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3 hours ago, touchdown said:

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.

I definitely didn't get my value out of them this game.  It was a poor choice to take against a master who could ignore Hard to Kill, but that's on me for not double-checking Shenlong during crew selection.

I still need some reps in with them to figure out what I flex and what I make a core choice.  

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal on 2/18/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and user Alcathous (Shoutout to Ambrose!), and we were using the scheme pool for the Malifaux Vassal League, 2nd Round.   

Pictures from this game can be found here.  *For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of the end of Turn 4.

Set Up
We played the Floodlands map.  All the foliage was determined to be Dense, Concealing, Severe terrain.  The buildings were Blocking and Impassible, and the barrels were Blocking, Impassible and Destructible.  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 Bayou, he announced Neverborn.  I announced Zoraida, and he announced Titania.  

The crew I built was:

8ss
Zoraida
The First Mate
Sammy LaCroix
Adze
Grootslang
Gatreaux Bokor

His crew:

5ss
Titania w/ Inhuman Reflexes
Gorar
Mysterious Emissary
Doppelganger
Autumn Knight
3x Waldgeist (Affectionately nicknamed ‘Ashgeist, Birchgeist and Cedargeist’)

Going into this matchup, with the board chock full of Severe and Concealing terrain, I knew I wanted to avoid a combat-focused crew.  With the pool full of scheme running and positioning schemes, I chose Zoraida and planning to use her keyword’s speed to score points.  When I saw Titania, I doubled down on the plan of avoiding contact with the enemy - Titania is too killy, and her crew too durable, to kill while also scheming on a Corner deployment.  

I opted for an elite crew, planning to use pass tokens early game to bleed activations, and then hopefully take out one or two enemies to achieve activation parity.  I wanted to try out the Adze and the Grootslang, because both seemed good in this pool.  I took the Bokor for more obeys and heals, and the First Mate because...he’s the First Mate.  Sammy was there to provide some more backfield control, and maybe to discourage my opponent from going for the scheme marker schemes.

I ended up choosing Search the Ruins and Take Prisoner, selecting the third Waldgeist aka ‘Cedargeist’. I figured that I would be able to get Search the Ruins with Grootslang and Adze/ the First Mate after they dropped bombs.  My opponent ended up taking Take Prisoner on my Gatreaux Bokor and Breakthrough.

Deployment
He was the attacker, and I had him deploy the Waldgeist first along with Gorar and the Autumn Knight.  They deployed in terrain centrally in the top left corner, with the Gorar and the Autumn Knight outside towards my right flank.

I deployed next, clustering in terrain in the bottom right corner behind the building. The First Mate was positioned to go on the left flank.  Grootslang was in my corner, with the Lairs placed in the far corners of the centerline.

He deployed the rest of his crew on my left flank.  He placed his Underbrush markers on the central bridges, to slow down my crews advancement.

We placed Bombs next, in this order - Titania, First Mate, Doppelganger, Grootslang, Gorar, Adze, Ashgeist, Sammy, Cedargeist, Zoraida.  I deliberately spread my bombs out, figuring that with their respective speeds, I could run Zoraida/ Sammy over the centerline on the last turn for a 4th bomb.  This was also to paint a smaller target on the Adze/ Grootslang’s backs, since they were going to go in deep.  In hindsight, I might have put a second bomb on the Adze instead of Zoraida.

Turn 1
I won the initiative, and gave him first activation.  Our crew differences net me 2 pass tokens.  I spend these pass tokens to bleed three activations out of him.  Unsurprisingly, his first few activations were walking the Autumn Knight, Gorar (who also focused), and the Birchgeist up (who also Ambushed).  

My first activation was the Adze, who used a combination of Walk and Ambush to move up and Lure Sammy, hitting the Quick Reflexes trigger to walk the Bokor up as well.  He walks/ Ambushes the Cedargeist up, while I walk Sammy up into Jinx range and Concentrate.  He walks/ Ambushes the Ashgeist up next to the Cedargeist, and I go with the First Mate, leaving him behind the blocking building to hide from Titania’s insane range.  The Doppelganger walks and Lures Titania forward, discarding for Camouflage to avoid retribution from Zoraida.  

Finally I activate Zoraida, summoning the Voodoo Doll.  I Obey the Adze, hitting the Ensorcel trigger to walk and drop it’s bomb over the centerline.  She then walks to have line of sight on the enemy crew, and tries to Obey the First Mate, but the Black Joker foils my plans.  I end with Threads of Fate to refresh both of our hands.   

He walks the Mysterious Emissary up, and puts up the Deception Aura.  I have the Voodoo Doll charge the Bokor, giving it two glowy and Fast before killing itself.  In the first of many mistakes, I did forget to draw the card this time. 

Finally Titania goes, walking over the centerline and dropping her bomb, before using the Queens Command to push an Underbrush marker to just tag Zoraida, for a point of damage, hitting the trigger to push a second marker.

I have the rest of the activations and have the Bokor heal itself and Zoraida with the healing burst trigger.  It then used concentrate so I could Obey the Grootslang through the Concealing Terrain (I had forgotten to take it into account when the Adze has used Lure).  This Obey landed and the Grootslang used Lair to Lair to teleport to the top right corner.  It then walked and Concentrated, before Ambushing into Concealing Terrain.

Turn 2
I stone for cards this turn, to end up with a hand full of high moderates and severes.  To make matters better, I won the initiative.  I gained two pass tokens.

I open with the Grootslang, dropping his bomb and then using Ambush and a Charge to go for the Gorar.  I was hoping for an easy kill, but would settle for the Slink Away trigger (which I had in hand).  I spend my Focus, but my opponent tied me and I end up doing weak damage.  I do get the Slink Away trigger, and end up next to the top right Lair marker again.

He has the Ashgeist Ambush up and walk over the centerline to drop his bomb.  I walk the Adze up, use Firefly to try and get some burning on the Autumn Knight (who passes the duel) before charging the Gorar, killing it and stealing it’s bomb.  The Birchgeist goes next, also moving over the centerline to pick up the bomb my Adze had dropped.  

I activate Zoraida, once again summoning the Voodoo Doll.  This time I got Wanga Mojo on the Birchgeist.  Her first Obey with the Ensorcel trigger is on the First Mate, walking him twice to have a line of sight to the Ashgeist.  She then uses Obey on the Ashgeist, and he promptly picks up the bomb he just dropped.  For her last action, Zoraida tries to to Hex the Ashgeist, as I figured with injured the First Mate could maybe take the bomb from him.  However, the Black Joker appeared to thwart my plans again.  To end her activation, Zoraida again uses Threads of Fate to refresh our hands.

The Mysterious Emissary went next, putting up Deception Aura before attacking the First Mate (who was barely in 6”) with Roots from Below, with the Quicksand trigger.  I stone for prevention and avoid the damage.  He drops a Hungry Land marker, and I Butterfly Jump back into Stealth range, but have to take 1 damage from his new Hungry Land marker.  He then walks the Emissary closer to the rest of my crew.

In order to save the First Mate, I have him Leap over a building and walk over the centerline on the left flank and drop a bomb.  He has the Cedargeist maneuver to get a charge onto Sammy, cheating for the Heave trigger.  I stone the damage away, but don’t cheat to avoid - I wouldn’t want to turn down this free Take Prisoner point!

Sammy went next, discarding for Penetrating Stench.  She then walked to be in position to take a focused Jinx shot on the Autumn Knight, getting the Glimpse the Void trigger.  He cheats to fail, figuring it’d get his Autumn Knight further up the board.  I was ok with this, as it meant my Adze and Grootslang were mostly uncontested.

The Doppelganger walks twice to catch up with his crew.  I have the Voodoo Doll stab the Bokor for a single Glowy and Fast, hitting Moderate so I stop the sequence.  I then kill it, remembering to draw the card this time.
 
Titania goes next, walking to have line of sight to Zoraida and using Queen’s Command to push another Underbrush Marker and ping Zoraida.  She then attacks Zoraida with two Awakened Hungers, getting the positive to the attack because she was in an Underbrush marker.  The second attack had the Into Thorns trigger, which he takes for the damage.  I burn stones to take the edge off the damage.  The Gatreaux Bokor went next, Concentrating before using Obey on Sammy to re-engage the Cedargeist (in hindsight, I should have done something else with Sammy as I could have done more heals with the Bokor otherwise).  The Bokor then used Healing Energy on Zoraida, pulsing healing back to itself.  The Bokor then gave her shielded from Protective Spirits.   

The Autumn Knight activated, and I unburied it next to the Birchgeist and in severe terrain.  She spends her activation walking.

At the end of the Turn, we both score the Strategy.  I reveal Take Prisoner on the Cedargeist.

The score was 2-1.

Turn 3
He stones for cards.  I flip the black joker on initiative, and he chooses to go first.  I generate a single Pass token.

He opens with Titania, who goes hard in the paint at Zoraida with three Wicked Hungers, hitting the Into Thorns trigger several times (one time cheating the Red Joker to hit).  I burn stones and my best cards, and he even pushes a pair of Underbrush Markers into Zoraida for more ping damage.  When the dust settled, Zoraida Lived at 1 wound. 

The Bokor activated next, using her heal on Zoraida to get her back to 6 wounds.  It would prove to be insufficient, as the Doppelganger copied the Mysterious Emissary’s Roots from Below attack, which kills Zoraida.  Titania takes her bomb.  

I have Sammy Concentrate and Jinx the Cedargeist, and fail to connect.  At this point, I was very much regretting my choice to hire Sammy.  The Ashgeist moved through the Hungry Land marker for a point of damage, and dropped it’s bomb again.  

I have the Grootslang move back into Severe terrain and drop a scheme marker for Search the Ruins.  He has the Cedargeist attack Sammy, Staggering her before Ambushing away and dropping his bomb.  The Adze drops a bomb and a second Scheme marker in terrain for Search the Ruins.  The Birchgeist likewise moves forward and drops a bomb.

For my last activation, I have the First Mate pick up the bomb he had dropped, walk and leap forward.  I did this because I figured that I already would score the second point on the strategy this turn, and if I left the bomb where it was my opponent was more likely to steal it from me.

He walked his Autumn Knight into position to Take Prisoner on my Bokor, and the Emissary turned to threaten the First Mate.  At the end of the turn, we both score the second point on the strategy. He reveals Take Prisoner on the Bokor.  I reveal Search the Ruins.

The score was 4-3.

Turn 4
He stones for cards this turn as well, and he wins initiative.  I gained 2 pass tokens.  He gives me the first activation, so I spend a Pass token.  He has his Autumn Knight drop a marker, revealing his second scheme was likely Breakthrough.  The Autumn Knight then concentrated and challenged the Bokor.  

I went with Sammy next, Putrefying the scheme marker into a Flying Pig.  She then failed to Jinx the Birchgeist.   The Ashgeist ran into my deployment zone, far away from the Flying Pig.  I walk the Adze after dropping a scheme marker for Search the Ruins, intoto a position where it would be able to engage the Cedargeist if needed next turn.   The Cedargeist, for it’s part, killed Sammy and took her bomb before Charging the Bokor and using Heave to place it on the far side. 

The First Mate leaps further into his deployment zone, walking and then dropping a Bomb.  He flies Titania deep into my deployment zone and drops a marker for Breakthrough.  I burn my last Pass token, and the Mysterious Emissary walked into base contact with one of my bombs, threatening to pull it next turn.  The Grootslang used Create Lair and Lair to Lair, before Ambushing next to his Ashgeist to deny the reveal of Breakthrough.  The Birchgeist moves to block the Bokor’s Line of sight to the Flying Pig.  

