appears, who kills the Candle thanks to Made to Kill. I Drop the Pyre marker under the Alp, to give him some burning. Dreamer then flips the Black Joker on Bad Dreams. Seeing how close Dreamer and Chompy were, I go with Vincent next. Using Cremation with a cheap tome, I turn the corpse that the Candle dropped into a Pyre that then pushes under both Dreamer and Chompy. I take some time to measure, and make sure it was within 8” of a point Reva could reach with a pair of moves. He then shoots the Alp, leaving it on one wound. I then pulse out Shielded to the Shieldbearer and Lampad. The Alp charges Vincent for his trouble, failing to hit. He then focuses and Lucid Dreams. Draugr goes, using Draw Off Flame to place next to the Shieldbearer, and then charge the Alp. The Alp Red Joker’s the first defense flip, but I connect the second and kill it - dropping a Pyre and healing Vincent thanks to Final Veil. Angel Eyes is his last model to activate, and she walks up and takes a shot on the Drauger, hitting Moderate and using Reposition to get closer to Coppelius and the Changeling. My last activation is Reva. I have no viable targets to summon a Candle from, and am too far back to really do anything. I walk twice, and get into 8” of the Pyre marker under Chompy and Dreamer. I use The Unquiet Dead, pinging Dreamer for 2. At the end of the turn, Dreamer and Chompy take some Burning damage. Turn 2 I stone for cards this turn, and go first. Seeing an opportunity, I go with the Lampad first. I use Hovering Flame to move past Vincent and the Draugr, then taking two walks - dragging a Pyre to be within 2” of Dreamer, Chompy, Coppelius, Changeling and Angel Eyes, and 8” of Reva. My opponent goes with a Stitched, walking to the central terrain piece and using Lucid Dream before Concentrating. I then go with Reva, and live the dream. I Summon a Corpse Candle from one of the Pyres in the center, before using the Unquiet Dead a whopping 6 times, hitting the Perdition’s Flame trigger (due to Stones, cards in hand and the Whisper securing the first). This shreds my opponent’s hand and deck, kills the Changeling (who drops a Pyre thanks to Funeral Pyre, which I place under Coppelius and Angel Eyes; it also neutralizes his Turf Marker) and puts a bunch of damage on Chompy and Coppelius. Angel Eyes suffers no damage due to Evasion, but she does gain several stacks of Injured. Importantly, I forgot about Research Specimens from Whisper, and did not draw my card. My opponent goes with Chompy next, walking and charging into the Draugr, but I use the Burning to avoid the hit. He then Lucid Dreams. My new Corpse Candle tries to use Death Urge on his Stitched twice, but doesn’t succeed. Coppelius uses Frightening Reminder to push Dreamer out of the Pyre Marker, then walks through the Pyre marker to him and uses Assist to put out his Burning (flipping Severe). I go with Restless Spirit, handing Shielded to the Draugr and dropping another Corpse marker. Angel Eyes walks through a Pyre marker and uses Assist on Coppelius, then uses her Sidearm on the Lampad. My Shieldbearer goes next, walking into position before Charging the Draugr, using Shield Bash with a lucky Mask flip to push him out of engagement with Chompy. I then Blasphemous Ritual again, hitting the Restless Spirit, Vincent, Reva and Draugr. His Stitched Together walks, Lucid Dreams, then charges Vincent but fails to hit. My Draugr uses Draw off Flame on Angel Eyes, placing in the Pyre Marker. He attacks her, using Blaze of Glory to connect and hitting the Shove Aside Trigger, pushing Angel Eyes up and taking the follow up attack on Coppelius, getting Severe damage. With my second attack, I spend the Red Joker from my hand with a Puncture trigger, which gets me a second Severe and kills Coppelius. I drop my Pyre marker from Funeral Pyre under Dreamer. Doppelganger goes, Luring the Shieldbearer out of Chompy’s engagement, before failing to Lure the Draugr. I send in Wanyudo, charging the Stitched (hoping to get the hit and push over the Doppelganger, and go for the other Turf Marker) but fail to connect. Dreamer is his last activation, swinging at Draugr and connecting a few times, but doesn’t kill it. My last activation was Vincent, who uses Agile to Walk away from the Stitched, and took a shot at Chompy but fails. At the end of the turn, I score the strategy. My opponent reveals Take Prisoner on the Draugr. The score was 1-1. Turn 3 Midway through this turn, we realized it would be the last turn due to time. This was mostly due to a lot of taking actions back, as we were both learning our crews. As such, early activations are made with Turns 4 and 5 in mind, and halfway through we change our actions to ending here. We both stone for cards here, and both cheat initiative. I come out victorious. Shieldbearer was my first activation, charging Reva to use Shield Bash to get her out of Chompy’s engagement. I then use Plant the Shield to be as much of a tank as possible. He opens with Dreamer, using Manifest Nightmare to summon two Daydreams, before using Cricket Bat on the Draugr, killing him. He then walks to the Turf Marker (however, he took these actions inside the Pyre and so had a lot of Burning). My Lampad takes a Focused shot on Angel Eyes, hitting Severe and blasting damage onto Chompy, and securing the reveal condition of Vendetta. This leaves Angel Eyes on 1 wound with a healthy stack of Burning, so I felt confident that she would die and secure the second point. I then move and push towards the Turf Marker in his deployment zone. Chompy goes, using Lucid Dream before swinging on the Shieldbearer twice (with two execute triggers!) which leaves my minion on 1 wound thanks to Hard to Kill, and me a stone and card lighter. I retaliate with Reva, using Ethereal Reaping on a Stitched Together three times to kill it and heal the Shieldbearer back above Hard to Kill thanks to Final Veil. Angel Eyes goes, and really punishes me for underestimating her. She charges my Restless Spirit, stoning a Ram on her attack. I can’t cheat to avoid it due to my low defensive stats, and she declares Drink Blood on a Severe damage, healing 4 and living to fight another day. She swings again, and I mistakenly chose not to ditch a card to Take the Hit with my Shieldbearer. This kills the Spirit, neutralizing my Turf Marker. It also allows her to take her bonus action Sidearm on my Shieldbearer, hitting with the Coordinated Strike trigger and dropping back to 1 wound. Chompy gets that attack, and finally ends my Shieldbearer. This was a massive tempo swing that I was not paying attention to due to not respecting Angel Eyes and playing sloppy, and I applaud my opponent for taking advantage of that. I have my Wanyudo attack and charge over the other Stitched together, but by this point his deck is hot enough that all of my attacks fail and he passes his simple duels. The Stitched retaliates with a Lucid Dream, then Gambles your Life with Wanyudo twice, once pulling a severe to one-round kill him. My Candle charges in but fails to do anything. He burns a pass token, and I have to go with Vincent. I walk to the central Turf marker and claim it. Doppelganger walks back to his deployment Turf Marker, and claims it. At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy and I score Vendetta. Neither of us score our other scheme, or the end of game for our first scheme. The score was 3-2. Post-Game Thoughts First off, my opponent played a hard game and while he made some choices that in hindsight weren’t optimal, he clearly had a plan and stuck to it. That’s honestly something I could use, as I often become reactionary in game rather than proactive. Overall, I’m pleased with my performance up until the middle of Turn 3. While I feel comfortable with my crew and scheme selection this round, having played the matchup I would defiintely make changes for a rematch. As far as Crew selection, I might swap something for a Bone Pile for the extra ranged action at stat 6, and the heal. I don’t have an extensive Ressurs collection yet, and when I can get my hands on some versatile models for them I am excited to see what options they bring. I think I would have been fine with another upgrade as well - either Whisper on Vincent or Draugr, or Grave Spirit’s Touch on Draugr. As far as Schemes go, I do think that Claim Jump was a good pick, but not on Vincent. He was already a target for engagement, and something like the Restless Spirit would have been better. Vendetta was also a pain - I didn’t like having to leave Angel Eyes alive, and in the end that resulted in a massive tempo swing. I did have the tools to run schemes in Lampad and Wanyudo, and I may want to investigate that next time. I did make several mistakes this game, and they are the first of many learning moments with this keyword. My top 3 would have to be: I was way too aggressive with the Restless Spirit. It has no business being anywhere near the front lines, and I misplayed it trying to secure a Blasphemous Ritual on turn 2. While pulsing out Focus is good, it did hamstring my movement for several models (Shieldbearer namely) and that did cost me in the end. I’m not sure the efficiency of the Focus made up for the inefficiencies of placement. This crew is definitely Card hungry. There’s a lot of discard effects, and no Arcane Reservoir in sight. I feel like two Whispers will be helpful, for both the card draw and the Intuition. I got sloppy when trying to finish the game. If I had a cooler head, I would have used the Shieldbearer to tank the second swing from Angel Eyes. She wouldn’t have gotten the Sidearm attack (and subsequent Coordinated Attack trigger), would have kept my Turf Marker in my deployment zone, and Vincent could have gone more offensive. For the reasons above, I’d honestly give MVP of the match to Angel Eyes for my opponent - he had built his crew around copying her gun while summoning with Dreamer (a nice complement I feel), and I tailored my actions around dealing with her because she was a Vendetta target. For me, MVP is hard to determine. Probably tied between Shieldbearer and Reva - I really appreciated the increase to my crew’s mobility that the Shieldbearer brought me, and every single action I took with Reva’s felt good. I’m looking forward to getting Reva on the table more this month, and will probably do a writeup at the end of the month sharing my experiences. Thank you for reading! 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted January 7, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 1/04/2020. It was a 50ss game between myself and one of our more seasoned players (shoutout to Colgan!) generating using the Malifaux App. It was part of our stores "New Year, New Crew" style event where we all are playing a new master. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up The terrain was set prior to our arrival. We defined the buildings at height 4, blocking, impassable. The smaller buildings were height 1, blocking, impassable. The spotter towers were Height 5, climbable, with height 1, climbable cover edges to the top. The tree stands were Severe, Concealing. The bright green puddles were Hazardous (Poison +1), with the exception of the walkways. Corner Deployment Plant Explosives Outflank, Power Ritual, Detonate Charge, Search the Ruins, Breakthrough I announced Resurrectionists, he announced Neverborn. I announced Reva, and he announced Collodi. The crew I built was: 6 SS Reva w/ the Whisper 2x Corpse Candles Vincent St. Clair w/ the Whisper Wanyudo Restless Spirit Lampad Shieldbearer Bonepile His crew: 7 SS Collodi 4x Marionettes Hinamatsu w/ Inhuman Reflexes Coryphee Duet Vasilisa Arcane Effigy w/ Effigy of Fate 2x Wicked Doll I’d not played against Collodi before, and I made the predictable choice of Outflank and Power Ritual given the Corner Deployment. I figured that with the terrain as it was, I’d be able to get my mobile models into the corners quickly enough. I wrote off Breakthrough and Detonate Charges given my weak scheme-running ability. I did go back and forth on Search the Ruins in lieu of one of the other schemes, but opted against it due to perferring the synergy of the other two schemes. My opponent selected Breakthrough and Power Ritual. Deployment My opponent was the attacker, and I had him deploy the Coryphee Duet first. I clustered my crew towards the right hand side, with the Wanyudo on the left. I gave 2 bombs to Wanyudo, and 1 each to the Bonepile, Reva, and Lampad. He gave 2 bombs to Hinamatsu, and one each to the Duet, Vasilisa and Collodi. Turn 1 He won the flip to go first, and I gained two pass tokens. He attached ‘Action Scene’, pulsing Focused out to his crew. I spent my pass tokens to achieve activation parity, so he spent his first three activations walking with a Wicked Doll and two Marionettes. My first activation was the Restless Spirit, dropping a scheme marker for Power Ritual before walking up and dropping a Corpse Marker. He walked Vasilisa up, taking a Marionette with her. He then walked again, and used Pull the Strings on the Marionette, in order to generate a Scrap token next turn. I had the first Corpse Candle use Light the Way to push the second Candle up, then walked into position to slingshot Wanyudo up. We alternate activating a Wicked Doll, Corpse Candle, and Marionette walking up the board. My next activation of note was the Shieldbearer, who used Blasphemous Ritual to pulse Focus onto my main models. I then used the Shield Slam attack, once on a charge, hitting the mask trigger twice to push Reva and Vincent 6” up the board. The Arcane Effigy dropped a scheme marker for Power Ritual, and then walked up. The Bonepile walked, healed Vincent, and then buried itself. Hinamatsu advanced up on the right flank. I had Wanyudo charge the Corpse Candle, using Burning Wheel to launch up to nearly the centerline on the far left corner. He activated Collodi next, using Puppet Master to have the Duet walk towards the left flank, before taking a walk. Entourage gave most of his crew additional pushes. He walked again, solidifying his position in the center. I moved the Lampad up, using a combination of it’s push and walks to build up some Burning, and reposition one of the Pyres dropped by the Corpse Candle. He walked the Duet towards the left flank, and Danced Apart. Vincent walked up and Concentrated. He took the fresh Coryphee and Danced Together, and Charged at Wanyudo. A lucky Black Joker allowed my Wanyudo to live on 2 wounds. For my last activation, I walked Reva up twice and took a focused Feed on Grief attack on a Marionette, cheating a severe in to kill it and drop a Pyre under two other Marionettes. His last activation was a Marionette walking up. Turn 2 Things were looking pretty bad for me on the left flank, so I cheat to secure the first activation. He gives Collodi the Soliloquy upgrade. I go with Wanyudo, charging through the Duet, needing all my movement to clear the terrain and the enemy’s base. I connect the Burning Wheel, and use the push to get to a position to drop a Bomb. He goes with Collodi, walking up and using Puppet Master to get Hinamatsu to walk into charge range of Reva. He then uses Puppet Master on Vasilisa to get her to summon a Stitched Together, but flips the Black Joker. He tries to use his bonus on Hinamatsu, but fails. Realizing I can’t get Reva out of the danger zone, I walk the Shieldbearer up and charge Vincent with Shield Bash, to make sure he was not also covered by the Hinamatsu charge. I then use Plant the Shield. As expected, Hinamatsu charged into Reva and I declare Take the Hit with my Shieldbearer. My opponent proceeds to stone for three Onslaught triggers (one from the Flurry attack) and when the dust settled, both Shieldbearer and Reva were still alive, but barely. I was a few stones lighter as well. Vincent went next, using a combination of his bonus action and Intuition from the Whisper to clear a bad card from my deck before shooting and killing a Wicked Doll, dropping a Pyre, healing Reva and the Shieldbearer, and drawing a card. He then shot a Marionette. The Marionette then charged into the Lampad, gaining some burning for it’s troubles from a Pyre. Unfortunately, it hit a Red Joker damage flip and did a whopping 5 damage to my squishy Lampad. It then used Pluck the Strings, forcing cards from my hand. The Lampad failed to return the favor, and opted to push itself closer to Reva for her healing bonus. My opponent walked the Wicked Doll on my right flank closer to the corner. Reva was my next activation, using Embrace on herself to heal 3 back. She then uses Feed on Grief with a Red Joker on a Marionette, getting the Ram trigger to heal more back (a total of 4 between the trigger, the action itself, and The Final Veil) as well as drawing a card and dropping a Pyre. I take a swing on Hinamatsu, who expectedly Butterfly Jumps away but takes a moderate hit for her troubles. I then use the Unquiet Dead, which Vasilisa fails. Vasilisa activates next, walking up and summoning a Stitched Together, but failing to heal herself. I walk my remaining Corpse Candle towards the right flank, intending to use it to unbury my Bonepile. The Stitched used Lucid Dream and charged Vincent, but didn’t do anything of note. I walk the Graveyard Spirit to drop a Corpse Marker near Hinamatsu before running away. The Coryphee Duet finally goes, having to walk and charge to get to Wanyudo, and whiffs on the attack before Dancing Apart. My Bonepile unburies, kills the Wicked Doll, and walks to be in position to drop it’s bomb next turn. With the remaining activations his, he walks his Arcane Effigy up and Dispels the Burning from Vasilisa (who had gained some by being in a Pyre). The Duet’s second activation saw it finally kill Wanyudo and pick up my Bomb marker, denying me the strategy point. At the end of the turn, no one revealed anything so the score was 0-0. Turn 3 I win initiative again, thanks to the pass tokens I was accumulating. He transforms the Arcane Effigy into the Arcane Emissary thanks to the upgrade, but not before Collodi attached Action Scene to pulse out Focused. Vincent and the Lampad gain Staggered thanks to Vasilisa. Figuring I needed to gain control of the center again if I wanted a chance to eke out a win (having reliably lost Outflank, and likely the second point of Power Ritual on top of missing a Strategy point) I go first with the wounded Lampad who uses a combination of walk and push to be in position to drop a Bomb marker. My opponent sends the Arcane Emissary into the Lampad, before charging again into Vincent. I have the Shieldbearer Take the Hit and drop to Hard to Kill. I go with Vincent next, and try to burst down the wounded Vasilisa but can’t kill her. The Stitched goes in on my Shieldbearer, and with Gamble your Life is able to kill my tank. I respond with Reva, summoning a Corpse Candle next to the Stitched Together before charging over the centerline, taking Ethereal Reaping through the Candle. I then dropped Reva’s Bomb. I try for Unquiet Dead but Black Joker it. Collodi goes next, attacking the Lampad and triggering his Demise ability, before puppeting the Stitched to walk next to my Bomb marker that the Lampad had dropped. I have the Candle try to hit Vasilisa and whiff. Vasilisa kills the Lampad, and uses Pull the Strings to have the Stitched pick up the Bomb, with the ‘die at the end of the turn’ effect up and none of my models nearby. My Bonepile drops it’s bomb and walks towards the right corner, hoping to get at least one Power Ritual point. Hinamatsu charges the Restless Spirit and ends it, before planting a Bomb of her own. The Coryphee Duet, with it’s various replace effects, walks to the left corner from me and drops both a scheme marker and a bomb. At the end of the turn, my opponent reveals Power Ritual. We both score the Strategy. The score was 1-2. Turn 4 He attaches Soliloquy to Collodi, and I get the first activation. I’m sorely down on activations this turn, but feel like I need to take action or I’ll be bogged down with disposable minions. I open with Reva, who summons a Corpse Candle before going to town on Vasilisa, cheating the Red Joker to get through her armor to kill her. With her last activation I walk towards the far corner, getting tunnel vision on Power Ritual even though I had no way to protect my third marker. The Arcane Emissary killed the Candle near it, flipping the Black Joker on the first attack and the Red Joker on the second. He took the Mask trigger and charged into Vincent before putting up his Negation Aura. My other Corpse Candle used Light the Way to reposition a Corpse Marker before walking and charging Collodi, whiffing. His Marionette walks and punches Reva before Plucking the Strings to hand out some Distracted. My Bonepile drops a scheme marker, and I focus instead of burying like I should have. His other remaining Marionette charged Reva and plucked the strings as well. Vincent walks away from the Emissary and kills both Marionettes thanks to Rapid Fire, drawing some cards and dropping some Pyres to protect Reva. Unfortunately, Collodi goes next and summons 2 more Marionettes before Slowing Reva and puppeting a Marionette to punch Reva. The Marionettes then take turns punching and Plucking the Strings, getting some damage and several stacks of Distracted onto her. The Coryphee Duet does it’s dancing shenanigans to drop another marker for Power Ritual (replacing the one it removed for the reveal) and dropping another Bomb marker. Hinamatsu walked and dropped a scheme marker. At the end of the turn, my opponent revealed Breakthrough. I revealed Power Ritual. We both scored the Strategy. The score was 3-4. Turn 5 We did the first few activations of this turn, but it was apparent from the onset that I could not come back for the win, so we decided to talk through the likely outcome. We agreed that even in the best case scenario, I would be unable to drop any more bombs (I had none), I could not get into a third corner (he could remove my home Power Ritual marker to deny me) and I could not get to the Reveal or Score position for Outflank. My opponent was poised to score full points on Power Ritual, but lacked the actions to get enough markers for the second Breakthrough point. He did have enough Actions to drop another bomb. We agreed that the final score would be 3-6. Post-Game Thoughts I learned a lot this game - mostly through error - for which I was grateful. My opponent played a strong game despite it being his first time putting the Puppets on the field, and I do see a lot of power in the keyword. His four main models - Collodi, Hinamatsu, Vasilisa and Duet - all having Armor +2 was a huge pain to deal with as a crew that didn’t have ways to ignore Armor. Sure, I had the Burning - but it was rarely relevant, as he could either remove it with Arcane Emissary, or just take a pip of damage and not care. My main takeaways are a bit more robust this go around, because they fall into broad categories: I built a crew that was too heavily invested in support staff and squishy, expensive scheme runners who didn’t run schemes; my healing, condition removal model of Bone Pile became a scheme runner instead. This meant that ~ 25 stones of my crew was locked into scheme running, pure support, or otherwise avoiding the fight. This left me outgunned, as I had Vincent and Reva against Hinamatsu, Stitched, and the Duet - to say nothing of Collodi and the sheer volume of attack the Marionettes brought. While I can’t expect to know every crew option available, I do need to consider the terrain when building my crew. And when I take a model for a job, it needs to do that job - and not get forced into a different role because I have to make up for misplays. I selected schemes that forced me to spread out and spend a lot of actions moving and scheming, in a strategy that is already requiring a lot of moving and interacting, with a crew that has few scheme shenanigans. I think if I had taken Search the Ruins instead of Power Ritual, I could have stuck closer to the center and snuck the Search markers out after I’d created more of a Pyre-heavy zone. Who knows - I might even have been able to push through with a mobile model like Wanyudo in a similar way to how Hinamatsu got past my line. When I played, I got tunnel vision on my schemes. I did my best to score the strategy, but my opponent quite simply outplayed me and denied me two points on it by stealing my bombs, thanks to his abundance of actions. I am half tempted to count how many actions our respective sides had - I know I had more ‘quality’ actions, and I spent a lot of them on movement. There’s a deeper discussion I have been thinking of with regards to action economy in the game in general, but I’ll save that for a different post. Suffice it to say, having a crew that is elite in size, where it’s strength comes from doing damage to achieve activation parity going up against a crew with 5 free activations before a stone is spent, and many of those activations have armor (thus making my actions worse overall), I felt outgunned and outmaneuvered. Oddly enough, Reva’s crew has more synergies with killing than I realized. The Shieldbearers have a built-in heal on their sword attack, so any beater with a defense of 4 or 5 can actually be reliably tied up by them healing above Hard to Kill repeatedly. If I need to do it after they’ve activated, I can just summon a Corpse Candle and kill it - instant 6” heal for any Final Veil model in range. I think Shieldbearers are also my anti-armor kit - Shield Bash has a trigger to do 1 damage from burning, so it’s a stat 6 attack that reliably does 2 damage per action - that’s better economy than Ethereal Reaping against Armor +2! That said, I kept the score to a 1 point differential up until the last two turns. I am confident that if I had not tunnel visioned, played a little differently, I could have scored a few more points. I was consistently killing 3-4 models a turn between Vincent and Reva alone. With two Whispers, this led me to drawing a ton of cards (and healing a ton with the Final Veil). My MVP of the game was my Bonepile - it scored me 2/3 of my victory points, and I misplayed it. Thank you for reading! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted January 15, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 1/11/2020. It was a 50ss game between myself and a newer player (shoutout to Patrick!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Note that for this game, blue beads were used to denote Explosives tokens, and blue 30mm markers were used for the markers. Set Up The board was pre-set when we arrived. We defined the wooded areas as Dense, Severe, Concealing; the fences were typical fences; the buildings were Ht 4, blocking terrain, but the base the buildings were on was treated as having no traits. The rocky block in the center was Severe. The pool was Flank Deployment Plant Explosives Claim Jump, Outflank, Search the Ruins, Hold up Their Forces, Dig Their Graves I announced Resurrectionists, he announced Ten Thunders. I announced Reva, and he announced Youko. The crew I built was: 9ss Reva w/ the Whisper 2x Corpse Candles Vincent w/ the Whisper Restless Spirit 2x Shieldbearer 2x Bonepile His crew: 6ss Youko Hamasaki Chiyo Hamasaki Bill Algren Hinamatsu 3x Kunoichi 2x Geisha Now this was a scheme pool I could work with! I haven’t faced Youko much in the new edition, but I understand that she is a bit of a tarpit, and likes to engage my models so she can abuse her attacks to shred my hand/ gain oodles of pass tokens. I figured that there would be some scrum in the center, which would suit me fine as far as creating a carpet of Pyre markers. I figured my opponent would go for any of the schemes except for Dig Their Graves - but even then, I wasn’t sure. I took the Restless Spirit to secure the second point of Dig Their Graves, and figured that if I only got 1 point it was an easy point that my opponent wouldn’t easily deny. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to learn from my last Plant Explosives game and not spread too thin - so Outflank was out. I wanted to go heavy into killing, so Hold Up was out. This left Claim Jump and Search the Ruins, and I opted for Claim Jump. My thought process was that if I hold off scoring any schemes til Turn 4, I mitigate the Leverage ability my opponent would have. I chose the Restless Spirit for my Claim Jump target, as he would be far enough away from the fight, that he could still run at Turn 4 and get the Claim Jump point. This also meant that the rest of my crew could focus on dropping bombs and killing. My opponent surprised me by taking Outflank and Search the Ruins. His logic was that he had no desire to get into the scrum with me, and instead used his mobility and lures to have better board control. Deployment I was attacker, and chose a corner that I felt encouraged him to funnel towards me, or spend a lot of actions on Walk to get around the buildings. I deployed a Shieldbearer next to Reva/ Vincent each, and the Bonepiles were central to my zone. I had the Corpse Candles in position to run to choke points and turn into Pyres. The Restless Spirit was deployed in my corner, to make my Dig Their Graves points as far away as possible. He deployed his crew into groups, generally splitting the Geisha and Kunoichi onto the flanks. When it came time to divvy up bombs, I gave two to Reva, and one each to the Bonepiles and a Shieldbearer. He gave two to Bill, two to Hinamatsu, and one to a Kunoichi. Turn 1 He won initiative, and opted for me to go first. I walked a Corpse Candle up to block a lane in on Reva. He used a Geisha to Lure Hinamatsu forward, and I moved my second Candle into position on the center of the board. He used his other Geisha to Lure Bill forward on my right flank. At this point, I realized that I was going to likely be unable to contest the strategy. I have the Restless Spirit dig up a corpse, drop a scheme next to it, and walk up. He goes with a Kunoichi next, reclaiming a Severe he had in his discard with Tools for the Job, before walking and charging my Corpse Candle, killing it and dropping a Pyre under his model. Feeling that Reva was safe from a Hinamatsu Charge now that the Kunoichi was body-blocking for me, I go with a Shieldbearer and Shield Bash Reva up before walking forward and Planting the Shield, ready to Take the Hit if need be. He runs Chiyo towards my right flank, and I have a Bonepile walk up and toss a Bone Javelin at the Kunoichi for Moderate damage. He walks a Kunoichi towards my left flank, and my second Bonepile fails to connect a shot on the damaged Kunoichi. His last Kunoichi gains a severe from Tools for the Job, then gets into position to use her Shuriken on my Candle, not killing it and putting Focused on his Geisha. My second Shieldbearer uses Shield Bash on Vincent, getting the mask trigger and walking up to Plant the Shield as well. Bill runs towards my right flank. Finally, I go with Reva. I swing on the Kunoichi twice, killing it for a card and another Pyre. I concentrated with my last action. He goes with Youko, walking up and using Blackmail on my Candle, earning 2 pass tokens. He then uses Backroom Dealings on the Shieldbearer, doing some damage. Vincent went as my last activation, using a rapid fire shot to kill the second Kunoichi near me, dropping a Pyre under Youko. Hinamatsu was his last activation, and they Lured Youko free of the Pyre. At the end of the turn, Youko took some burning damage. Turn 2 We both stone for cards this turn, and he expectedly wins Initiative, and has me go first. I have the Restless Spirit dig up another corpse, drop a marker, and walk up. He has Bill drop a Bomb and a Scheme Marker next to a fence on my side of the board, tipping his hand for Search the Ruins. My remaining Corpse Candle uses Light the Way, and fails to Death Urge his Geisha into a Pyre marker. He has his Kunoichi snag a severe with Tools for the Job, then walk to be in position to score Outflank. I have one Shieldbearer charge and do a pair of shield Bashes on one of my Bone Piles to get it over the centerline. He walks a Geisha, and then I have Vincent go. Vincent kills my remaining Candle in order to deny Youko an easy target for her actions, then use Rapid Fire to kill the Geisha. With my last action, I take a shot on Youko (stoning for a Positive), but he discards a Pass token with Leverage and lands the Red Joker on defense. Hinamatsu goes next, again Luring Youko out of the Pyre and then using the Aid action to put out some Burning. I walk the recently shieldbashed Bone Pile over the centerline, eat the corpse of the Corpse Candle to heal, and then drop a strategy marker. He runs Chiyo into the corner on my right flank, securing Outflank. My remaining Shieldbearer pushes the Bonepile up, and Vincent back a ways to cover my right flank. Youko goes next, getting a decent Backroom Dealings off on the Bonepile before running away, around the corner of the building on my left flank. I walk my remaining Bonepile to eat a Corpse to heal, and bury. My last activation was Reva, who summoned a Corpse Candle near Hinamatsu, allowing me to walk and Charge (through Ethereal Reaping at 8”) and hit Hinamatsu with Focus, getting Severe and then another Severe on my third attack. He stones to prevent damage on both attacks, which really hampered my overall effect but ate his stones. I end by using Embrace the Flame on myself to heal Reva up and clearing her burning. The summoned Candle uses Light the Way to move a Corpse Marker into position, then runs into his side of the board. At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy and he reveals Outflank. The score was 1-2. Turn 3 He goes first, and has four pass tokens thanks to Chiyo. He activates his Geisha first, walking up into my backfrield. I have the Restless Spirit drop my third corpse/ scheme marker pairing before moving closer to the center. He uses a pass token, and I have my Shieldbearer charge and use Shield Bash on Vincnet to get him into a good position to fire on the Geisha. He uses another pass token, so I go with my second Shieldbearer, pushing the other Shieldbearer and Vincent further in their desired directions. He finally activates another model, sending Bill up and using Challenge on Vincent. I have Vincent go next, Concentrating before taking a Focused Shot on the Geisha (ditching a card for my trouble), stoning for a Ram to secure the kill. He goes with his Kunoichi next, dropping his bomb and drawing a severe from his discard pile while remaining in Outflank position. I run my Corpse Candle further into his side of the board. Youko spends her activation walking, getting into position on my left flank, in an exposed part of my board. I unbury the buried Bonepile next to my Corpse Candle, dropping a bomb and then moving to threaten Hinamatsu. He uses a Pass Token. My other Bonepile runs up and fails to hit Bill with a Bone Javelin. Hinamatsu charges my Bonepile, killing it on the Flurry attack. I go with Reva, charging once again using the corpse next to Hinamatsu to finally empty his soulstone cache, and leave her near death. I once again purge burning off of Reva with her bonus. Chiyo just focuses. At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy. The score was 2-3. Turn 4 He goes first, charging Bill into Vincent for some damage after dropping a bomb, but fails to get Challenge off. Reva is my first activation, and spend soulstones for positives and finally kill the puppet menace, but am not close enough to snag her bombs. Reva then drops one of her bombs and heals. Youko walks twice and drops a scheme marker for his second scheme. I have a Shieldbearer charge the bomb-carrying Shieldbearer, pushing him far and then dropping a scheme marker next to a corpse for insurance. He has the Kunoichi and Chiyo focus, and moves Chiyo into position to reapply a scheme for the second part of Search the Ruins. I have my second Shieldbearer drop a bomb and then move back, ready to shield bash my models where they need to go. The Restless Spirit walks into scoring position for Claim Jump. Vincent walks out of engagement with Bill and takes a pair of shots, getting a lucky Severe on the second shot. My remaining Bonepile heals Vincent, but fails to do anything to Bill. At the end of the turn, I reveal Claim Jump, he reveals Search the Ruins, and we both score the Strategy. The score was 4-5. Turn 5 He wins initiative, and has Chiyo drop a scheme marker for Search the Ruins, and run into place for Outflank. I have Vincent go, and manage to kill Bill. At this point, my opponent concedes as he realizes he doesn’t have the actions needed to drop enough markers to score the end of game Search the Ruins points, nor does he have a bomb to drop. I know I have no way to deny Outflank as I don’t have the range to get to him with enough damage. At the end of the game, I score the strategy and reveal Dig Their Graves, while scoring the second point on Claim Jump. My opponent scores the second point on Outflank. The score was 7-6. Post-Game Thoughts I feel this game was a great example of playing to the strategy and schemes, vs trying to kill, for points. My opponent did a great job of outmaneuvering me, and frankly would have been able to win if he’d allocated his bombs differently. While I feel like my opponent ran rings around me, I also feel like my crew did what I intended, and the score bears that out. The only thing I could have done better was get something killed for the first point of Dig, but the opportunity never came up. My main takeaways were: I should have killed the Geisha early, but I mistakenly thought they had Stealth, rather than the Disguised that they do have. A reminder to read the cards! I put bombs on Reva, who generally doesn’t want to spend her actions interacting. While it worked out in the end, spreading one onto Vincent would probably have been okay. If your opponent has actions that benefit from targeting your models, Corpse Candles are a liability with their victim stats. I should have killed my candles sooner to prevent Youko from abusing them. As far as crew selection goes - double Shieldbearer was okay, but I do feel that one would probably have been enough, and the leftover points maybe gone into something else. I’m working on getting Asura Roten and Mindless Zombies built and painted, and I’m hoping the extra mobile corpse markers will help Reva out. A few more stones, but maybe they’ll be worth it. Double Bonepile, on the other hand, was fantastic. Having two tanky minions with good ranged attacks and heals with condition removal is a bonkers package, especially when you add in their healing from corpses - which you make like candy with the Corpse Candles. I will likely run this pair in the future. Reva and Vincent continue to be reliable offensive threats, regularly killing a model per activation. I’m really satisfied with running them with the Whisper. MVP of the game has to go to the Restless Spirit - that little guy scored me 3 of my 7 victory points by himself! Thank you for reading! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted January 26, 2020 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 1/25/2020. It was a 50ss game between myself and one of our best hobbyists (shout-out to Brian!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up We had the board set up as this board has been before - the forest pieces were Severe, Dense, Concealing. The buildings were Ht 4 Blocking, Impassible, Cover. The Watchtowers were Ht 4, Climbable, Concealing (if shooting through the struts). The Green Pools were Hazardous (Poison +1). The game generated was: Flank Deployment Reckoning Deliver a Message Harness the Ley Line Detonate Charges Breakthrough Take Prisoner I announced Resurrectionists, he announced Neverborn. I announced Nicodem, and he announced Euripides. The crew I built was: 7 SS Nicodem w/ the Whisper Vulture Asura Roten w/ the Whisper Mortimer Dead Rider Bone Pile Gravedigger His crew: 4 SS Euripides w/ Inhuman Reflexes Primordial Magic Thoon w/ Inhuman Reflexes Cyclops x2 Gigant w/ Ancient Pact Gigant Bultungin This would be my first outing against Euripides, and my first with Nicodem. I chose him over Reva primarily because I had just finished painting him, and because with the schemes I was intrigued by trying out the options he had. I also had it in my mind to use Mindless Zombies to destroy the Ice Pillars he would make, since they would have ample actions to do so. Since the strategy was Reckoning, I did not want to choose Take Prisoner. I did not have the tools to score Detonate Charges easily. Between Harness the Leyline and Breakthrough, I felt that it would be easier to get Breakthrough with the Bone Pile, so I chose Breakthrough. I chose Deliver a Message as my second point, because I felt that I could use my greater numbers to get a marker next to Euripides for a second point. My opponent chose Breakthrough and Harness the Leyline. Deployment I was attacker, and I deployed mostly clustered on my right flank. Asura went on my right flank, where I had more options for a Zombie Apocalypse with the Come to Me trigger. My opponent deployed in a spread out manner, with Euripides and Thoon closer to the center of his zone. I dropped the corpse markers for Recent Funeral, and at this point realized they came down in my deployment zone, not in my table half - I put them next to the Gravedigger and the Vulture. He drops the Underbrush marker directly in front of Nicodem and the Bone Pile. Turn 1 He wins initiative, and has me go first. I have my Bone Pile concentrate and Bury itself. He has the Primordial Magic give Thoon Incorporeal, then it walked and concentrated. I had the Dead Rider use Ride with Me to bring Nicodem up the board, then walk next to Asura and Concentrate. He walked a Gigant up and Concentrated. I went with Asura, using Intuition from the Whisper to set up her activation. I spent a stone on Zombie Apocalypse, declaring Come to Me and dropping a zombie in my opponent’s deployment zone. I then used Zombie Apocalypse again, using a stone to get the Swift Action to summon a pair of Mindless Zombies. She then used her bonus to make one of her new Zombies to take a walk action. My opponent went with Euripides next, walking twice and dropping Rune-Etched Ice to drop two pillars, damaging the rider and both zombies. I have Mortimer go next, using Fresh Meat with the My Loyal Servant trigger to heal the Dead Rider, dug up a corpse to reposition the Gravedigger, and then walked up. My opponent had the Cyclops on my left flank walk up twice, using Frozen Runes to Stagger Asura, my zombies, and the Dead Rider. This was a real bummer, as it shut down all my crew mobility shenanigans. My Vulture flew up and healed Dead Rider, and he had his second Cyclops move up and drop another pillar. I went with Nicodem next, dropping a corpse marker that I turned into a Mindless Zombie, and summoned a Rabble Riser. I spent an action breaking an ice pillar, then used Rigor Mortis to take slow off the Riser. He went with a Gigant and walked to throw a rock at one of my Mindless Zombies, hitting weak. My Gravedigger walked up, pulsed focus out to Nico, Dead Rider, Mortimer, and my Rabble Riser, and then concentrated herself. Thoon went next, walking into position where he could use his chain attack to kill my mindless zombie with a red joker flip, which in turn became an ice pillar. I charge my Rabble Riser into Euripides, he uses the Old Ways to reuse the Red Joker and then Butterfly Jumps away. I chose to walk next to him, as my plan was to use the Riser to score Deliver a Message next turn. For his last activation, he runs his Bultungin up and drops a scheme marker on the centerline. Turn 2 He wins initiative, and opens with Euripides. He attacks my Rabble Riser, but I hit the Red Joker on defense. He uses Old Ways to summon two ice pillars, which damages the Rabble Riser and Nicodem. He then shoves one of the ice pillars into my Vulture, damaging the Gravedigger and Nicodem again. He then uses Old Ways on his bonus action to pulse distracted on the Gravedigger and the Vulture. I go with the Rabble Riser, delivering a message to Euripides and challenging his Cyclops but failing to connect. I end by concentrating. His Gigant goes, walking up and shooting Nicodem. I use Protected to pass the attack onto my Dead Rider, who benefitted from Corpse Conductor and his defensive trigger to take only 1 damage. He used Cave Drawings to turn off my interacts. I have a Mindless Zombie walk and tear down a pillar. His other Gigant goes, walking and attacking another Mindless Zombie and getting weak damage, leaving it at 1 wound. I use my second mindless zombie to destroy another pillar, and walk into position to get between Nico and Euripides. Thoon was next, walking and using Arctic Pull to draw a pillar into Nicodem, Gravedigger, Mortimer and the Vulture - only the Vulture passed their test. I stoned to prevent on Nico, as he was starting to look real rough. The Gravedigger went next for me, breaking two pillars and dropping a corpse marker next to the Vulture. The Primordial Magic gave a Cyclops Incorporeal, then walked twice. I have the Vulture use Carrion Away to reposition a corpse marker up the field, deep in the opponent’s zone. He charged the Incorporeal Cyclops into Nicodem, taking a focused hit and cheating the Red Joker to secure the hit on Nicodem, but flipped the Black Joker on damage. He ends by using frozen runes to ping damage on Nicodem and the Dead Rider. I activated Asura next, using Reanimate to have the Mindless Zombie walk closer to Nicodem, and then Concentrated before using Decayon the Cyclops, eating it’s Shielded and doing no net damage due to Incorporeal. The other Cyclops walked and schemed for Harness the Leyline, and I had my Bone Pile pop up, and drop a scheme marker. He ran his Bultungin onto my right flank and dropped his third marker for Harness. At this point, I had the remaining activations. Mortimer dug up a corpse to pull the Gravedigger out of danger, then used Fresh Meat twice on the Cyclops twice, getting a heal off once on the Gravedigger. Nicodem used Rigor Mortis on the Dead Rider, then stoned for a Ram on Decay against the Cyclops for the healing trigger, then stoned once for the crow trigger on Rigor Mortis to get 3 damage from the three zombies and slow on the Cyclops, then dropped a corpse just in case. My last activation was the Fast Dead Rider, who charged in and killed the Cyclops, using Reap and the Hard to Kill of the Cyclops to pull it away from Euripides’s aura that would have turned it into an Ice Pillar. At the end of the turn, I score Reckoning, Deliver a Message and Breakthrough. My opponent scored Harness the Leyline. The score was 3-1. Turn 3 He wins initiative, as he had a ton of pass tokens from my summons. He opens with the Primordial Magic, which gives Euripides Incorporeal before walking and dropping a marker; unfortunately, it would turn out to be to far from the centerline. I open with the Dead Rider, and I admit that this was due to misreading the card. I thought the bonus action Revel, five-crow trigger was in addition to the standard result (1 damage and Injured 1), which made me think I could possibly take out both Gigants on lucky flips. I Black Joker’d my first attack, but had the Red Joker in hand and hoped to kill the one carrying Ancient Pact in an unopposed duel. This was not to be, as he flipped the Red Joker when I tried to hit with my Scythe. The Dead Rider managed to put some damage on Euripides and both Gigants with Soulfire. With the Red Joker on top, he went with Euripides and used Old Ways to make two solid hits on the Dead Rider, killing it for a Reckoning point. He then uses Reflective Visage to place next to Nicodem. I pass the attack onto my Rabble Riser, but he still manages to get the Blast trigger and kills both of my Mindless Zombies - turning them into pillars. My Rabble Riser charged into an injured Gigant, doing some serious damage. Thoon went next, charging into Nicodem and burying him in a Pillar. He then froze over one of my corpse markers. I charge the Vulture into the back of the remaining Gigant to prevent him from shooting into my models. His Cyclops made yet more ice pillars, before pinging Mortimer through a pillar. I have my Gravedigger free Nicodem, and pulse out more focused to Nico and Mortimer. The Gigant disengaged from my Vulture, then tossed a rock at Nico, I burn focus defensively and take weak damage. Mortimer heals Nicodem with Fresh Meat twice, and dropped a corpse for Nico. The Bultungin dropped a marker for Harness, then booked it for my deployment zone. I have the Bone Pile drop a second Breakthrough marker. Asura commands the Rabble Riser to charge the injured Gigant, killing it and securing my second point of Reckoning. She then tossed some attacks into Thoon. Nicodem walked out of the Hazardous terrain, and burned stones on summoning two Mindless Zombies and concentrating. At the end of the turn, we both scored the Strategy. The score was 4-2. Turn 4 I flip the Red Joker for Initiative, and he lets me go first. I open with Nicodem, burning my last stones on Decay for the heal trigger on the Cyclops, getting two weak results. I summon a second Rabble Riser, and dig up a Mindless Zombie. He goes with Euripides, who stones for Sweeping Strike on an attack on a Mindless Zombie, using a Red Joker to blast lethal onto the Gravedigger. Next he focuses and swings on Mortimer, dropping him to Hard to Kill. I have the Rabble Riser whiff on Thoon. Thoon replies by using Arctic Pull and then swinging on Nicodem, killing him. Asura went next, using Decay on the second Gigant to kill it. A second decay hit Thoon for weak, and she obeyed a Rabble Riser into position to hit Thoon. The Primordial Magic walked and gave Thoon Incorporeal, then dropped a marker. My Vulture walked and charged the Primordial Magic for some Totem on Totem violence, but didn’t do much. The Bultungin dropped a scheme marker in my deployment zone and moved into it for Breakthrough. I have Mortimer disengage from Euripides and try to summon a zombie but failed. The Bone Pile dropped another scheme marker, and the last Rabble Riser charged Thoon but didn’t connect. At the end of the turn, my opponent scored Reckoning and revealed Breakthrough. The score was 4-4 Turn 5 He won initiative, and opened with Euripides. At this