I was hoping to Obey the Pig to walk into position to deny Breakthrough on Titania, but with the Birchgeist I had to scrap that plan.  After talking it over with my opponent, I try to Obey his Birchgeist (I had the Red Joker in hand, and had it in mind to attack Titania and use the Heave trigger to pull her out).  Unfortunately, I Black Joker the first Obey.  With little likelihood of stopping Breakthrough, I Obeyed the Cedargeist and had him kill the Bokor, denying the second point of Take Prisoner.  This did take the Red Joker, but was worth it in my opinion.  

To end the turn, the Doppelganger walked twice towards my deployment zone.

At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy and my opponent reveals Breakthrough.

The score was 5-5.

Turn 5
He wins initiative this turn, and I gain 3 pass tokens.  The Emissary picked up my scheme and bomb markers in the top.  The First Mate drops a pair of markers for Search the Ruins.  The Ashgeist walks and drops a Breakthrough marker.  I burn a pass token, and the Birchgeist also drops a Breakthrough marker.  I pass again, and the Autumn Knight kills my Flying Pig.  I realize I should have activated the Flying Pig if only to retain activation parity.  I pass again, and his Doppelganger drops a third marker for Breakthrough.  

The Grootslang pushed out of engagement and charged the Cedargeist to slow him with his Tongue attack, but I was unable to lock him down.  My opponent dropped a spare bomb with Titania, and the Adze dropped a marker to secure my second point of Search the Ruins.  This was the safe play, since the Cedargeist was able to push out of engagement and deny me Take Prisoner.

At the end of the game, I scored my second Search the Ruins.  My opponent scored the strategy, and the second point of Breakthrough

The score was 6-7.

Post-Game Thoughts
This was an incredibly close game, and my opponent was a great sport.  He was kind enough to chat with me after the game, and we went over crew and scheme selection.  He agreed that Search the Ruins was the better pick over Breakthrough (given that I nearly denied him a point on the reveal), and that he had a hard time in general picking his schemes.  He opted for Take Prisoner simply because of Zoraida’s ability to mess with scheme marker schemes.  He also mentioned how Zoraida as a master influenced his crew building (going for more minions instead of bigger models like the Hooded Rider) which was a good reminder of the unseen impact of models.

I thought the Fae keyword did well on this map, the Waldgeist were significantly faster than I anticipated, with all the Severe Terrain for them to Ambush through for free.  The Mysterious Emissary was an incredible offensive threat, and Titania Herself was a wrecking ball.  I wasn’t as impressed with the Autumn Knight, but it still did work for him in the end by scoring Take Prisoner.

For my part, I think I played the match well but made several tactical blunders.  I should have run Zoraida out of the Underbrush Markers on turn 2, using her ability to take actions from Swampfiends within 12” to continue to disrupt the board.  I also think that I should have just run the Adze on turn 1 instead of going for the Lure, since it meant that my Gatreaux Bokor didn’t really benefit from it’s fast.  I also think I made a mistake in not activating the Flying Pig when I had the chance, and thus giving the Cedargeist a chance to run away.  

If I had to do it over, I think I might swap Sammy LaCroix for McTavish - his 14” gun may only be stat 5, but ignoring the concealment from the Underbrush Markers would make him a serious threat on a Corner Deployment, and he could better protect Zoraida from incoming threats like Titania.

My three takeaways from today’s game would be:
1. Consider terrain and line of sight, especially when moving your models out of activation.  Especially when Concealment is involved.
2. Obeys to attack yourself to kill yourself is a niche way to avoid Take Prisoner, and is something that makes the Bokor even more versatile.
3. Discretion is the better part of valor.  It was only a 1 Diff game because I actively avoided most of his crew with my main three models.

MVP of this game goes to the trio of Grootslang, Adze and First Mate.  Equally tied since they all contributed to scoring me a point or two, and just being impressive models. 

Thank you for reading!

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal on 2/20/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and user TalesOfDawn, and we generated the pool using the App.   

Pictures from this game can be found here

Set Up
We played the Mausoleum map.  The graves were blocking, climbable, impassable.  Central was hazardous severe.  Bottom was cactus hazardous (Injured), severe.

The pool was:

Corner Deployment
Corrupted Idols
Vendetta, Assassinate, Breakthrough, Hold Up Their Forces, Take Prisoner

I announced Resurrectionists, he announced Resurrectionists.  I announced Reva, and he announced Von Schtook.  

The crew I built was:

6ss
Reva Cortinas w/ the Whisper
2x Corpse Candles
Vincent St. Clair
Dead Rider
2x Shieldbearer w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch
Bone Pile

His crew:

5ss
Von Schtook w/ the Whisper
Research Assistant
The Valedictorian
Anna Lovelace
Sloth
2x Undergraduate
Necropunk

I’d never faced Albus before, but I’ve read up on him.  I knew he had a lot of card draw, condition removal, and crew buffing.  I’ve heard horror stories of the Valedictorian, and with Sloth in the crew I figured he’d be pretty tanky.  Unfortunately, as Reva I had a tanky crew as well that didn’t scheme all that well - so I picked the killy schemes in Assassinate and Vendetta (Vincent on Anna).  I was banking on locking down part of the board and getting initiative to put Idols there, and hopefully force him to come to me.

My opponent ended up taking Breakthrough and Assassinate as well.

Deployment
He was attacker, and I had him deploy the Valedictorian, Undergraduate and Necropunk.  I deployed centrally, with Vincent in range to Ride With Me from the Dead Rider.  He deployed the rest of his crew centrally as well.  
 
Turn 1
He stones for cards at the start.  I win Initiative, and have him go first.  I drop the Idol on the left flank, between the corner and the midway point.

He activates Albus, and uses Peer Review on Anna, stoning for the crow and attaching the upgrade.  He then used Academic Broadcast and hit the Surge trigger, pushing his crew up the board.  He then used Administrative Review on Anna, using Positive Results to give her fast.  To end his activation, he walked up the board.

After that impressive first activation, I have my Corpse Candle walk up, pushing his fellow candle with Light the way.  Sloth used Rigor Mortis to give the Valedictorian Fast, and then walked.  I have my other Candle walk and Light the Way, trying to get them into position to die for Pyre markers.  One of the Undergraduates walks twice, heading to threaten my right flank.

I have a Shieldbearer use Shield Slam on Reva, getting the mask trigger to push her up the field.  She then charged and used Shield Slam on the Bonepile to push it up as well.  His Necropunk leaped and walked twice, doubling down on my right flank.  My second Shieldbearer charged the Bonepile and Shield bashed it further forward, Shield Bashing the other Shieldbearer with his second action.

Anna went next and walked three times, hiding in the central building.  I have the Bonepile walk into position and shoot my Corpse Candle, dropping a Pyre within 6” of Reva.  The Research Assistant walked twice, following Anna.  I send the Dead Rider to head off the Necropunk and Undergraduate, using Ride with Me to bring Vincent forward.  The second Undergrad uses By Your Side to Anna, then walks near the Idol marker and concentrated.

Vincent walked into position and try for Cremation on the corpse dropped by the Candle, but flipped the Black Joker.  Valedictorian walks up twice and Concentrates, projecting huge threat over the left flank.

Reva went, summoning another Candle before repositioning and Concentrating, having no desire to get closer to the Valedictorian than necessary.  My new Candle pushes it’s fellow and then charged into the Undergraduate, missing but engaging him.

Turn 2
He wins initiative, and places the Idol marker in the bottom left corner.  He opts to go first, and has his Undergraduate that is engaged by my Corpse Candle teleport to Albus and use Lead the Way on both Albus and Sloth.  I have my Corpse Candle push the second Candle and walk to engage the Valedictorian, but not attack it - I had no desire to give him card draws from my wimpy attack. 

His Research Assistant walked up and failed to throw a grenade.  I go with Vincent, pulsing out Shielded before walking and shooting the Assistant.  He Red Jokers the defense, and I Rapid Fire and cheat the Critical strike, killing the totem and dropping a Pyre under Anna.  

His other Undergraduate teleports next to my Corpse Candle, killing it and I drop a Pyre under him and the Valedictorian.  It then pushes Anna with Lead the Way, and pushes the Valedictorian with Lead the way.  For his bonus action, he Studied the corpse marker and drew a card.

I go with Reva next, and use a combination of her bonus action and Intuition to clear out some weak cards from the top of my deck.  She then charged and used Ethereal Reaping, attacking the Valedictorian through my Corpse Candle.  He drew a card, and I got weak damage.  I then use Unquiet Dead, stoning for the Mask trigger.  I do this twice, and when the dust settled Valedictorian had failed twice, Anna failed once (due to the Black Joker), and his Undergraduate failed once.  On the fourth Unquiet Dead from a trigger I Black Joker the simple duel.

Sloth walks up and Heals the Valedictorian and gives her slow.  I walk my Shieldbearer close to Reva and use Blasphemous Ritual to give her Focused.  His Necropunk Leaps and walks through the central building, having done it’s job of pulling my Dead Rider out of position.  My other Shieldbearer walked up and focused, then planted the Shield.  Importantly, I misread Take the HIt and thought it was a 6” effect, not a 2” one.

Albus walks up next, and uses Lecture Notes on Valedictorian, then Academic broadcast to give her Focused.  He then uses Administrative Review to clear the Burning, Injured and Slow off the Valedictorian, and give her Fast.  

I walk a Corpse Candle next to the Valedictorian, but leave it in line of sight to Anna.  Anna shoots it and kills it, then uses Grade Assignment on the corpse it drops.  She shoots at Vincent, and I get the Red Joker to avoid the hit.  The Dead Rider repositions to support Vincent, ignoring the Necropunk.

Valedictorian goes next, charging Reva.  Without going into too much detail, when the dust settled she had made many attacks on Reva and had pushed the Shieldbearer away (I took the hit and got knocked aside), and burned most of my stones to avoid damage.  She ended by Stunning Reva with Lecture Notes.  I have the Bone Pile Throw Reva a Bone for some heals, then charge the Valedictorian for weak.  

At the end of the turn, He reveals Assassinate.  Neither of us score the strategy.  The score was 0-1.

Turn 3
We both cheat initiative this turn, and he wins placing the Idol in the corner with the one from the previous turn.

He opens with Albus, using Grade Assignment on a Corpse Candle.  He walked through a Pyre and took a pair of Gruesome Lecture attacks on Reva.  We both cheat high cards, but in the end he is able to kill Reva and the Bone Pile with blasts, dropping markers next to each.

I have the Dead Rider charged into his Undergrad, and use the Soulfire trigger to kill the Undergrad and injure Anna and Albus, getting a stone.  The Necropunk walked and leaped and schemed, showing his hand for Breakthrough.  I had Vincent - shoot 3 times at Anna, miss all 3 times, but with my hand shredded (and him drawing more cards with Studied Opponent) I miss all three times.

Sloth walked and tried to slow the Rider, but failed.  He then healed Anna up.  My Shieldbearer charged the Valedictorian and did Severe damage, healing herself back to full.  The Valedictorian attacked back, doing some damage and Lecture Notes on the Shieldbearer who lives.  My second Shieldbearer ran to contest Breakthrough.  

Anna went next, using Grade Assignment on a Corpse before whiffing on the Dead Rider (spending a stone for Tomes).  His Undergrad used By Your Side to teleport next to one of the idols, and tossed it before Studying one of my corpse markers. 

At the end of the turn, he scores the Strategy.  The score was 0 - 2.