point we were very open about our intentions, and he was trying to kill Mortimer to get a third point of Reckoning. He used Rune Etched Ice to drop two pillars, damaging the Rabble Risers but failing to damage Mortimer. He did it a second time, and again Mortimer lived. He then charged into Mortimer, but left him on Hard to Kill. I went with Mortimer, healing back above Hard to Kill, taking a pair of focused Decay attacks on the Bultungin to kill it and deny any chance of Breakthrough. He had Thoon go next, pushing ice pillars to block off my Rabble Risers, burying one, and then doing some incidental damage to Asura. I tunnel-visioned on killing Thoon, and so sent Asura after him. I forgot that I could have just walked and dropped a marker next to Euripides for the second point of Deliver. The Vulture failed to kill the Primordial Magic, which gave Thoon Incorporeal. My remaining Rabble Risers didn’t have the actions needed to kill Thoon, so I was unable to score more Reckoning. At the end of the game, I scored my second point of Breakthrough. My opponent was unable to drop enough markers for the second point of Harness the Leyline, and did not have enough for Breakthrough. The final score was 5-4. Post-Game Thoughts This was a monster of a game, and a great time. We both communicated well when it came to intent, and this made the game very enjoyable. There was a lot of rules missed or forgotten, which I attribute to first time against Nico/ playing Nico, and the sheer number of things happening. It was a very close game, and I was certain I’d lost it at the end when Nico died. In a way, he died at the right time- it made it very hard for my opponent to score further Reckoning points. As far as scheme selection was concerned- I feel comfortable with my choices; I just wish I had remembered to drop a marker for Deliver a Message at the end. That was sloppy play, and I should know better. As far as crew selection was concerned, I feel I need a lot more practice with these models. Nicodem is surprisingly vulnerable with that Defense of 4, and all the TNs in the crew make Protected a lot more costly than it looks. I did appreciate having valuable actions beyond summoning, and Rigor Mortis was valuable so long as I had a decent target for it. I feel like the Gravedigger did a lot of dirty work, but could have been so much more if I played around it’s base size. My opponent filling the board with Ice Pillars definitely bit me in the butt with all my 50mm models. There were a number of times I wished I had another Bone Pile instead of the Gravedigger, if only for the heal. Main takeaways have to be: RTFC. I could have done so much better with the Dead Rider if I could have done the damage math more effectively. This crew has a lot of TNs, and a lot of support staff in general - and while it has some mobility, the bubbling nature of the crew does make it easy to disrupt. Rabble Risers are amazing summons, especially when I can use Asura/ Nicodem to give them additional actions. MVP of the game has to go to the Bone Pile single-handedly scoring me two VPs uncontested. Runner up goes to Asura, who let that happen and provided me with a ton of Mindless Zombies, even if they ended up just becoming Ice Pillars. Thank you for reading! 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackCadian Posted January 28, 2020 Report Share Posted January 28, 2020 Thank you for your batreps! I find them really interesting and helpful, especially the Reva ones. At first I didn’t like her much but thanks to your reports I’m starting to come around. Also, reading her cool fluff really fired me up hah! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted February 15, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal for the Vassal League on 2/13/2020. It was a 50ss game between myself and Landon. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up The pool for round 1 was as follows: The Desolate Wasteland map Wedge Deployment Reckoning Take Prisoner Power Ritual Hold Up Their Forces Detonate Charges Deliver a message I announced Bayou, he announced Ten Thunders. I announced Wong, and he announced Youko. We agreed that the terrain was generally blocking, impassable terrain. The red, firey spots were hazardous. The foliage in the right corners were severe, concealing, dense. The crew I built was: 6ss Wong Olivia Bernard Sammy LaCroix Pigapult Gatreaux Bokor 2x Swinecursed 2x Lightning Bug His crew: 4ss Youko Hamasaki Chiyo Hamasaki Bill Algren Sun Quiang Samurai w/ Trained Ninja Samurai w/ Trained Ninja Charm Warder When he declared Youko, I took a look at her keyword and the versatiles available, and realized there was a lot of armor in there. I aimed to maximize the Full Power trigger on Wizz-Bang models, so went with two Lightning Bugs and two Swinecursed. When he revealed his crew, I figured that I would not want to get stuck in with him, and I’d need to gun for the samurai and charm warder for reckoning first. I opted for Power Ritual because Wong is really good at it, and it would be a low investment of actions that also didn’t get me engaged with his models. I opted for Deliver a Message as my second scheme, since I figured I could reliably leave Youko alive if I could just burst down his crew fast enough. My opponent chose Power Ritual and Take Prisoner on one of my Lightning Bugs. Deployment I went first. I deployed behind the train, hoping to minimize his lines of sight to me. I split my crew into two groups, one centered on the Pigapult and the other on the Bokor. My opponent put Chiyo in the lower right corner, and the rest near the tip of the deployment zone. The Samurai were deployed to the top and bottom of the field, with line of sight to most of my crew. Turn 1 He stones for cards turn 1. He wins initiative, and earned 3 pass tokens due to our crew size difference. He opened with the topmost Samurai, charging for the bonus movement for a better firing lane. He then focused for free, shooting the Bokor and missing. I had Olivia drop a scheme marker and walk to the Pigapult. He likewise had Chiyo drop a scheme marker near his corner, and then concentrate for a focus. I go with Wong next, using Launch into Space with the trigger to drop a second marker on the scheme marker that Olivia had dropped. I then used The Glow to give my entire crew a Glowy token. I then used Fzzap with the Surge trigger to give the rest of my crew another Glowy token and fast. With nothing else to do with his last action, I dropped another scheme marker. He had the second Samurai take a focused shot on one of my Swinecursed, but flips the Black Joker. The second shot does weak damage. I had my Bokor go next, healing my crew up before using my last action to Obey a Lightning Bug walk up to be in range of the topmost Samurai. To end it’s activation, I had it use protective spirits on wong, olivia, the stuffed piglet and the lightning bug. His Charm warder gained a Chi, focused for a Chi, and then walked. He used his bonus action with the Chaos Theory bonus action, but I flipped the Black Joker from my deck. My Lightning Bug took three shots with Elemental Bolt at the topmost Samurai, declaring Full Power for a moderate hit. My two remaining attacks miss, sadly. Sun Quang walked up, and used Yin and Yang to give the Charm Warder focus. I walked a Stuffed Piglet to the Pigapult. He finally activates Youko, walking twice and concentrating for a focus. I have the Pigapult use Full Load to toss Olivia to hit the topmost Samurai, doing damage to him. The second toss was with the Stuffed Piglet. The Samurai dodges the first pulse, but the Stuffed Piglet’s Bacon Bomb dings a damage on the Samurai. My opponent walks Bill twice into position. My second Lightning Bug concentrates, walks and takes a shot on the Samurai. I declared the Full Power trigger, landing another moderate. The Samurai was left on one wound. With the remaining activations being mine, I have my first Swinecursed twice, taking falling damage for climbing over the height 2 train. Thanks to Sammy, I drew a card. The Swinecursed then concentrated. My second Swinecursed walked three times, drawing another card from Sammy. Turn 2 I cheat to go first this turn. I open with a Lightning Bug, taking a concentrated shot on the topmost Samurai. The Black Joker comes up on my damage flip. My second shot manages a lucky Red Joker on my hit, so I declare Magical Feedback for a glowy and kill the Samurai, securing my Reckoning point. He activates the Charm Warder next, charging my Swinecursed and killing it for his Reckoning point. He attacks my second Swinecursed with Jynx, but I cheat to avoid it. The Black Joker appears when he tries to use his bonus. At this point we realized I forgot to resolve Launch Into Space. We did here, securing a damage on Youko and dropping a marker in my bottom left corner for Power Ritual. I had Olivia walk twice, climbing towards the top left corner. Youko went next, walking twice and failing both her Bonus action and Riddles in the Dark on the lucky Swinecursed. I respond by activating Wong, using Launch into Space on a scheme marker. He walks into position before using the Glow, then ended with a Fzzap on my Swinecursed and Sammy, getting a Surge trigger. Sun Quaing walks around the train, and uses Yin and Yang to Distract and place my Swinecursed next to my Pigapult. I have the Bokor walk next to the Swinecursed and use Assist to remove the Distracted, but failed it’s bonus. He had his remaining Samurai charge into position to take focused shot on the Swinecursed, getting some damage. I have said Swinecursed walk twice and charge the Samurai in return. I hit moderate damage with the Full Power trigger. Bill took a walk and used Heroic Intervention onto the Swinecursed. He hit with the Critical Strike trigger, which I reduced by 3 by burning Glowy. His bonus hits the focus trigger. I have the Pigapult use Full Load to toss Sammy into Bill, but everyone pass the tests. My second Full Load of Wong, damaging the Samurai and Sammy. Chiyo walked up and concentrated for focus. I have my remaining Lightning Bug walk twice and use A New Horizon to reposition a scheme marker. I had Sammy use Jynx on Bill, successfullly hitting Glimpse the Void and burying him. I then use Jynx and Drain Magic on the Samurai twice, leaving him on 1 wound and cycling two cards. At the end of the turn, we both scored the strategy. The score was 1-1. Turn 3 I stone for cards this turn, hoping to be able to secure the first activation. It was not to be, and he won initiative. I drop my scheme marker from Launch into Space with Wong next to Youko, who passes. He opens with his Samurai, attacking my Swinecursed twice but I cheat to avoid the hits. He then uses Juggernaut and cheats the severe to heal 4. I have the Swinecursed go next, using Heroic Intervention to push Sammy and Wong away from the Samurai, and hit him twice for 1 damage apiece thanks to armor. Sammy runs into the Hazardous terrain, taking a damage. Youko goes next, using Backroom Dealings on my Swinecursed for 2 cards. She then walked and charged Sammy, but flipped the Black Joker on a focused attack on her. With the bottom part of the board now relatively calm, I have the Pigapult activate and use Full Load to toss the Bokor into position to pulse onto the Samurai and Youko, damaging Youko. I then do the same with the Lightning Bug, damaging the Bokor for Glowy, Fast and drawing a card from Sammy. Chiyo walked to the edge of the hill and used Misinformation on Wong for a card, drawing him one due to Youko’s aura. Sammy walked out of the Hazardous terrain, then Delivers a Message to Youko. Sun Quaing then walked and used Healing Energy on the Samurai for 2. At this point, I accept that I won’t be able to secure Reckoning this turn. I have Wong use the Glow but fails, use a stone on Launch into Space, and then walk twice to have line of sight to both of my opponent’s corners. My opponent sees this and replies in kind, having his Charm Warder charge into Wong and block his Line of Sight to the topmost left corner, but I use a soulstone to avoid damage. My Bokor walks and tries to Obey the Charm Warder, but my opponent burns a severe and I am unable to force it through. Bill goes next, and I unbury him next to Sun Quaing. He had gained Fast as I had revealed a scheme, so Bill was able to walk and charge into the Bokor, kill it, and then move to block Wong’s view of the other important corner for Power Ritual. I have Olivia drop a scheme marker in my other deployment corner for Power ritual. My topmost Lightning Bug ran for my opponent’s side, while my second Lightning