At this point, I concede the game because I did not see a way I could reliably come back.  He had secured 2 points for Assassinate, was in position to score the Strategy at least one more time, and had ample opportunity to score both points of Breakthrough.  Meanwhile, I would not likely get any Strategy Points, and it was unlikely I could get more than 1 point of Assassinate or Vendetta combined, with only Vincent and the Dead Rider to do my attacks (and a healthy Valedictorian around).

Post-Game Thoughts
My opponent was kind enough to talk things through with me, but in the end I feel that it was a simple matter of being outclassed by a better player.  My opponent took models that could score more reliably, he was consistently drawing 6+ cards a turn with Studied Opponent, and he was able to eat my master at the top of turn 3.  

I also struggled in this game to establish that kill zone with Reva.  For the one activation where she was able to get three models in range of Unquiet Dead, I definitely saw the hand pressure in action - simple duels seem to get around a lot of what makes Albus tick, and if I had placed her/ her crew better, I might have been able to get another round of it in.

I was not impressed with the Bone Pile this game, as it didn’t do much for me like it has in other games.  I’m starting to wonder if I value it more for it’s scheming than it’s heal. Major misplay points will go to sending the Dead Rider onto my right flank - I should have kept him with the rest of the crew and counter-charged the Valedictorian, or at least threatened it.

My three takeaways from this game would be:

When I make a plan to be a clustered death ball, I should stick to my plan - sending models off by themselves (Dead Rider) effectively “Split the party” and let my squishy wizard die.  
Against more mobile crews, Reva needs to have models between her and the enemy - I should have run Shieldbearers in front of her, and engaged perhaps Turn 3 rather than 2.  
In hindsight, the scheme pool, deployment and map were all not ideal for Reva.  I must consider that she really isn’t an all-comers master, and is more of a niche master.

My MVP for the game, such as it was, would be Vincent - he killed the totem, enabled Unquiet Dead, and nearly scored a victory point on Vendetta (and would have likely been the one to score if I had played it out). 

I will admit, this game has me sour on Reva, so I’ll be taking a break from her for a few games.

Thanks for reading!

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41 minutes ago, Diceman87 said:

His other Undergraduate teleports next to my Corpse Candle, killing it and I drop a Pyre under him and the Valedictorian.  It then pushes Anna with Lead the Way, and pushes the Valedictorian with Lead the way.  For his bonus action, he Studied the corpse marker and drew a card.

May I ask how he did it? Killing the Candle and pushing two friendly models looks like 3 actions. 

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This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 2/22/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and Liam, one of our regulars generating using the Malifaux App.   

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
We used a board that was arranged as a kind of compound with a garden in the center.  We decreed that the walls with roofs were Height 3, and the buildings were Height 4, all blocking and impassable.  The ladders were deemed climbable.  The water pool was severe.  The forest was severe, dense, concealing, Height 4.  

The pool was:

Flank Deployment
Turf War
Breakthrough, Dig Their Graves, Outflank, Deliver a Message, Claim Jump

I announced Bayou, he announced Resurrectionists.  I announced Wong, and he announced Mary “Blacktongue” Bonnet.  

The crew I built was:

2ss
Wong
Olivia Bernard
Sammy LaCroix
Burt Jebsen
Pigapult
2x Taxidermists w/ Inferiority Complex
Gatreaux Bokor

his crew:

5ss
Mary “Blacktongue” Bonnet
Wayward Mariner
Arrrchie w/ the Whisper
Nani and the Voice
Salty Seadevil
2x Skellywags w/ the Grave Spirit’s Touch


Now, this was a crew that I was excited to play against!  My opponent has been our meta’s resident Resurrectionist player, and I knew he was getting the nightmare Molly crew together.  Seeing it all on the table was a real joy, and his painting really added a lot to the game.

Needless to say, I had no desire to engage with Mary directly in this matchup.  Her Serene Countenance, having two heavy beaters in Arrrchie and the Salty Seadevil, and the terrain meant that I was hoping to run schemes and avoid her crew as best I could.  I chose Taxidermists over Swinecursed because of their Willpower, given Mary and Nani’s attacks could shred the Swinecursed.  I chose Outflank and Deliver a Message with this pool, figuring that Breakthrough and Dig Their Graves would be hard with Mary eating all the markers to deny it, and how hard Breakthrough is on Flank/ Corner maps.  Claim Jump was also not ideal, since none of my models is particularly tanky.  My opponent ended up taking Outflank and Claim Jump on Nani. 

Deployment
I was attacker, and my first deployment was Wong, Olivia, Sammy and the Bokor.  He deployed with his Skellywags on my left flank, Salty Seadevil on my right flank, and Mary in the middle ready to go where she was needed.  I put the rest of my models on my right flank, with everyone clustered around the Pigapult for tossing.  I summoned my three Pet Project Stuffed Piglets outside of 2” of the Pigapult.

Turn 1
I win initiative to start this off, and have my opponent go first.  He generates 4 pass tokens.  He walks a Skellywag up.  Olivia drops a scheme marker, and then claims my Turf marker.  Nani walks towards the central marker, and puts up Boring Conversation.  

I go with Wong, using the Glow to pulse out Glowy.  I realize at this point that one of my Taxidermists was on the wrong side of the Pigapult.  I then use Launch into Space on the Scheme Marker and cheat for the trigger to drop 2 next turn.  I then Fzzzzap! my crew, centering the markers on the Bokor and Pigapult.  I draw a card from Sammy, then walk Wong up the ladder to be Height 4, and see most of the board (except the other side of the Forest).  He walks his second Skellywag towards my left flank.  I have the Bokor heal my crew up, spending a Glowy to get the pulse heal on the Pigapult.  I don’t do the same on herself, so Sammy stayed damaged.  FOr her third action, the Bokor walked towards my left flank.

He burns a pass token, and I give the Bokor focused with Big Voodoo.  I have a Stuffed Piglet walk to the Pigapult and concentrate.  The Wayward Mariner walks twice towards the turf marker on my left flank.  I go with the Pigapult next, and use Full Load on the Stuffed Piglet into the Mariner and Skellywag on my left flank.  It pulses some damage between itself and the Pigapult onto the Skellywag and the Mariner.  I then toss the Taxidermist, and eat some of his hand to avoid the hits.  I cheat so the Taxidermist fails the test to regain Fast and a third glowy.  

His Salty Seadevil ambushes to gain Poison and walks twice towards my right flank.  I walk another Stuffed Piglet and concentrate.  He has Arrrchie claim his deployment Turf marker before leaping and walking towards my right flank.  I have my last Stuffed Piglet walk and concentrate. For his last activation he has Mary walk towards my left flank.  

Seeing how much pressure was coming here, I send Sammy to my left flank, using Jinx on the Mariner twice to knock some wounds off of it.  Then the Taxidermist charges, killing the Mariner with a Critical Strike off his attack, then doing some damage to his Skellywag.  I fail to summong another Stuffed Piglet.  My other Taxidermist walks twice, gaining focus from Swagger, and attacks the Salty Seadevil with his ranged attack but fails to connect.  Burt walks up and tosses a grenade to try and give the Taxidermist Fast for next turn, but fails the TN.  He then walks back to be Tossed next turn.  

Turn 2
He stones for cards this turn.  With 3 pass tokens, my opponent wins initiative easily.  He still cheats down (after I passed the chance to cheat) explaining that it was clearing bad cards from his hand to refill when he activated Mary.  I drop my Scheme Markers from Launch into Space next to Nani and the Skellywag in the center, and next to the Skellywag and my Taxidermist.  I cheat to fail so the Taxidermist gained Fast again, and he lets his models fail (to avoid the Glowy token).

For his first activation, he has his Skellywag attack my Taxidermist doing  3 damage after his Critical Strike, and I Squeal away with Glowy.  He then claims the Turf marker and Challenges Sammy.  I have the Bokor go and heal the Taxidermist 2, then spend Focus to cast Obey on the Taxidermist who then charges the Skellywag, and I flip the Black Joker on the ensuing attack.

Arrrchie activates next, leaping and punching my Taxidermist, who Squeals away.  Archie then uses Hurl Corpse to attack the Taxidermist but I dodge the hit.  That Taxidermist activates next, using Taxidermin’ to summon a Stuffed Piglet before walking (gaining Focused from Swagger), using the Skellywag to block Mary’s Line of Sight.  I then attack the Skellywag twice, burning Glowy on Critical Strike once.  The second hit I declare creative Taxidermy, summoning a second Stuffed Piglet off the Skellywag.  I neutralize his Turf Marker.  

He has Mary go next, drawing 4 due to our hand size and then using Disturbing Story on my Stuffed Piglet, flipping the Red Joker.  It was enough to kill my piglet, but the pulse doesn’t kill my Taxidermist.  She then uses Lost Knowledge on a corpse marker and my Scheme Marker dropped from Launch Into Space, drawing back to a full hand. 

I go with Wong next, who still can’t see Mary (and vice versa).  I use the Glow to buff the Pigapult, Stuffed Piglets, Burt and Bokor, pulling enough at first to Draw 2 cards.  I then use a stone on Fzzzzap! for a tome, and flip the Red Joker.  I get the Surge trigger, and drop markers next to my right flank Taxidermist, and next to Nani and the Skellywag in the center.  The Taxidermist cheats to fail for Glowy and Fast, and his models both fail and take damage.  I fail the TN for my second Fzzzzap!, and the third one he passes both tests on Nani and the Skellywag (gaining a Glowy) and I target the Bokor instead of the second marker, drawing a card from Sammy.  

The Salty Seadevil claimed the Turf Marker on my far right flank, then Ambushed and charged my Taxidermist, doing Severe damage thanks to Puncture.  I go with the nearly dead Taxidermist next, spending Focus and using Glowy for Critical Strike three times, and when the dust settled the Salty Seadevil was on one wound.  He sends his central Skellywag towards Sammy after claiming the central Turf marker, and fails to cast Challenge on her.

I have the Pigapult use Full Load on Burt, tossing him up my right flank and killing the Salty Seadevil on the pulse, though Burt passes the test.  I then toss Olivia with Full Load, landing next to Arrrchie and doing some damage to him.  She also regains Fast.  Nani, for her part, walked again and reapplied Boring Conversation.  

Burt tosses his grenade which the Taxidermist fails, taking one damage and going Fast and Glowy again.  Burt then ran twice to be in Outflank position.  I run Olivia to the other corner.  My last Stuffed Piglet concentrates.  With no cards in my opponents hand, I have Sammy use Jinx on Arrrchie, spending Glowy for Glimpse the Void and burying him.  She then walks to help cover the Turf Marker on my left flank.

At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy.  I reveal Outflank, and he reveals Claim Jump on Nani.  The score was 2-2.

Turn 3
He stones for cards this turn, and wins initiative with his 3 pass tokens.  He gains a net 7 pass tokens this turn.  He opens with Arrrchie, who unburies behind Mary.  He Leaps and charges my Taxidermist, hitting Dismember and killing him.  He discards a card to heal and Flurry onto the Piglet, getting the Blast Marker to do wk damage to Sammy, though we both pass the pig’s Demise duel.  

I have the Bokor go next, walking closer to Sammy and healing her twice, spending Glowy for Deja Vu twice, drawing up cards.  The Skellywag goes next, charging through the Bokor and hitting moderate before Flurry, missing the next attack.  It then uses Challenge on Sammy.  I concentrate a Stuffed Piglet.  He has Nani use “One More Question!” on Wong to slow him, and fails the second attempt before putting up Boring Conversation.  My remaining Taxidermist walks and claims the Turf marker on my far right flank, after failing to summon a Stuffed Piglet.  