Bug healed Sammy for 2. At the end of the turn, neither of us scored Reckoning. The score was 2-1. Turn 4 He stones for cards this turn, and wins Initiative. I drop my Launch into Space markers to hit Sun Quaing, the Charm Warder and Bill, damaging the Charm Warder and Bill. He opens with Youko, who uses Backroom Dealings on the Swinecursed who yet again passes. She attacks Sammy with Exotic Weapons twice, killing her. For her last action, Youko Charges the Swinecursed and kills him with a cheeky swing, and I summon a Bayou Gremlin. That Bayou Gremlin walks to the Pigapult before shooting the Samurai, netting the Screwed the Hooch trigger which discards my only Severe in hand, for a low moderate card. The Charm Warder attacks Wong, eating my last stone for prevention on damage. He uses his bonus and I reveal both jokers. The Pigapult uses Full Load on my Bayou Gremlin to give my topmost Lightning Bug Fast, then shots the Samurai for some damage with Full Power. The Samurai goes next and uses Juggernaut to heal for 3 before a combination of charge and walk gets him close to my lower left corner. I walk my Fast Lightning Bug three times to get ready for Power Ritual. Bill goes next and attacks Wong twice, hitting for 3 and 4. I cheat on the second attack to push away. Wong now freed uses the Glow to put Glowy on Sun, the Charm Warder and Bill. I then use Launch into Space with the trigger again on a scheme marker, and Fzzap Chiyo, Bill and the Charm Warder twice, but they all pass both times. Chiyo walks back to cover the corner. My remaining Lighting Bug tries to heal himself and move a scheme marker with a New Horizon, but fails. Sun Quaing walks to intercept my topmost Lightning Bug, and Olivia does nothing important. At the end of the turn, my opponent revealed Take Prisoner on the Lightning Bug engaged by Youko, as well as scoring Reckoning. The score was 2-3. Turn 5 He stones and wins initiative again. I drop the Launch Into Space markers into position for Power ritual. He opens with Charm Warder, killing Wong with Jynx. I have the Pigapult shoot at the Samurai twice, flipping the Red Joker for damage but unfortunately the Samurai is left with 1 wound again. It then activates and heals with Juggernaut, Charges and drops a scheme marker for Power Ritual. We then alternate activating most of our crew and doing nothing in particular. The last two relevant activations were my Lightning Bug, who failed to heal himself but managed to move a scheme marker to secure the second point of Deliver a Message. Unfortunately, Youko was in perfect position to remove both markers, as we realized that the Lightning Bug had no engagement range. This denied my second point of Deliver a Message. At the end of the turn, we both reveal Power Ritual. My opponent scores a Reckoning Point, and scores the second point for Take Prisoner. The final score was 3-6. Post-Game Thoughts My opponent was gracious enough to spend some time after the game talking through things. He felt like the turning point was when he scored Take Prisoner, and before that he felt that the game was up in the air. He was worried about Hold Up Their Forces, so opted for a Lightning Bug as a Take Prisoner target as it was one he could reliably tie up and didn’t need to kill, like my Bokor or Swinecursed. If he could change one thing, it would’ve been positioning. He felt that Sammy getting glimpse the Void off was an unpleasant surprise, and would have played more defensively if he had realized she had that trigger. This would’ve let him mitigate my AoE damage with Sun Quaing as well, though it would have prevented his Samurai from being in range for that first turn threat. Personally, I found that this game I really made a lot of poor positioning choices, especially with Wong. I could have secured Power Ritual if I had deployed better, or stood on the Ht 2 Train terrain to have line of sight for the different corners - but instead, I tunnel visioned on his Ht 1 and being unable to see over the terrain. I also feel like I rushed my deployment, and as a result my Swinecursed were forced to spend much of their first activations walking to make up for it. I was also incredibly fortunate with flips early game, and a lot of attacks on my Swinecursed that should have hit didn’t. Three takeaways for me from this game would be: Remember that Sammy can be a real card engine if you’re taking a lot of damage during your turn, such as falling damage or walking through hazardous terrain. Remember to check your models for engagement ranges when there are schemes that care about engagement - My Lightning Bug became a liability because of it. Remember Wong’s ability to stack Glowy on enemy models when they pass duels. I forgot this for most of the match, which may have encouraged me to do more offensive blasts in the last turns to get more damage. Honestly, Wong has a lot of moving parts and it was a bit overwhelming trying to remember them all. Overall, this was a great game and I found myself learning a lot about positioning. Thank you for reading! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted February 16, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 2/15/2020. It was a 50ss game between myself and a newer player (shoutout to Adam]!) generating using the Malifaux App. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up We determined that the buildings were Height 4 blocking, impassable terrain. The blue walls were height 3, and the fences were typical fences. The one tree was concealing, but we removed it early turn 1 as it kept getting knocked onto my models, and wasn’t impacting the board state. We determined the pool of water as Severe. The pool was: Standard Deployment Turf War Breakthrough, Outflank, Detonate Charges, Dig Their Graves, Deliver a Message I announced Outcasts, he announced Guild. I announced Von Schill, and he announced Lady Justice. The crew I built was: 3ss Von Schill Steamtrunk Hannah Arik Midnight Stalker Freikorps Librarian Freikorps Engineer Prospector His crew: 2ss Lady Justice w/ Lead Lined Coat Scales of Justice The Jury The Lone Marshal Death Marshal Recruiter Exorcist 3x Death Marshals Going into a Marshal crew, I figured that Dig Their Graves would be a poor choice, given the ability to prevent Corpse Markers from being dropped. I didn’t want to spread out my crew, as Lady J could just run over to one of the corners and kill a single model, while still threatening my crew. Detonate charges is a tough scheme, so that left me with Breakthrough and Deliver a Message. I like Deliver a Message against Lady J, as she does the work of getting close to me for me. Breakthrough I like with Midnight Stalker as he is so good at scoring it, and I figured my opponent wouldn’t be able to counter scheme him once he was getting those three actions and leap a turn. My opponent ended up taking the same schemes. Deployment I was attacker, and ended up deploying most of my crew behind some walls on my left flank. I chose to put the Prospector on my right flank, and afterwards I regretted this decision and should have swapped the placements (the Prospector was out far too exposed where I put it). My opponent clustered centrally, with the Lone Marshal on my right flank and the Exorcist on my left. Turn 1 I win initiative, and have my opponent go first. I get one pass token for being outnumbered. Like most Turn 1s, it was mostly positioning. He claimed his Turf markers early with the the Lone Marshal on the far right flank from me, and the Exorcist on the far left. I had the Steam Trunk give the Midnight Stalker a Rocket Launcher while he hid from Von Schill, figuring that I could threaten a blast attack if my opponent stayed bunched up. Notably, I flipped the Red Joker on this. As my next activation, I have the Engineer grab it with Tools for the Job, and proceed to buff Hannah before claiming my left flank Turf marker. He moves his Death Marshals up to a fence, preparing a bit of a gunline. While he does that, my Prospector digs up a stone and a card for me. Then Von Schill goes, handing out Rocket Boots to Hannah and Arik, the Sheild to the Librarian, and Landmines to himself. I then charged over the wall and Concentrated as a bonus action. Arik moved up to throw some grenades at the Death Marshals, but whiffed the attack. Lady J went next, moving up but staying outside of Arik’s bubble. He opted to fire a pair of Decays into Arik, doing little damage. The Midnight Stalker ran up my left flank, getting into my opponent’s half. The Jury moved up, using Obey on the Exorcist to shoot the Midnight Stalker, getting some damage in. Hannah leaped over the wall, and a pair of Ancient Words later and one of his Death Marshals was at 1 wound. The Recruiter moved up and returned fire at Hannah. My Librarian failed to push the Engineer up, then walked to heal Arik 1. To end the turn the Scales walked up. Turn 2 This turn, the crews were poised to get into grips with each other. I realize I had walked into a killzone for his guns, and knew I had to weather the attacks until I could get one of my beaters in. I wanted to go first, but initiative was with my opponent this round. I stoned for cards nonetheless. My opponent starts by charging a Death Marshal into Hannah, trying to Pinebox her and failing. I have the Prospector dig up a stone and claim my Turf Marker on the right flank. He has the Jury try to place False Accusation on Hannah but fails, then Obeys the Death Marshal to try to Pinebox Hannah again; failing again. My Engineer uses Tools to grab a high moderate from my discard, buffing Hannah and giving her Concealment. She then shot at the wounded Death Marshal and failed to hit. He shoots at my Engineer with a Death Marshal, and I have to burn the Red Joker on defense to avoid losing a Turf Marker. I run the Steam Trunk to heal up the Engineer, but fail to give her an upgrade. The last Death Marshal lands two weak shots on the Engineer. I have the Librarian heal the Engineer, pulsing out a heal onto Hannah as well before pushing her towards the Librarian, and away from his guns. The Lone Marshal goes next, moving up and shooting my Prospector, dropping her to 2 wounds and forcing a discard. Hannah goes next, killing the Death Marshal engaging her. She fails to copy the leap from Arik, and fails her attack on a second Death Marshal. He moves the Recruiter up to take two shots at Hannah, but doesn’t connect. I burn a pass token as I want to give Midnight Stalker the longest time before activating. He walks the Scales again. I go with Von Schill, and charge in front of Arik with Diving Charge. I then take two shots on a Death Marshal, but fail to bring it down. He replies with Lady Justice, casting Decay on Von Schill three times, blasting onto Arik, the Librarian and the Engineer twice. Thankfully, Armor and Shielded help me tank the hits. I go with Arik afterwards, Leaping over the central Turf Marker to charge the Death Marshal near it. I fail to connect twice, so he lived with one wound. The Exorcist goes, attacking the Midnight Stalker for a few wounds (ignoring my Manipulative with Ruthless). The Midnight Stalker uses a combination of Leap, Walk and Interact to score me Breakthrough. At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy and I reveal Breakthrough. The score was 2-1. Turn 3 Once again, my opponent goes first. He activates the Lone Marshal, killing the Prospector and running towards my deployment zone. I activate Arik, who is sitting low, and use Charged Fists before charging into the Recruiter, but am unable to connect either attack. He has his Exorcist try to finish off the Midnight Stalker, but I’m left on one wound. I run my Trunk up to heal Von Schill, and give him Rocket Boots as well. The Recruiter Buries Arik. Hannah uses Adaptive Tactics to copy the Engineer’s bonus to heal up Von Schill and give him Shielded and Focused, while cycling some cards. She then attacks the Jury with Ancient Words, but I only do weak damage. I got the Glimpse the Void trigger, but he passes his duel. He has another Death Marshal charge into Hannah to try and Pinebox her, and fail. My Engineer goes next, buffing Hannah with Concealment again before landing a focused shot on the Death Marshal engaging her, getting Moderate damage. The remaining Death Marshal walks and charges into Von Schill, failing to Pinebox him. Von Schill goes next, throwing the Death Marshal engaging him with Pull!, and the Engineer takes a shot that leaves him on 1 wound. Von Schill shoots it with his own gun and kills it. He then charges into the remaining Death Marshal, stoning for a Mask for another