Mary goes, drawing some cards and walking twice, before using Constructive Criticism on the Skellywag.  I concentrate a Stuffed Piglet, forgetting that the Bokor has no engagement range.  My opponent walks into a position to Charge Through my Bokor, doing the 1 damage needed to kill it and attacking Sammy, but I spend a stone to dodge the wounds.  He then Challenges Sammy successfully.  I then have the remaining activations.

Olivia concentrates in her corner.  Wong spends 4 Glowy off of the Stuffed Piglets and the Pigapult for cards, but the Black Joker renders it a sunk cost.  He then uses Fzzzzap! With the Surge trigger to draw a card, damaging the Skellywag and Nani passing, gaining a Glowy.  He then walked next to the Pigapult, taking a point of damage from the fall.

The Pigapult then uses Full Load on a Stuffed Piglet, declaring the inbuilt trigger, and dropping it next to Arrrchie, Mary, Sammy and the Skellywag.  It explodes, and then I toss Wong into the same place.  When the dust settles, everyone there had taken some damage.  Burt goes Reckless and runs towards my opponent’s deployment zone.  Sammy uses Jinx on the Skellywag, spending Glowy for Under Pressure, then charges the Skellywag and a Red Joker finishes it off and neutralizes the central Turf marker.  She then Concentrates with her third action.  

At the end of the turn, I score the Strategy while my opponent does not. The score was 3-2.

Turn 4
He stones for cards again, and proceeds to win initiative.  He opens with Arrrchie who leaps next to the Turf marker in my left flank and claim it, before charging Sammy and killing her, discarding to heal and Flurry into Wong for weak damage, but I declare Quick Getaway to push out of engagement.  Wong was then next to Mary, so I Deliver a Message before using The Glow and Launch into Space on a Corpse marker.  

Mary goes next, drawing 3.  She uses “One More Question!” on Wong twice, using Debt of Gratitude twice to do a total of 6 damage to him, before drawing more cards with Lost Knowledge.  My Taxidermist on my right flank summons a Stuffed Piglet, then runs to take over Outflank duty.  He spends a Pass token, and I have Olivia drop a scheme marker and Concentrate again.  He spends another Pass token, and I have a Stuffed Piglet concentrate.  He has Nani reclaim the central Turf marker, Concentrate and put up Boring Conversation.  

The Pigapult tossed the Stuffed Piglet next to Nani, but he passes.  I take a chance attack on Nani with Rocks is Pigs? But the Concealment makes me fail.  Burt goes Reckless and turns my opponent’s Deployment Turf Marker neutral.  

At the end of the turn, my opponent scores the strategy.  I score the first point for Deliver the Message. 

The score was 4-3.

Turn 5
My opponent cheats initiative this round to win, and I forget to drop a marker from Launch into Space with Wong.  Arrrchie leaps and charges Olivia, killing her.  He then walks to block off one route for Wong to reach the corner.  I still have Wong walk away from Mary, then charge behind the building before taking another walk (to avoid Lethe’s Caress) into Outflank position.

Mary goes next, and my opponent talks through with me how it’s impossible for her to kill Wong, and impossible to score the second scheme of Outflank.  He decides to eat 3 corpse markers with Lost Knowledge to have the best chance of keeping Nani above half wounds, since we were playing for Diff at this point.  He proceeds to burn all his pass tokens to have Nani go last.  

In between I walk my Stuffed Piglet twice, then have the Taxidermist use Remote Detonation on it, but Nani passes.  The Taxidermist gets into Outflank position.  Burt claims the third Turf marker for me, before walk and tossing a Grenade at Nani, but I Black Joker the flip.

My last action was with the Pigapult, and I realize that between Concealment and Manipulative, I’d be on a negative either way.  I take two individual shots and hope to hit the Red Joker, but miss both times.  Nani goes last, doing nothing important.

At the end of the turn, I score the Strategy and the second point of Outflank.  My opponent scored the second point of Claim Jump.  

The score was 6-4.

Post-Game Thoughts
This was a fun game, as Liam always shows good sportsmanship.  We discussed how the game was pretty close, and had he taken a different scheme (such as Dig Their Graves) the outcome may have been different.  He had considered attacking Wong with Arrrchie before Leaping, but then ran the risk of not killing Olivia.  Likewise, he did a good job managing his hand and pass tokens to force me to take activations when I didn’t want to, or securing initiative to delete models on turns 2 through 4.  

I felt much more comfortable with Wong in this game than I have in past games.  I appreciated the utility of Launch Into Space providing start of turn Glowy/ Fast at range very helpful, and makes me appreciate that action even more.  I think I chose schemes that my crew could complete, and my plan of avoiding the enemy crew as much as possible went as well for me as it could have.

My three main takeaways from this game are:

Taxidermists are squishy, but can hit like absolute trucks if they connect.  They did the bulk of my killing in this game, and the ability to summon Stuffed Piglets feels really good.  They may be more survivable than Swinecursed with the Squeal trigger, too.
Once again, I shot myself in the foot in deployment.  I need to take a moment and consider placement of models from a Glowy perspective.  I did enjoy only spending one Glowy for the pulse heal, and letting Sammy sit with one damage for a bit - it made Obey easier in later turns.
Terrain was a big part of this game, as Wong being able to climb the ladder let me do a whole lot more with him than I normally would have.  Seems obvious, but terrain really is key to this game.

It’s hard to settle on an MVP, but from pure points scoring I have to give it to Burt Jebsen and the Pigapult.  Burt secured Outflank and my third Strategy point, while almost denying a point to my opponent.  The Pigapult made Outflank, the third Strategy point, and the denial of Turf to my opponent all possible.  

Thank you for reading!

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31 minutes ago, Zebo said:

True, I forgot that ability XP

I'll be honest - I did not appreciate how much value that has with Undergraduates "Made to Kill", given they are a Stat 5, 2/3/5 attack.  But doing it for the cost of a card (that you'll probably draw back due to Studied Opponent) brings it a lot of value.  I know I won't forget it anytime soon!

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  • 2 weeks later...

 This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 02/29/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and Brian (shoutout to Brian!) generating using the Malifaux App.   

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
We set up the board with the intent to have relatively few straight firing lanes, so placed the terrain offset from the board edges.  We determined the blue roofed walls as Height 3, blocking, impassible walls.  The trees were impassible, concealing.  The ladders were climbable, destructible.  We ruled that any models on the top ‘bridge’ would fall if it was destroyed while they were on it.

The pool was:

Standard Deployment
Reckoning
Dig Their Graves, Claim Jump, Vendetta, Power Ritual, Hold Up Their Forces

I announced Bayou, and he also announced Bayou.  I announced Somer, and he announced Brewmaster.  

The crew I built was:

6ss
Som'er Teeth Jones
2x Skeeter
Lenny Jones
Old Cranky
Good Ol’ Boy w/ Two Gremlins in a Ghillie Suit
Spit Hog w/ Twelve Cups of Coffee
Gremlin Crier w/ Twelve Cups of Coffee
Banjonista

His crew:

4ss
Brewmaster w/ Twelve Cups of Coffee
Apprentice Wesley
Trixiebelle
Fingers Leong
Whiskey Golem w/ Inferiority Complex
Moon Shinobi
Tanuki
Akaname

I knew my opponent would be running Brewmaster, and he requested I take Somer, as he is looking to dip his toes into the Bayou faction.  I opted to take what I consider a good ‘sampler’ of Big Hat models, though I lack Georgie and Olaf so replaced them with the Good Ol’ Boy with Two Gremlin in a Ghillie Suit.  I put Twelve Cups of Coffee on my Spit Hog and Crier so they could spend their actions doing anything other than walk if possible.  The Crier also synergized well with giving out slow with Sharp Wit, able to serve as a lockdown model to rival Brewmaster.

My opponent brought a crew he’s been testing out, focusing on the ‘lockdown’ aspect of Brewmaster.  Having played some Brewmaster myself, I knew most of the tricks he was planning to use.  I opted for Dig Their Graves and Hold Up Their Forces.  I figured that there would be enough Corpses to score the second point of Dig easily, and I could get the first point so long as I could use a Crier to Obey a relevant model with Threaten Beatings.  His crew had a lot of expensive models, so I took Hold up and planned to summon some models that would score it for me if need me.

My opponent ended up taking Vendetta (Moon Shinobi on Spit Hog) and Dig Their Graves.

Deployment
I was the attacker, and he had me set up Somer first.  I deployed centrally, with the two models with twelve cups of coffee on my right flank.  I figured it gave me room to swing into the center, fake Claim Jump, and force him to come into the killzone in the center.  He deployed wide, with the Moon Shinobi on my left flank, and the Whiskey Golem on my right.

Turn 1
I stone for cards this turn, and proceed to win initiative.  I have my opponent go first, and I give him 1 pass token for his trouble.  Like most first turns, this one was mostly maneuvering.  Notably, I moved both of my models with Twelve Cups of Coffee with Twitchy after every activation, keeping them up in the middle.

He opened with Fingers, using “A Toast!” twice to pulse Poison out to most of his crew, and I flew one of my Skeeters towards my right to set up a Bayou Bash node.  Wesley loaded Brewmaster up with poison, and I unpacked my crew with a Banjonista thanks to Foggy Bayou Hoedown.  The Banjonista then walked and Concentrated.  He ran a Moon Shinobi to my left flank, and I sent a Skeeter after it, doing a single damage.  He walked Trixie up and Concentrated, having a great position to Lure me next turn.

Lenny went next, using Toss to throw Somer and my Good Ol’ Boy towards my right flank.  This was a misplay on my part - I had forgotten the Good Ol’ Boy was Height 2 normally, and so was Height 3 with the upgrade - so tall to toss!  I didn’t realize this until the day after, and for the entire game I played Good Ol’ Boys as Height 1 base, so at least I was consistent.  Just remember, friends - read your cards!  

He then double-walked Brewmaster and charged my Skeeter engaging the Moon Shinobi and killed it.  This had the added effect of pulling him way out of the action for this turn, and would have to spend next turn getting back into it.  

I go with the Spit Hog next, who was in position to Lure Lenny and Old Cranky up, flipping the Red Joker to do so.  I then Concentrated on Old Cranky’s Shouting Order’s aura.  He walks the Whiskey Golem twice thanks to Nimble and shoots Old Cranky, giving me some poison after I get the Black Joker to defend.  I have my Crier fail to Obey the Good Ol’ Boy, but successfully Obey the Skeeter (thanks, Bully!) to walk and engage the Whiskey Golem.  His Akaname drops a Corpse Marker with Foul Gift, and then walks to pulse Poison onto Fingers.

Cranky goes next, luckily hitting Obey on the Good Ol’ Boy to Walk, gaining Focus from Swagger, then failing to Obey the Banjonista.  His Tanuki walked up and focused, and I had the rest of the activations.  

My Good Ol’ Boy shot at the Whiskey Golem three times, doing some pips of damage.  Somer walked and summoned a second Banjonista and a pair of Bayou Gremlin, spending a stone for the Mask.  I then used Make me Proud on the Skeeter, killing the two Bayou Gremlin and getting three shots on the Whiskey Golem with Pig Eating Grin, but I fail two of them (using Bayou Two Card to avoid the tome triggers, and getting lower results both times).  My second Banjonista then removed poison from Cranky with Rebel Yell, and I used his Foggy Bayou Hoedown to retreat out of Lure range.

At the end of the turn, my opponent discarded his Pass Tokens due to Somer’s Bigger Hat Than You.

Turn 2
Going into this turn, he flips the Red Joker on initiative, and gains one pass token.  He opens with the Tanuki and heals up the Whiskey Golem, then gave him some focused and poison.  I send my Crier into the Golem, getting Defensive Reflexes on my Sharp Wit attack to slow the Golem and give myself shielded.  I then used Obey on the Banjonista to walk closer, which was honestly not a great move.  He has Wesley move and Sober Up the Golem, taking the Slow away for another focused.  I have a Banjonista move my crew around and concentrate.

His Golem goes next, spending a Focus to get around my Crier’s Intimidating Authority twice, killing him (I forgot to record shielded, so didn’t take it into account).  I summoned a Bayou Gremlin off the Crier in base contact, and he used Nimble to reposition in my engagement.  I have Cranky attempt to throw out some Obeys, getting my Good Ol’ Boy to move up.  He has his Moon Shinobi drop a scheme marker next to my Skeeter’s corpse, confirming his taking Dig for me.  Next he charged Brewmaster to give him some more poison.  

I activate Somer next, using his Bonus action before walking and stoning to summon a Good Ol’ Boy in range to threaten Wesley, then charged into the Golem and managed to get a Severe on Hard Whuppin’, pushing the Golem and getting a Severe (so more than 1 damage past the armor!).  

He has Trixie try to lure my Good Ol’ Boy twice, but the Black Joker thwarted his plans. I have a Banjonista shuffle my crew around and pulse out some Pluck the Strings, which don’t result in anything.  He has Fingers move to ask Somer “One More Question!”, slowing him with the Mental Trauma trigger.  I have the Spit Hog charge Somer and heal him up, then try to Lure Lenny up but the Black Joker said no.

Brewmaster walks twice back towards the center of the board, then charges Lenny.  He cheats for Drunken Strength on his attack, and I stone 2 of the damage away.  He then uses his bonus with the Shower of Booze trigger to pulse poison onto Lenny, the Good Ol’ Boy, Spit Hog, and Cranky.  Lenny walks and Tosses the Good Ol’ Boy again (again, not a legal move).  His Akaname walks and drops a scheme marker next to a Corpse Marker in his backfield.  

With the rest of the activations mine, I have my Good Ol’ Boys both go in on Trixie and Wesley.  The summoned one kills Wesley with the Red Joker, and my upgraded Good Ol’ Boy kills Trixie with three shots.  My fresh Bayou Gremlin just walks around the Whiskey Golem.  

At the end of the turn, my models suffer damage from their conditions but all live.  He discards his hand from Bigger Hat Than You.  I reveal Hold Up Their Forces, and we both score the strategy.

The score was 2-1.

Turn 3
He stones for cards this turn, and wins initiative with his many Pass tokens.  He starts with 3 pass tokens.  He opens with his Tanuki, healing the Golem and dropping a scheme marker to score Dig Their Graves and running away.  I have a Banjonista shuffle my crew around, then use Rebel Yell on both Somer and Lenny to clear their conditions.  Fingers goes next, charging into Somer and loading him with poison before using A Toast! And his Trusty Flask to pulse out poison.  

I have Somer go next, stoning for a mask to summon a Skeeter and a Crier, getting the crow trigger to have the Crier come in without the upgrade.  I then fail Somer’s bonus action, and opt to walk to block Finger’s ability to Squeal out of engagement and Concentrate.  He has the Golem go next, using Ignite Fumes on a high TN to pulse Burning onto most of my crew around him.

My Crier goes next, using Sharp Wit on Brewmaster to slow him.  I then Obey the Banjonista to drop a scheme marker near the Whiskey Golem, hoping to set up a reveal point for Dig Their Graves.  He goes with Brewmaster next, disengaging from the Crier and charging the other Banjonista, and the Red Joker ensures he kills with a Shower of Booze.  I have my Skeeter charge his Tanuki, and he cheats to get “I’m a Teapot!” and teleport away.  His Akaname walks and drops a corpse and scheme marker for Dig Their Graves, and I have a Bayou Gremlin get a lucky punch in on the Golem for a damage.  His Moon Shinobi walked twice, to back up the Brewmaster.  

I had a Good Ol Boy walk and take a shot on the Akaname, and the Red Joker gives me a cheeky kill.  I then drop a marker to set up for the end game point of Dig Their Graves from Trixie’s corpse.  I have the Spit Hog heal Lenny, but fail to Lure the Good Ol’ Boy back into the fight.  Lenny discards to gain shielded from Hootenanny (to mitigate condition damage), then charges and kills the Moon Shinobi, securing my second Reckoning point.  I then use my bonus to heal from the Spit Hog.  Cranky fails to Obey anyone.  My second Good Ol’ Boy charges Fingers, blocking him in and I discard to avoid Beer Goggles (while forgetting the built-in positive on the attack for being below half wounds) and get some damage on him.  

At the end of the turn, my opponent discarded his hand from Bigger Hat Than You.  I score the Strategy, but neither of us reveal any schemes.  The score was 3-1. 

Turn 4
Despite his Pass Token advantage, I won the initiative flip.  He gains 5 (!) pass tokens.  I open with the Crier, gaining some Shielded from Hootenanny before slowing Brewmaster with Sharp Wit (hitting the Defensive Reflexes trigger for more shielded).  I then use Obey on Old Cranky, declaring Threaten Beatings for him to walk out of engagement (since the trigger says the model ignores being engaged).  Fingers pulses out poison, then attacks the Whiskey Golem to give him an action, who proceeds to use Ignite Fumes to pulse out more burning.  

I have my Skeeter walk twice to engage the Golem and block in Fingers further.  His Golem swings on my Banjonista, gets Onslaught, and the Red Joker appears to kill it.  The Bayou I summon comes into base contact of the Golem.  He then uses Ignite Fumes again for more burning on Somer.  I go with Lenny next, charging into the Golem but I whiff both attacks.  I realize at this point that I likely won’t get the reveal point for Dig Their Graves.   His Tanuki walks and drops a marker next to my Crier and uses Foul Mouthed Motivation on Brewmaster.  My Spit Hog heals my Crier to full and Lures my Good Ol’ Boy back into the fight.  

Brewmaster went next, stoning to hit the Crier through my Intimidating Authority, hitting Drunken Strength twice for two Min 4 attacks to kill it and score the Reveal for Dig Their Graves, and secure his second Reckoning point.  I summon the Bayou in position to block Brewmster getting towards Somer next turn.  I walk Cranky away from the fight, as he was an easy Reckoning point next turn otherwise.  My Good Ol’ Boy drops a scheme marker and takes a focused Sidearm shot on Fingers, getting Moderate damage.  Somer takes a Focused attack on Fingers, hitting Moderate before Concentrating and taking a second attack, killing the henchmen.  My second Good Ol’ Boy takes a few Broken Bottle swings on the Golem, but misses.  My last Bayou Gremlin uses Assist to put Lenny’s burning out.  

At the end of the turn, my opponent scores the Strategy and his first Dig Their graves point.  The score was 3-3.  

Turn 5
This turn went relatively quickly, as we both knew that it would be close.  He wins initiative, and goes first.  Brewmaster swings on my Spit Hog, and the Black Joker forces him to spend 3 attacks, killing the Spit Hog and one of my Good Ol’ Boys.  I run a Skeeter into Somer and put out some Burning.  He swings with his Golem on Somer, but I Squeal away and live on a handful of wounds, spending my last stone to mitigate some of the damage.  I have somer blow up most of my insignificant models for the card draw, but am unable to summon anything successfully.  To end the activations, I have Lenny engage Brewmaster, and the living Good Ol’ Boy engage the Whiskey Golem.

At the end of the turn, neither of us score the strategy.  I score the end game condition for Dig Their Graves and Hold Up Their Forces.  My opponent scored the end game condition for Dig Their Graves.  The final score was 5-4, with Somer only living on a single wound after conditions resolved!  

Post-Game Thoughts
This game was a close one, coming down to whether or not Somer could survive large stacks of Burning and Poison.  Luckily for me, I had the actions to Assist those conditions down to manageable levels.  While this was a fun game, I did make several errors that I feel impacted the way the game went, and I generally don’t like winning due to a misread rule.  

Firstly, as I mentioned earlier I used Toss on the Good Ol’ Boy with Two Gremlin in a Ghillie Suit not once, but twice.  I haven’t fielded the Good Ol’ Boys often, and had assumed they were Height 1 natively.  I need to make a better habit of double-checking my cards until I know them like the back of my hand.  I am sure that I could have engineered getting the Good Ol’ Boy into position, but I’m not sure that I would’ve killed Trixie when I did.

The second error that we both made was forgetting the Distraction aura from Twelve cups of Coffee, both on Brewie and on the Spit Hog and Gremlin Crier.  Luckily, we were able to rewind play to make up for the effects (usually it was something like Pluck the Strings or Trusty Flask).  

Generally speaking, most of my misplays occurred with the Good Ol’ Boys.  I forgot they had Swagger natively; forgot the built in positive on Broken Bottle for less than full wounds; and their height of 2.  Despite that, they performed marvelously and did a lot of heavy lifting for the crew.

I think my scheme selection was good enough, but I went too aggressive turn 2 and killed Trixie, shutting off my options for Reckoning points later.  For my Opponent, I started flooding him with insignificant models and spent resources keeping Lenny and Somer up and safe.  If I had to do it over, I might consider doing Claim Jump on Lenny.  He’s tanky enough, and seeing as how his crew has a lot of models that are either mobile or able to eat scheme markers, the reveal for Dig their Graves was ambitious.  It’s true Claim Jump makes me play into Brewmaster’s tarpit game, but I imagine I could gum things up with enough Bayous.  Plus, the idea of Lenny taking the Bridge, American-Gladiator style, is appealing.

Talking with my opponent after the game, he felt that I should have brought Georgie and Olaf instead of the Good Ol’ Boy.  I agree, but as I do not have Georgie and Olaf, it was a moot point.  For his part, his hand on turn three was bad, even after stoning for cards.  This caused him to go for Ignite Fumes instead of attacking with the Whiskey Golem, which played into his favor as it forced me to spend actions removing the Burning.  He also felt that Vendetta on the Moon Shinobi was maybe a tough choice for schemes, especially since he ran the Moon Shinobi hard to the flank at the start.  We both agreed that Brewmaster going after the Skeeter was a big deal, and it was probably not the best play.  That said, he used the Whiskey Golem to tarpit my big models and put out passive damage very well, and did a good job of deleting models with Brewmaster every activation he could.  

My three main takeaways from this game would be:

 1. Read your cards.  Then read your cards again.  Maybe read them a third time.  Until I’ve gotten 10+ games with a crew, I should assume that I will forget something unless I read it.  Nothing feels worse than realizing a mistake gave you an unfair advantage.
2. Somer’s crew struggles with Armor, but does the tarpit game well.  My Criers did a great job of slowing his main threat, and the amount of shielded I could get out between Banjonistas and the Crier meant that he was spending a lot of resources to kill annoying models.  That definitely played in my favor.
3. Errors aside, Good Ol’ Boys do serious work, and I really liked the one with Two Gremlin in a Ghillie Suit.  Having 3 gunshots per activation, reliably doing 2-3 damage a hit, is very consistent damage for a minion.

My MVP for the game is going to go to the Good Ol’ Boys.  They scored me my Reckoning points, seeded corpses for Dig Their Graves, and at the end of the game got me my Hold Up Their Forces points.  They are super solid for their cost.

Thank you for reading!

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Really nice battle reports, seriously, thank you for taking the time to write them down, they're super interesting and detailed.

How do you find the Taxidermist? I almost never bring them. Inferiority complex is good on them, but they're still papermade (and it's a 10ss model). In my games they're or shoot out of the board or killed in 1-2 swings. My opponents know they're going to squeal, so they just concentrate first and give them the big swing.