toss trigger, but the Black Joker denies me the kill. Importantly, I lose the Rocket Boots. The Jury goes next, trying to Obey Hannah and failing. She then Obeys the Death Marshall to charge back into Von Schill, failing to Pinebox him. She then fails to cast False Accusation on Hannah. My Librarian goes next, killing the wounded Death marshal with Ancient Words before healing the Engineer. The Scales walks into position to grab the central Turf marker. The Midnight Stalker drops a pair of scheme markers and hides behind the buddha statue. Lady Justice dives in, and does what she does best. When the dust settled, she had killed the Steam Trunk and the Engineer, and had the Librarian on the ropes (who only survived because the Black Joker came to my rescue). This neutralized the Turf Marker on my left flank. At the end of the turn, he scores the Strategy. The score was 2-2. Turn 4 Things were looking grim at this point, as I didn’t see many ways to reliably get back into the Strategy. I spend a stone for cards, and manage to win initiative this round. I open with the Librarian, delivering a message on Lady Justice. I then flip the Red Joker to Heal myself, and the Black Joker on the result. With my Jokers accounted for, my turn looked grim. He replied with Lady Justice who flipped her own Black Joker to leap away from the Librarian. She used Restore Natural order to clear off my Shielded and Von Schill’s Focused, knocking off my upgrade from the Librarian in the process. She then took two swings on the Librarian, but didn’t connect with either. Arik activated, and I cheated to unbury him. He then charged his fists and took a focused attack on the Death Marshal Recruiter, but could only manage Weak damage. The Lone Marshal used Run and Gun to get deeper into my deployment zone, while also landing weak damage on the Librarian and Von Schill. I go with Von Schill next, loading himself up with Rocket Boots to get into charge range of the Jury. I then charged the Jury, but only manage to get a single weak damage result after two attacks. The Jury responds by Delivering a Message to Von Schll, before attacking him to slow him with Sharp Wit. Hannah was my next activation, using Adaptive Tactics on Von Schill to remove Slow, and copy his ability to rescue the Librarian from Lady Justice. I then used Ancient Words on the Jury to kill her, neutralizing the Turf marker next to the Exorcist. My opponent used the Recruiter to replace the Jury with a Death Marshal. With my last action dropped a scheme marker where I would hope to get the second point of Deliver next turn (though in hindsight this was a mistake). The Exorcist uses False Accusation on Von Schill, and proceeds to get some spectacular results - including the Red Joker on damage - to drop Von Schill to one wound. I then had the Midnight Stalker drop the third marker for Breakthrough before charging into the Exorcist, tying him up. The rest of the turn was my opponent’s. He had the Death Marshal - now fast, since Von Schill had been Falsely Accused - charge into my master and kill him. I was alright with this, since it denied him the second point of Deliver a Message - a fact he realized after the activation. The Scales of Justice claimed the central Turf Marker, and the Recruiter attacked Arik twice, landing one hit. At the end of the turn, we both scored Deliver a Message. The score was 3-3. Turn 5 My opponent won the final initiative flip. His Death Marshal charged into my Midnight Stalker, but thanks to Manipulative he failed to connect. I had Arik go first, and manged to kill the Recruiter, neutralizing the central Turf marker. His Lone Marshal moved to score Breakthrough, and I have the Librarian run to claim my left Turf Marker. He has his Scales of Justice reclaim the central Turf marker, and I burn a pass token. He has the Exorcist fail to kill the Midnight Stalker, thanks to Demise (Eternal). The Midnight Stalker, for his part, used Leap to get to the other side of the Turf Marker from his models, and claimed it for myself. Lady Justice opted to leap and attack the Librarian, killing her and neutralizing my left Turf marker, thus denying me the Strategy point. He also placed her out of range of Hannah in such a way that my current scheme marker wouldn’t count for Deliver, and if I wiped it out and dropped a second marker it wouldn’t be in range. A note on this - I do not play Adaptive Tactics as being able to copy the general tactical actions (walk, charge, interact, etc) at least until I see the FAQ, because otherwise I would have used it to get closer and drop the marker. At the end of the game, he reveals Breakthrough and I score my second point of Breakthrough. The score was 4-4. Post-Game Thoughts This was a much harder fight than I expected. I did not respect the offensive output of the Marshal keyword outside of Lady Justice, especially in the form of the Lone Marshal. I was impressed with the model - a Stat 7, Range 14 gun on a Move 7” platform with Run and Gun? I’m honestly surprised that I don’t see/ hear more about it. It was a real MVP. I think a lot of my problems this game were a result of deployment errors. I should have swapped corners - the Prospector would have thrived in a corner protected by walls, while the large bases of my models would have benefitted from bigger movement lanes; I feel like the guns of the Guild would have been on me regardless. I also overextended the Engineer early, and took a lot of punishment that I then had to heal up, which meant I was spending a lot of actions reactively rather than proactively. If I had to do it over, I think I might swap the Prospector for a Freikorpsmann or a Trapper, so I could return the fire at range. If I have three takeaways from this game, it would be: Von Schill’s crew having a lot of spiky damage tracks is nice if you can hit those moderates - hitting weak (if you hit at all) feels bad for your big beaters. I need to consider the impact of my actions - especially scheme markers, when I don’t have scheme marker shenanigans. I denied myself the second point of Deliver the Message because I dropped a marker in a poor spot. I should really work on my Deployment skills - assessing deployment zones and actual setups of my models. I might need to do some lunchtime practice runs just to get used to reliable setups that don’t shoot me in the foot later. My MVP this game has to go to the Midnight Stalker. He scored me two VP, and helped me deny a third for my opponent. He single-handedly had the run of the board. Thank you for reading! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted February 17, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal on 2/17/2020. It was a 50ss game between myself and user Nick Westbrook (Shoutout to Nick!), and we were using the scheme pool for the Malifaux Vassal League, 2nd Round. Pictures from this game can be found here. Set Up We played the Floodlands map. All the foliage was determined to be Dense, Concealing, Severe terrain. The buildings and barrels were Blocking, Impassible. The water was considered Severe terrain, except where the bridges were. The pool was: Corner Deployment Plant Explosives Take Prisoner, Breakthrough, Harness the Ley Line, Vendetta and Search the Ruins. I announced Outcast, he announced Ten Thunders. I announced Viktoria, and he announced Shenlong. The crew I built was: 4 ss Viktoria Chambers w/ Soldier for Hire Viktoria Chambers w/ Soldier for Hire Vanessa Chambers Hans The Midnight Stalker 2x Ronin Prospector His crew: 5ss Shenlong 2x Aspiring Student Fuhatsu Kitty Dumont Wanyudo Dawn Serpent 2x Wandering River Monk My first go against Shenlong, and on such an interesting pool and map. I had selected the Viktorias because I wanted to test how all the extra pushes from Battle Tempo might help in a map that encouraged spreading out. I recognized that he had three threats - Fuhatsu, Shenlong and Dawn Serpent. I took Hans to hopefully snipe an Aspiring Student early, to interrupt his buffing sequence. Seeing that my opponent brought Kitty, Wanyudo and two Wander River Monks, I expected him to go for more scheme marker schemes. So I opted for Vendetta (Hans on Fuhatsu), as Hans would be able to land the shot reliably, and I needed Fuhatsu dead. My scond scheme I picked Breakthrough, because I figured between the Midnight Stalker and the Viktorias, I could get the first point easily. And if the game went in my favor and I killed enough models, I’d be able to drop more markers. Deployment He was attacker. I had him deploy Fuhatsu, Kitty, the Dawn Serpet and Wanyudo first. With the firing lanes covered, I deployed in two main clusters - the Ronin and the Midnight Stalker on my bottom/ right flank, and the Chambers sisters to the top flank. Hans and the Prospector stayed central, as they were not going to do much moving in the game. In order, Bombs went to the Dawn Serpent, Midnight Stalker, Wanyudo, Viktoria (Leader), Kitty, Viktoria (Master), Wandering River Monk, Ronin, Dawn Serpent again, and my second Ronin. Turn 1 Neither of us Stone for cards this round, and I manage to flip the black joker on initiative. He gives me first activation. I gain one pass token, and my Opponent graciously allowed me to correct deployment error I recognized before using Battle Tempo. Battle Tempo spread out my crew. Since I had to go first, I spent my Pass token to force him to go first. He opened with the Aspiring Student using Concentrate twice to gain two Chi. I have my Prospector dig up a soulstone, then drop a marker to Appraise. I land the Red Joker on the effect, dropping an enemy marker into position for one of the Viks to eat it for a stone, and drawing a card. His second Student went, transfering Chi to Shenlong before attacking him for some Distracted, hitting the Concentrate trigger twice. I activate my leader Viktoria, placing my second Vik next to the enemy scheme marker. I then Setting Sun for some shielded, walk up twice behind a central building and Concentrate. Kitty went next, charging through Fuhatsu (giving him Brilliance), and attacking him. He relented, and stoned for the mask to draw three cards off the attack. She then flips the Black Joker on Reaching Tendrils, thus being unable to push Fuhatsu. This was a stroke of luck for me, as it boxed his crew into his deployment zone. I have my second Vik go next, discarding the enemy scheme marker for a stone through Soldier for Hire, then walk up next to my other Vik and using Setting Sun. My Viks done, he activates Shenlong and attaches Wandering River, giving Chi to his remaining monks. He moves some Chi around, then pushes Fuhatsu. He then commands his Student to push himself, moving up the board. Hans is my next activation, and he just walks up and concentrates. I regret not taking Servant of Dark Powers for the movement, as I realize he will be out of range for most of the match. His first Wandering Monk walks and leaps up, then concentrates to gain a Chi. We proceed to trade activations, walking up both of my Ronin and the Midnight Stalker opposite his Dawn serpent, Wanyudo and second Wandering River Monk. The next activation of note was Vanessa, who used Intuition to walk and charge into Viktoria and burn a few weak cards off the top of my deck. To end the turn, he walks Fuhatsu into a position with a good firing lane and concentrated. At the end of turn, the Wandering River Monks pushed further towards the corners. Turn 2 Neither of us stone this turn. I win initiative, and get 1 pass token. I see Hans has range on one of the Wandering River Monks, and I have a hand that could one-shot kill it if I hit. So I use Battle Tempo to open a line of fire for him, then go first. Hans focused a second time, then took the focused shot (spending a second focused for Sniper) to hit the Wandering River Monk. The Monk burns Chi and a severe from his hand to cheat above a level I could meet, so he dodges the bullet and Butterfly Jumps away. My opponent punishes me by going with Fuhatsu next, who pours machine gun fire into my second Viktoria and drops her to Hard to Kill and revealing Vendetta, before healing up the damage from Kitty. I make a second mistake this round and choose to activate Vanessa next, intending to heal the Viktoria (I should have run her away, since Shenlong was in range to kill her). With Intuition, I saw the Black Joker in the top 3 cards so I spent an action attacking Viktoria to clear it, but this meant I only got to do a single heal for 2, putting my wounded Viktoria back above hard to kill. Shenlong went, and he didn’t care about Hard to Kill. He attached Fermented River Style, and