The Swine cursed are worse against people with terrifying and Wp attacks, but having Df 6 and Infused Body allows them to stay in play for a longer time. Plus Frenzied Charge + Rampage, they work very well to cross the enemy lines and kill the support models in the back line of the enemy crew and still be a pain to kill. Then they become a Piglet and if you're lucky it can score or help to score you some points due to its demise.

I think that Wizz-Bang is missing a tanky model (other than Alphonse) that can't be obliterated in a single activation of a beater, since Taxidermists and even Burt Jebsen are very squishy. Taxidermist being the worse in my opinion, when you pay 10ss for them and they die to a single focused attack in turn 3 and onwards, since they're going to be too far away from the Bokor/Lightning Bug to heal them, so they'll have 1-3 less wounds due to you hitting them to get some glowy and fast (way less if the enemy takes any kind of low profile shoot with them).

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On 3/4/2020 at 9:30 AM, ShinChan said:

Really nice battle reports, seriously, thank you for taking the time to write them down, they're super interesting and detailed.

snip

Thank you!  I appreciate that :)

Honestly, I'm not sure about the Taxidermists either.  They do feel very high risk, high reward - that's a lot of stones wrapped up in a squishy package.  I do think that they have a place (specifically against Terrifying/Manipulative crews), or especially with the Pigapult.

On that note, I havent out Alphonse on the table but I like what I see with him and a pair of Swinecursed instead of the Pigapult, especially with the new GG.  My locals haven't faced enough Wong to get to the point of taking focused attacks, but I see your point.

You're spot on with your concerns about out-pacing your healers in a pigapult centric crew.  

i like Bert for his ability to go Reckless and get that 3rd action without needing Wong to damage him.  I haven't brought Gracie with Wong often, and when j have it's been with no Pigapult.  Have you tried her as a tanky model?

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal on 3/10/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and a seasoned player (shoutout to Asrian!) as part of the Malifaux Vassal League round 3, the first round using the new Schemes and Strats.  Additionally, we were joined by an observer who provided a lot of good conversation, and the whole game was just a good time.

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
Map Funeral Home
Standard Deployment
Corrupted Ley Lines
Assassinate, Claim Jump, Leave Your Mark, Hidden Martyrs, Catch and Release

We discussed the terrain, and opted to count the buildings on the left side of the map as having rooftops you could deploy on, and the brown bits were stairs.  The Cacti were just hazardous terrain.  The skulls and the center were severe terrain.  Otherwise, the terrain was fairly standard for it’s type (climbable, blocking, for coffins, the foliage was severe, dense, concealing).  We also determined that the top left Cursed Leyline penetrated the steps, thus preventing anyone without a place effect from getting to the top of the building.

I announced Bayou, He announced Resurrectionists.  I announced Zipp, and he announced Von Schtook.  

The crew I built was:

6 ss
Captain Zipp
Earl Burns
The First Mate
Mancha Roja
Johan Creedy
Merris LaCroix
Lucky Effigy w/ Effigy of Fate
Bayou Smuggler

His crew:

3 ss
Albus Von Schtook w/ the Whisper
Research Assistant
Valedictorian w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch
Carrion Emissary 
Student of Viscera w/ Killer Instinct
Undergraduate
Necropunk w/ Killer Instinct

Looking at this crew, I figured that I had some options.  I was going to be playing the denial game with Zipp, and hoping that my Smuggler and/or the Effigy could be my dedicated ball holder.  I generally dislike Assassinate into Albus, with his built in defensive trigger and the amount of Stunned his crew can dish out.  Hidden Martyrs was one I could have done with my crew, but I really didn’t want to rely on something living at the end of the game while engaged with Albus (since I wanted to kill the Valedictorian, as it was a major threat).  Likewise, Catch and Release wasn’t one I wanted to do since the punish seems so high. In the end, I took Claim Jump on Merris and Leave Your Mark.

I chose these two because Merris has built in Concealment, could hide behind my front line of Mancha/ Johan/ Zipp until late game, and walk 12” to be in Claim Jump position.  I could also drop scheme markers with my bonus action, so getting them into the Leave Your Mark position was going to be reliable.  Any markers my opponent placed I figured I could deny with First Mate and Smuggler.  

My opponent opted for Catch and Release with the Necropunk and Claim Jump on the Emissary.

Deployment
We flipped for attacker/ defender, and I was determined to be the attacker.  I chose the right side of the board and split Zipp, Earl, Johan and Bayou Smuggler in group 1, and group 2 was the rest.  He had me deploy my second group.  I spread them out, putting Lucky towards the top of the map.  

He deployed his crew with his fliers on the top of the building on the left flank, and his other models clustered around Albus.  Since I forced him to the left side, he had to really work to get everyone into the relevant auras for his turn 1 effects, which hindered his ability to really unpack. I then deployed the rest of my crew towards the middle, so that Zipp would be in position to drop Pianos and block line of sight. 

 I gave First Mate the lodestone, figuring that with Stealth he could reliably get the first marker secured if he went for Lucky with one of his mobile beaters.  With the Smuggler and Earl, I had the models to pass the lodestone to the Effigy by turn 2. He gave his lodestone to the Student of Viscera.

Turn 1
I win initiative, have him activate first.  He starts with the Necropunk who fails to leap, then walks and concentrates.  This was a good indication of the quality of his hand to me.  I have the Smuggler go, dropping a scheme marker and Appraising it for a weak result, cycling a card.   He then goes with Albus, using Academic Broadcast to pulse out focus to his crew.  He then used Administrative Review on the Valedictorian, and then used his bonus on the Undergrad to give it an upgrade before Administrative Review.  This gave both of those models Fast.  

I have the First Mate walk into base with the nearest Corrupted Leyline marker, and then concentrate.  He has the Emissary fly towards the center and drop a pair of Coffin Markers, trying to block off my access to it.  I walk the Lucky Effigy to be closer to my crew, concentrate and put up his aura.

My opponent tires of my durdling, and uses a pass token so I have to go with a dangerous model.  I oblige by activating Zipp who walks once, dragging Earl.  He then walks again, leaving Earl behind.  Then I drop 3 pianos, discarding some low cards from my hand, to wall in Albus, the Research Assistant, and his Student of Viscera.  I end by putting up Boring Conversation.

The Research Assistant  walks and tears down a Piano.  Earl walks and drops a Piano marker near the center, and uses Chain Gang on Mancha to bring him forward, while also retreating to be able to catch the Lodestone from First Mate next turn. He walks his Student towards the Leyline marker and concentrates.  I walk Johan forward, and then Charge for the Rush bonus to get closer to the Student.

The Valedictorian takes the opportunity to fly twice and then use her fast action to charge Johan, spending Focus to hit him.  He hits the mask trigger for Pouncing Strike and does 5 damage to Johan, but thanks to Boring Conversation he fails to hit Zipp with his triggered attack.  He opts to Flurry with his last card, but I cheat to avoid the hit with Johan and deny him the card draw.  He was now out of cards in hand.

I have Mancha walk and charge the Valedictorian, flipping the Red Joker on the attack, declaring Mutilate to slow her next turn.  I Flurry as well, and when the dust settled between stones and armor he was down to 6 wounds.  The Undergrad, unable to place with By Your Side, opts to spend it’s fast activation destroying two pianos.  Merris walks forward and tosses a bomb, hitting the Valedictorian who suffers 1 damage and gains burning.

At the end of the turn, we both claim markers.  The Valedictorian took another point of damage from the Burning condition.

Turn 2
Neither of us stone for cards.  It was a decisive initiative flip, and I had the Red Joker in hand  to secure it.  Luckily, I don’t need to cheat it and go first.

I open with Mancha, and use Toss in the Mud on the Valedictorian and stone for the Mask.  It hits, and I declare the I Must Break You trigger, removing his burning.  I then used Drop Down Take Down, and he burns his last stone to prevent the damage.  I Flurry, and he flips the Red Joker on defense to dodge it, and draws a card.

His Undergrad uses By your Side to the Valedictorian, and attacks into Johan.  He misses the free attack from Made to Kill (even with focus!), but hits with his first attack to drop Johan to Hard to Kill.  He swings again, but the Black Joker comes up for him.

I activate Johan next, and attack the Valedictorian.  I hit the first time, but Black Joker the damage.  The second swing drops him to 2 wounds, and with Flurry I finally kill the Valedictorian.  With his Bonus, Johan eats the Scrap and Corpse that drop and heals back above Hard to Kill.

The Student of Viscera tries to Stun Zipp with his bonus, but my Concealment from Sputtering Exhaust saves me.  He then walks twice, hoping to use Made to Kill to push towards the central Leyline marker at the end of turn.  The First Mate tosses the lodestone to Earl, then drops a scheme marker for the Smuggler.  He then Leaps, cheating to succeed and draw a card with Showboat (which I had been forgetting up to this point). 

The Carrion Emissary flew to the other side of the Coffin Markers and shot at Mancha, getting the Infect trigger and blasting onto Johan.  He forces through his Bonus for more coffin markers around the central Leyline marker.  Earl uses Chain Gang on the Smuggler to be able to walk and toss the Lodestone to the Effigy.

My opponent uses his Pass token here, and so I go with the Smuggler.  The Smuggler goes wild, hitting the severe result on Appraise on my marker to draw a card and drop an enemy Marker.  He then does it again, and since I removed an Enemy scheme marker the second time I proc the card draw from Carry the Loot.  At the end of his activation, I was back to a nearly full hand (and had an enemy marker nearby for next turn too)!

Von Schtook went next, using Peer Review on the Research Assistant and cheating for the crow trigger.  He then walks, focuses and shoots Mancha, doing weak damage.  Zipp responds, shooting the Student of Viscera and hitting the Convulsions trigger.  I push the student away from the central Leyline marker, and he discards to prevent further pushes.  I then charge the student - not to toss him (can’t because of the lodestone) but to be in position to drop pianos.  I fail hit the attack, and then drop 3 more pianos with the What is Even trigger.  He ends by putting up Boring Conversation again.  The Carrion Emissary and Student of Viscera both fail their tests and take damage.

His Necropunk walks and leaps into the center, and drops a Scheme Marker to either bluff or score Leave Your Mark. I walk the Lucky Effigy twice to be in base with the top right Leyline marker, and in position to turn into the Emissary next turn.   The Research Assistant walks and tosses a Vial at Zipp and Mancha, and both pass the test.

To end the turn, I have Merris walk and charge the Necropunk, cheating the Red Joker to hit it and declare Reposition, moving both of us away from the center.  I then use her bonus action and discard 2 more cards, hitting the trigger to drop a scheme marker in the center as well as put some damage onto Albus and the Student of Viscera.  

At the end of the turn, Johan dies to Poison.  He pushes the Student and Necropunk with their upgrades.  

We both score the strategy.  The score was 1-1.

Turn 3
I replace the Emissary.  We both cheat to go first, and I end up the victor.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

I open with Mancha, who charged into the Student of Viscera, discarding a Piano for Drop Down Take Down and doing weak damage, and giving it Injured.  I discard to Flurry, and with this attack I kill the student.  His Lodestone goes to the Carrion Emissary as it is the closest enemy model.  I then walk Mancha to engage the Carrion Emissary, and end in range of another PIano to gain Shielded 2.  I Juggernaut with my Bonus action to heal a little.

The Undergraduate walks and charges into my Smuggler after using his bonus action on a corpse marker, but fails to do any damage.  Zipp shoots his Necropunk, he spends focused defensively, but I still manage to blast onto him and the Research Assistant with the Burst Damage trigger, damaging both and pushing them each closer to one another.  On my second shot, he flips the Black Joker defensively, and the blast kills his Research Assistant.  I charge the Necropunk, but he manages to dodge the hit.  I end by putting up Boring Conversation. 

Albus goes next, walking out of the Boring Conversation aura and using Administrative Review on Mancha, stripping Shielded and doing 2 damage.  He then uses Gruesome Lecture on Mancha with the focus trigger, but I stone the damage away.  He then eats a corpse marker with his bonus action. 

The Smuggler goes next, gaining shielded from the markers near him and I hit the Red Joker on Appraise, drawing 2 cards from the enemy marker from the previous turn.  I then use Paddle on the Undergraduate, missing and he draws a card for the pleasure.  I draw at the end with Showboat.

The Carrion Emissary destroys one of his own coffins and walks 3” towards the central marker, as he can no longer Fly due to the lodestone and being engaged.  He then uses his Bonus to make more coffins.

Earl walks and charges my new Lucky Emissary, healing it 2.  He then uses Chain Gang to push the pair of them closer to the next Strategy Marker.  The Necropunk leaps to attack Merris, but fails to hit and fails to focus due to the pressure from Boring Conversation. 

I have Lucky Emissary use Steamroller to clear out some Coffin Markers and bump into the Necropunk.  I then disengage from the Necropunk, with ample movement to get into base contact with the strategy marker.  The First Mate walks and Leaps into the middle, using Menacing Croak with the mask trigger to eat his central Scheme marker, and put Distracted on both the Necropunk and the Carrion Emissary.

To end the turn, Merris fails to attack the Necropunk twice (seriously, this Necropunk was tough as nails!), then uses Bombs Away to drop damage Von Schtook, but I cannot kill that dang Necropunk. 

At the End of the turn, we both score the strategy as we both claim the central marker.  I reveal Leave Your Mark.  He reveals Catch and Release w/ the Necropunk. The score was 3-3.

Turn 4
I stone for cards this turn, and he wins initiative.  He gains 3 pass tokens.  

At this point, before we get too far into the game my opponent decides to concede and we agree to discuss how the rest of the game would have gone.  

Post-Game Thoughts
My opponent felt that he would not get the second point of Catch and Release because my mobile beaters/ Zipp would likely be able to kill the Necropunk (his luck can only last so long).  He also felt that he would be unable to get the Carrion Emissary out of engagement long enough to get the Lodestone marker to another strategy marker, so he felt locked in on the Strategy.  His second scheme was Claim Jump on the Carrion Emissary, which he felt was unlikely given all of my models that could be near it, and it’s low wound count.  So, he felt locked at 3 points.

We agreed that I would be able to get the Lucky Emissary to another Strategy Marker with his Steamroller and 8” walk, plus the other movement shenanigans I could pull.  With First Mate and Merris, I could get 3 more markers for Leave Your Mark in the next 2 turns reliably.  We both felt that I would at most get 1 point for Claim Jump on Merris, as I’d have to hide her behind terrain to get the reveal, and that he could gun for her and kill her if he tried hard enough.  So the agreed upon final score was 7-3.

His original plan turn 1 was to have the Undergraduate kill Johan on turn 1 or 2 and summon another Student, who would be able to really apply pressure in my backfield.  The fact that he discarded his last card to flurry with Valedictorian was huge, because the risk of not being able to By Your Side was far greater than the reward of an attack made through the Boring Conversation.   

My opponent also regretted not summoning a Mindless Zombie off of some of his coffin markers to be regaining soulstones from his Killer Instinct upgrades.  He realized he should have given Von Schtook the upgrade instead of the Research Assistant, because he was more likely to get a kill and summon than the totem.  The only changes to his crew he would consider would have been taking the upgrade off of the Necropunk for more soulstones, but otherwise the crew fit the roles it needed to.  He also may have taken Anna Lovelace (for shutting down Zipp’s mobility), but was unsure what he would drop to do so.

He mentioned he was expecting either Ulix or Zoraida into this pool, and we discussed why I opted for Zipp.  He mentioned that the terrain really messed him up, especially being put into the deployment zone where he was.  He wasn’t worried about Johan’s threat, even after the buff, and saw him as summon fodder.

For my perspective, I went into this game apprehensive after having seen how dangerous Albus can be.  I’m very pleased with how the plan to deny Albus’ strengths with terrain and disruption paid off, and while I felt pressure from him up until the end, I did feel I had answers to the threats he posed.

I was impressed with Mancha Roja this game.  He was able to get into the fight early, and the amount of damage he could dish out was astonishing.  Being able to give out Adversary (Infamous) was clutch in taking down the Valedictorian the way I did, and I am confident he would have deleted the Emissary before the game was done.  

Frankly, I was impressed with every model in the crew.  Using Earl for Chain Gang/ tossing the Lodestone felt great, since it still helped keep my crew mobile and I had leniency in positioning.  The Smuggler generated a ton of card advantage for me, and while I know I got a lucky streak on turn 2, I would argue that taking one in any Infamous crew is a good choice.  I’m not sure they’re worth it in any crew the same way a Prospector is, but I look forward to testing them more.  Johan died, but before he did he was able to get 3 attacks and a relevant bonus action in one activation - which is a lot of action economy from a min 3 beater.  The Lucky Emissary is so very, very good in this Strategy, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in more crews whenever this strat comes up.  Zipp was Zipp, but being able to use his gun to move enemy models out of base contact with strategy markers is really strong in this set up, and Boring Conversation really saved my bacon.

My main takeaways for this game would be:

1. Terrain is important in Malifaux.  If you can have boards set up asymmetrically, it can really make deployment/ deployment zone selection more important.
2. Hand Pressure can work, but it must be backed up by reliable threats.  In my games with Wong he puts out a ton of hand pressure - but it felt like Zipp put out hand pressure and had punishment waiting in the wings (in the form of Mancha) for when you ran out of cards to defend yourself with.
3. The scheme pools in GG1 feel a lot harder than GG0.  I had a tough time selecting two I wanted to do, and even then it felt super risky to put all that VP onto Merris’ shoulders.  

My MVP for the game will have to go to the Lucky Emissary.  He was key to securing a full 4 points on the Strategy, and would have made it possible for Merris to secure some of her scheme points.

Thank you for reading!
 

Edited by Diceman87
Corrected Von Schill to Von Schtook
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5 hours ago, Diceman87 said:

To end the turn, Merris fails to attack the Necropunk twice (seriously, this Necropunk was tough as nails!), then uses Bombs Away to drop damage Von Schill, but I cannot kill that dang Necropunk. 

Let the poor governor of Freiburg alone. He's old, and has lost a leg and an arm. Don't deserve to see himself involved in a senseless fight between crazy flying-pirate gremlins and crazy highschool-of-the-dead professor. 

Great report xD

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43 minutes ago, Zebo said:

Let the poor governor of Freiburg alone. He's old, and has lost a leg and an arm. Don't deserve to see himself involved in a senseless fight between crazy flying-pirate gremlins and crazy highschool-of-the-dead professor. 

Great report xD

Thank you for that - I've fixed it, and had a good laugh!

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This is an after-action report for a game played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 03/14/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and a newer player (shoutout to Tyler!) generating using the Malifaux App.   

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set-Up
Corrupted Ley Lines
Standard Deployment
Breakthrough, Take Prisoner, Claim Jump, Hidden Martyrs, Spread Them Out

When discussing the board with my opponent, we agreed that the large grassy/ tree areas were concealing, dense and severe terrain.  The standalone trees were impassible, concealing (there was no way to put a model onto the base reliably), and the water was just severe.  The green pools were Hazardous, except where the pathway covered it.  We determined the buildings and the statue were all height 4, blocking, impassible.  The food pile in the center was just Impassible, but didn’t do anything else.  

I announced Arcanists, he announced Resurrectionists.  I announced Rasputina, and he announced Dr. McMourning.  

The crew I built was:

6ss
Rasputina
Wendigo
Ice Golem
Blessed of December w/ Soulstone Cache
Arcane Effigy
Silent One w/ Magical Training
Silent One
Ice Dancer

His crew:

1ss
Doug McMourning w/ the Whisper
Zombie Chihuahua
Sebastian
Rafkin
Rogue Necromancy w/ Grave Spirit’s Touch
2x Nurse
Flesh Construct
I’d brought Rasputina primarily because I’d just gotten my ice pillar markers in the mail, and wanted to try them out.  It helps that I felt that she would also play well into this pool, and into Resurrectionists in general.

I started with Raspy, Wendigo, two Silent ones (one with Magical Training) as a core, because I find them to be the core of most Raspy lists I like to play.  Next, I added a Blessed of December on the off chance I’d go for the scheme marker schemes.  I gave her Soulstone Cache, because she’s rather killy, and the triggers on her attack encourage use of soulstones.  I added an Ice Dancer, opening up Hidden Martyr and some insurance for the Strategy.  Ice Golem was my beater and tank, as an option for Claim Jump.  Lastly, I took an Arcane Effigy for condition Removal.

Once I saw his crew, I deliberated on the schemes for a minute before deciding on Hidden Martyrs (Ice Dancer, Silent One without the Upgrade) and Breakthrough.  To my mind, his crew had two main threats - McMourning and the Rogue Necromancy.  Breakthrough was the best choice with my Blessed, and I figured if he went after her, I could use terrain and my mobility to keep it an option.  The second choice was hardest, but since he was a killy keyword, I opted to play into that with the Ice Dancer and Silent One.  I figured that he’d go after at least one of those models, and I could likely get another into base contact with something more expensive if I slowed him down enough.

My opponent ended up choosing Take Prisoner on the Ice Golem, and Claim Jump on the Rogue Necromancy.

Deployment
As attacker, I asked my opponent to deploy McMourning first.  He bubbled hard, so I spread out my crew, putting the Blessed on my right flank.  I made sure that the Ice Golem was out of terrain, and kept as many paths open as I could for my schemers.  He deployed the rest of his crew around his bubble.  We place our lodestone tokens onto the Wendigo and one of the Nurses, respectively.

Turn 1
I win initiative, and he gains no pass tokens.  I have him activate first, as it’s the first turn.  He starts with Rafkin, walking towards my left flank and tossing a vial, poisoning a good chunk of his crew.  I have the Wendigo walk to be in base contact with the left Leyline marker, and in line of sight to Rasputina.  I then use December’s Pawn to copy her Ice Pillar action.  He walked the Nurse with the Lodestone to the strategy marker on my left, then gave Sebastian some poison.  

I had a Silent One begin dropping Ice Pillars up the field.  He has the Rogue Necromancy use a combination of Walk and Ambush to get to one of the pillars, and destroy it.  I walked my Ice Golem towards the center, hiding behind an Ice Pillar.  Sebastian walked and tore down another Ice PIllar.  I reply by having my second Silent One drop a pair of Ice Pillars back where they had been.  

He activates McMourning, who spends his turn moving up and around my pillars.  I send the Arcane Effigy to support the Ice Golem, and put up the Negation Aura out of an abundance of caution.  His Chihuahua walks and passes out some poison.  I walk the Ice Dancer to be in tossing range from the Wendigo, and he sends the Flesh Construct up, going reckless to concentrate.  

To round out the turn, I send the Blessed of December up the right flank, using Leap to get onto the other side of some Concealing terrain.  His remaining Nurse walks up and gives his Rogue Necromancy some more poison.  To end the turn, I have Rasputina drop several pairs of Ice Pillars before taking a Winter Strike on the Flesh Construct, stoning for the Chill Trigger.  Unfortunately, I hit weak damage and only slow the Flesh Construct.  

At the end of the turn, the Blessed pushed further into his deployment zone.  We both claim the strategy marker on the left side of the board.