with two attacks he kills my wounded Viktoria - though I did dodge the first hit with a lucky Prevention flip. Because he used Dragon’s Light, I was unable to get the Demise (Unbalanced) buff on my remaining Viktoria. He then commanded himself to interact. I go with the Prospector next, wanting to wait out his other activations. She stunned herself for a stone, then dropped another marker and Appraising it for another severe result. Wanyudo went next, charging a Ronin and doing Moderate damage, then pushing over all three of the models on my right flank. He then used Breath of Fire on my second Ronin, and then his bonus. When the dust cleared, my first Ronin was dead, and my second Ronin was left at Hard to Kill. I was admittedly taken aback by this, as my past experience with Wanyudo had not prepared me for this. I go with the remaining Ronin, and killed the Wanyudo in response. I put the Wanyudo’s bomb onto the Midnight Stalker. Kitty went next, using Draw off Brilliance to push towards Fuhatsu, before once again charging through him to get the draw effect. My remaining Viktoria walked into position to drop her bomb and take a pot shot at Fuhatsu, only getting a weak result. His second Wandering River monk moved to drop a bomb on my side of the board before engaging both the Ronin and my Midnight Stalker. At this point, I burn my Pass token in order to draw out the Manipulative on Midnight Stalker. His Aspiring Student walks up the board. I go with Midnight Stalker, using Assist on the Ronin to clear the burning before Leaping and picking up the bomb the Wandering River monk had dropped to deny him that point. His topmost Wandering River Monk went next, failing to leap and settling for walking twice. His second Student went next, moving twice and copying Shenlong’s upgrade for a third push towards Viktoria. As his last activation, my opponent had his Dawn Serpent drop a bomb and pulse out his bonus, forcing me to discard a card to save my Ronin. At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy. My opponent had also revealed Vendetta (Fuhatsu on my non-leader Viktoria) and scored that point. The score was 1-2. Turn 3 I stone for cards this turn, and proceed to win initiative. I gain 2 pass tokens, and use Battle Tempo to move my Ronin into the Pyre Marker the Wanyudo had dropped (so anyone going after her would risk gaining burning themselves) as I expected her to die this turn. I also Battle Tempo’d Viktoria into a Charge threat position on Shenlong. I start with Viktoria, and end up changing my mind on going for Shenlong. Instead, I go after his Student and kill it, drawing a card with Bloody Fate. I then use East and West and try to kill his second Student, but fail to connect. His Dawn Serpent goes next, charging over the Pyre and killing the Ronin before dropping a bomb. My Prospector pushes towards a scheme marker I had dropped last turn, digs up a soulstone, and Appraises for a weak result. She then drops a scheme marker to set up for next turn. Kitty went next, once again charging Fuhatsu to draw cards off her mask trigger. He flips the Black Joker on the damage flip this time, and pulls in high moderates. She then uses Reaching Tendrils on Shenlong, who Pushes next to my bomb. I charge Vanessa into Shenlong, hoping to tie him up a little and protect the bomb. Unfortunately, he flips the Red Joker on defense, and uses Chi to dodge my second swing. Fuhatsu wetn next, and killed Vanessa for her troubles. I reply with Hans, discarding for rams and shooting Fuhatsu (using my Red Joker to connect), getting 4 damage that he reduces to 2. This unfortunately left him 1 wound above the Vendetta range. His topmost Wandering River Monk drops a pair of scheme markers in terrain on my side of the board, telegraphing Search the Ruins. I have the Midnight Stalker drop a bomb, leap, and drop a second bomb to secure the strategy this turn. I also made an error here, as I forgot Breakthrough was in enemy deployment zone, not in enemy board half (a mistake I’ve made before), dropping a scheme marker. His second Wandering River Monk copied his first, doing a pair of interacts to drop Search the Ruins markers. Shenlong attached Wandering River Style before picking up my bomb, walking into range to obey his other Wandering River monk who fails to leap, and drops my bomb into position to score for him. His last student copies Shenlong to push Kitty to position to drop a bomb. At the end of the turn, he pushes his Wandering River Monks into places where Hans can’t see them, and reveals Search the Ruins. We both score the Strategy this turn. The score was 2-4. Turn 4 We both stone for cards, and I win initiative again. I gain 3 pass tokens and Battle Tempo Viktoria into a position to shoot Fuhatsu. I start with Hans, again discarding for rams, and shooting Fuhatsu, who stones to prevent 1. This was enough to reveal Vendetta, which I did. Kitty went next, dropping a bomb before once again charging Fuhatsu to draw 3 cards. I go with Viktoria next, walking and using East and West and taking two shots on a 3 wound Fuhatsu. Unfortunately, I don’t have the cards to make it happen and he lives. Fuhatsu goes next and heals 4 from Juggernaut, then walks twice into concealing terrain. This effectively ended my chances for getting Vendetta’s second point. I have my Prospector dig up another stone and Appraise a marker, getting a moderate result. He has his Wandering River Monk drop two more scheme markers, and I run the Midnight Stalker into his deployment zone and drop a scheme marker to score Breakthrough. His Aspiring Student pushes Kitty by copying Shenlong, then walks towards Viktoria. His second Wandering River Monk drops a marker and leaps, then shoots Hans, pushing him and doing moderate damage. His Dawn Serpent picks up one of my bombs. To end the turn, Shenlong attaches Fermented River Style and commands his Student to attack Viktoria, failing to hit but engaging her. He then walks and uses Falling Rave Kick to attack the Disguised Hans, but I cheat a low card to give him a positive to damage (turning into a negative due to his upgrade), getting Weak damage. He black joker’s the second damage flip. At the end of turn, I reveal Breakthrough. He scores the Strategy while I do not. The score was 4-5. Turn 5 I stone for cards, and once again win initiative with my Pass tokens. I Battle Tempo Viktoria out of engagement wit the Student. I open with Viktoria, and get tunnel vision on killing Kitty (to protect the Midnight Stalker). I charge her, and it takes three attacks but I end up killing her. At this point I realize that without any other models in range, I wouldn’t be able to get three markers for Breakthrough - meaning I would not be able to score any more points, nor would I be able to deny any of his points. We agreed to call the game here, with him scoring the Strategy a 4th time, and getting full points on both Vendetta and Search the Ruins. At the end of the game, the score was 4-8. Post-Game Thoughts This was an eye-opening game, and my opponent was kind enough to talk it over with me afterwards. He was surprised by how deadly the Viks could be (killing an Incorporeal Henchman in one activation) and how fast I could be with all of my pushes. He was also impressed with the work done by Hans and the Prospector, for models stuck in my backfield. For my part, I found the offensive output of the Wanyudo to be way above my expectations, and I realize I need to give it more of a try. When talking about changes he might make if he had to do it over, my opponent thought about putting Trained Ninja on Fuhatsu, but otherwise didn’t have much to change. To be fair, he played a solid game and executed his plan well. As far as my performance, I think a series of errors turn 2 (and poor scheme selection) were my biggest mistakes. Firstly, in turn 2 I should have not tried to kill his Wandering River Monk with Hans - I didn’t take Chi into account, and didn’t even have a ram to Reference the Field Guide with. I would have been better served with having a Viktoria either make a run to the top-left flank, or at the very least gone with the injured Viktoria instead of healing her. Losing a bomb, and one half of my Master, without getting any actions out of her was a real detriment. I also discounted the Wanyudo as an offensive threat, and in one activation it decimated my right flank, even if it died afterwards. These two activations - Fuhatsu and Wanyudo on turn 2 - killed two of my bomb carriers, wounded a third, and crippled my damage threat. If I had to do deployment/ the first turn over, I would split the Viktorias to run one on either flank. I also felt like I was not getting enough work out of Hans, with no easy way to give him focused outside of his activation. I think giving him Servant of Dark Powers may have been worthwhile, as getting extra 6” of movement may have given me more options to shoot without Sniper. I also shot myself in the foot with scheme selection. Vendetta wasn’t a bad pick, but Hard to wound, Armor 1, Juggernaut and soulstone use made getting Fuhatsu down to half wounds a monumental task. I would have been better served with a different scheme. Likewise, Breakthrough would have been fine if I remembered I needed to get into the deployment zone - as it was, I spent actions trying to score where it wasn’t a valid choice. If I had to do it over, I’d probably take Take Prisoner on Fuhatsu and Search the Ruins. In the end, my three takeaways this game would be: 1. Read the Freaking Schemes. It’s so easy to ruin your game if you play for objectives that don’t exist. 2. Consider the threats you’re facing when you have a model near death. Healing is nice, but if your opponent can just mitigate your healing by killing a weak model, then you’ve lost two activations (healer’s activation and dead model activation) instead of one. 3. With Mercenaries specifically, I need to be mindful of push lanes. Sometimes I put myself into positions where I would get into a traffic jam. MVP of the match for me has to be the Midnight Stalker once again. He scored me 2 victory points (one strategy point, and one scheme point) and could have scored more if I had chosen better. In the end, this game was a heck of a lot of fun and my opponent was a great sport. I learned a ton about the Mercenary crew (and general Malifaux concepts like scheme selection). I’m also finding Vassal really gets me out of the terrain mindset I’m used to - the asymmetry of the Vassal maps really throws me for a loop, and I enjoy that. Thank you for reading! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebo Posted February 18, 2020 Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 7 hours ago, Diceman87 said: He opened with the Aspiring Student using Concentrate twice to gain two Chi. The Concentrate action is once per activation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Dyson Posted February 18, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 19 minutes ago, Zebo said: The Concentrate action is once per activation. Normally, yes! However, Shenlong has the 'Training Grounds' ability that allows friendly Monks to ignore the once-per-activation limit on Concentrate, which is good with their use of that to gain Chi or Focused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebo Posted February 18, 2020 Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 Sorry, I should have checked the monks profiles before 😶 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adran Posted February 18, 2020 Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 2 hours ago, Zebo said: The Concentrate action is once per activation. I think this crops up every single time people give Shenlong battle reports or talk about tactics to use, so I wouldn't worry too much, you're not the first to miss training grounds. (although it would be good if people do check the advise they give is right, there are quite a lot of models that ignore the core rules...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
touchdown Posted February 18, 2020 Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 Do you feel like you got value out of Soldier for Hire on the Viks? I feel like it's kind of a trap take. Sure they're really fragile so it seems to make sense but I think I'd rather have the stones for damage reduction or hitting triggers (or even card draw). Even worse though is I think it gives a false sense of security, they're still pretty easy to kill but it makes me play like they're tougher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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