Turn 2
He wins initiative, and opts to go first.  Neither of us stone for cards.  He opens with the Nurse using Tools for the Job to grab his severe initiative flip, then tossed the lodestone to his Flesh Construct before giving herself shielded.  I have the Wendigo toss the lodestone to the Ice Dancer, and copy the Ice Pillar action again.  His Flesh Construct discarded a card to avoid gaining slow, went reckless, and moved to destroy a pillar blocking his path.

I reply with a Silent One, dropping a pair of Ice Pillars in his way.  His Rogue Necromancy ambushed up to a pillar and removed it.  I had my second Silent One drop another pair of Ice Pillars, burning my Red Joker on the first flip.  Rafkin walked and destroyed a pillar.  My Ice Dancer walked twice, ending in base contact with my rightmost strategy marker.  Sebastian discarded a card to avoid slow, and destroyed a pillar before moving forward.  I have the Blessed move into the corner of his deployment zone and drop a scheme marker for Breakthrough.  His Chihuahua spent it’s activation destroying another pillar.  

I went with Rasputina next, concentrating before taking the Winter’s Strike action on the Chihuahua, not realizing it had a defense value of 6.  He cheats to tie on a 13 each, and I only manage weak with the Chill trigger to at least slow the totem.  I end her activation dropping a pair of ice pillars.  His Nurse grabs a severe from the discard with Tools for the Job, then walks and Seduces the Rogue Necromancy with the trigger to get it to take an action, so he tore down a pillar.  She then used meds on the Rogue Necro to remove the Distracted and give him Focused.  I walk the Effigy up to the Ice Golem and put up the Negation aura, concentrating for a second Focused.

He sends McMourning into the middle, tearing down one of my key Ice Pillars for pulsing damage next turn.  I reply by charging the Ice Golem into him, with Ice Club active.  I am able to flurry onto him, and in the end do a reasonable 8 damage to Doug before the turn was over.

At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy, and I claim my rightmost strategy marker.  I reveal Breakthrough.

The score was 2-1.

Turn 3
I stone for cards this turn, and win initiative.  I open with the Effigy, putting Negation Aura up and walking to cover McMourning with it.  I then manage to hit McMourning with Dispel Magic, stripping his poison.  I accomplice into the Ice Golem, who proceeds to pound McMourning into paste, even through a stone for prevention.  With my last action, the Golem uses Blizzard and removes a Pillar to make it Hazardous 2 damage.  

With his first activation, my opponent had Sebastian discard to avoid slow, walk past my ice pillar, and toss a flask of formaldehyde at both the Golem and the effigy, poisoning both.  He then used Blood Poisoning on the Effigy for more damage.  I have a Silent One drop a pair of ice Pillars.  He activates his Flesh Construct, and takes the Slow from my Pillar.  He then goes reckless to clear the slow, tears down the pillar and then Vomits on the Golem, blasting on to the Effigy as well.

I go with Rasputina next, walking forward so I could engineer a Freeze Over next turn.  She took a focused Winter’s Strike attack on the Flesh Construct, but I only get weak to push him away from the central marker.  He has the Rogue Necromancy move towards the center marker, but chooses to not engage the Golem (he would have taken a ton of damage from Blizzard).  I have the Blessed drop a pair of scheme markers for the second point of Breakthrough.  He walks his central nurse up to the Flesh Construct and toss the Lodestone to the Rogue Necromancy, then healed up the Flesh Construct.  I walk the Ice Dancer up the right flank, intending to toss the lodestone to the Blessed next turn.  I also realized I needed to get her into the dangerzone, or risk not scoring a point on Hidden Martyrs.  

Rafkin, on the left flank, took slow and spent his one action tearing down the pillar.  I went with a Silent One and, as usual, dropped a pillar.  I spiced it up by using Healing energy on the Arcane Effigy.  His remaining Nurse used Tools to cycle for masks, gained slow, tore down a pillar and went to give out drugs but flipped the Black Joker.  I had the Wendigo walk twice, to be closer to the Ice Dancer than the Ice Golem for Lodestone purposes.  He sent his slow Chihuahua to use Blood Poisoning on the Golem, but failed.

At the end of the turn, he secured the second strategy marker and we both scored the strategy.  The Blessed pushed towards the Strategy Marker near her.

The score was 3-2.

Turn 4
I don’t stone for cards this turn, and he wins initiative.  He gains 1 pass token.  He opens with the Rogue Necromancy, discarding to avoid slow and tears down a pillar, then Ambushed into a charge on the Wendigo, leaving it at Hard to Kill.  He forgot that he couldn’t place, and so opted to take the kill and not go for the Pouncing Strike trigger.  I have the Blessed drop the final marker for Breakthrough, then leap over to be in toss range to Ice Dancer, and in base contact with the Strategy Marker.  His Nurse uses tools to grab a 13, then walked twice and used Drugs on herself to heal.  I have the Ice Dancer toss the Lodestone to the Blessed, then walked to be in range of Sebastian.

His Chihuahua activated, charged into the Golem to give it some poison before tearing down a pillar, and then used Blood Poisoning on the Golem.  I have Rasputina go next, discarding to use Ice Pillars with Frozen Domain through an Ice Mirror, setting up Freeze over on Sebastian and the Nurse.  I proceed to make two Freeze Over attacks, getting both of them Slow, Staggered, and damaged.  The Flesh Construct went Reckless, moved and destroyed a Pillar before vomiting onto the Golem.  

I went with the Effigy next, using Dispel Magic on the Golem twice to strip Poison and Distracted off of him.  I fail to get the Negate aura up.  His remaining Nurse takes Slow from my pillar, then uses drugs on herself to strip the Slow away.  She then used Seduction on the Ice Golem twice.  Finally, I activate the Golem.  I take a pair of swings on the Chihuahua to clear my Distracted, but a lucky Black Joker on his defense left the dog dead as a bonus.  He then used his bonus to eat several ice pillars to heal to full, then walked to block access to the Arcane Effigy from most of his crew.  

Sebastian went next, charging into the Golem, hitting Severe damage and doling out some poison.  I have a Silent One heal up the Effigy above hard to kill and fail to drop another pillar.  To round out the turn, Rafkin walked and failed to toss a flask, and my remaining Silent One makes one more pillar.

At the end of the turn, my opponent reveals nothing.  I claim my third strategy marker, and score the Strategy.  The score was 4-2.

Turn 5
I stone for cards, and win initiative.  I open with Rasputina, using Winter’s Strike on the Rogue Necromancy, cheating the Red Joker for the Chill trigger and managing Weak damage.  I then drop several Ice Pillars around the Golem to keep him alive.  Rafkin went, discarding to avoid slow and walking to Transfuse the poison from the Rogue Necromancy to the Ice Golem.  In response, I have the the Effigy strip the poison off of my Ice Golem, then put up the Negation Aura and walk to cover the Necromancy.  He has his Nurse scoop an 11 from the discard, then charged into my Ice Dancer, but the Black Joker comes in to save me.  She fails to seduce the Golem, and gives the Rogue Necromancy some more poison.

The Blessed of December went next, tossing the Lodestone to my Ice Dancer, then ran off to be sure she wasn’t the closest model.  The Rogue Necromancy discarded to avoid slow, then tosses the Lodestone to Sebastian.  He then charged into my Arcane Effigy, and dropped it to Hard to Kill.  My Ice Dancer charged into Sebastian, ending in base contact with the central marker.  He has the Flesh Construct charge into the Ice Dancer, and did some damage.  I choose to have the Ice Golem Reform back to full wounds and concentrated for focus, instead of swinging.  

Sebastian punched the Ice Dancer and killer her, and her Lodestone went to the Ice Golem.  He then hits the Golem, but not enough to threaten him.  My Silent One drops some Ice Pillars, while his Nurse tears them down.  I had the last activation, but didn’t do anything.  I didn’t think about Take Prisoner, so when the Effigy died, he was able to secure the Reveal on Take Prisoner.  I revealed Hidden Martyrs.

The score was 7-3.

Post-Game Thoughts
This game went about as by the book for Raspy as it could.  My opponent learned a lot from the game, and as frustrating as it became to deal with her pillars, he did learn a fair bit.  We discussed afterwards such topics as scheme selection, deployment, and the importance of activation order.  

I wouldn’t make any changes to my crew as it was, as it did it’s job well.  I was impressed with the Ice Golem’s damage output, the Blessed’s ability to solo scheme, and the crews ability to throw out a ludicrous number of ice pillars.  If anything, I feel like Raspy’s activations were relatively insignificant compared to the rest of the crew, and looking back she really didn’t do all that much (Winter’s Strike definitely didn’t pay off).  I also noticed that I didn’t miss the Snow Storm nearly as much as I thought I would.

My three takeaways from this game were:

  1.  The Action inefficiency that the Ice Pillars generated en masse felt very strong, but I know that is because my opponent didn’t have a way to easily remove them.
  2. Freeze Over was strong, and probably is a better use of Raspy’s actions than Winter’s Strike when I can’t secure a straight flip for passing out slow with Chill.  Thinking of the action as a way to spread slow instead of damage seems a better approach.
  3. Upon reflection, the Wendigo having the ability to reliably drop an Ice Pillar really opens up the crew.  4 models able to drop markers not only increases output, but it also makes it easier to reset pillars and continue the hand/ action pressure.

My MVP for the game goes to the Blessed.  She scored Breakthrough by herself, and allowed me to score at least one strategy point, and helped with my second scheme point.  

Thank you for reading!

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal with @LeperColonyon 03/19/2020. We played the 4th round of the Malifaux Vassal League, as I wanted to practice for it.  

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
The map was the High Ground map.  All the green locations were Severe, Dense, Concealing terrain.  The cacti were Hazardous, Severe.  The water was broken into different ‘pieces’, separated by the rocks.  The water was Severe.  The hills were treated as Dense for purposes of seeing into, off of, but not through them (and to allow pushes).

The pool was:
Corner Deployment
Recover Evidence
Breakthrough, Let Them Bleed, Spread Them Out, Sabotage, Take Prisoner

The crew I built was:

6 ss
Zoraida
The First Mate
McTavish
Spawn Mother
Adze
Gatreaux Bokor
Bayou Gator

His crew:

4 ss
Nicodem w/ the Whisper
Vulture
Asura Roten
Mortimer
Toshiro the Daimyo w/ the Whisper
Forgotten Marshal w/ Killer Instinct
Gravedigger w/ Killer Instinct

I built my crew, knowing I was going up against Nicodem, to try and maximize my ability to reach out and pick his crew apart.  Spawn Mother was included to be a source of minions to help make Let Them Bleed be harder to score, and assist in scoring scheme marker schemes.  The Adze was included to be a Lure bot, both for my own crew and for his.  McTavish was going to play bodyguard to Zoraida, and with his gun I could hopefully put some wounds on his lower stat defenses.

My opponent indicated that he was trying something out - specifically, generating corpses with Nicodem’s summon upgrade to feed Loot Their Corpse auras to generate soulstones.  His crew also had three models that could summon significant models, and so many auras to buff minions I knew that I didn’t want to get stuck in with him.  

I opted for Spread them Out and Take Prisoner on his Gravedigger.  I figured that I could send enough models to drop markers, since he would probably bubble.  I was also hoping that between Lure and Obey, I could pull his Gravedigger out of position for Take Prisoner.  My opponent opted for Let Them Bleed and Take Prisoner on my Bayou Gator.

Deployment
I was the attacker.  I took the bottom right deployment zone, giving him the top left.  I figured this would break up his bubble a bit, or at least make it more difficult.   He deployed his models on the edge of his deployment, clustered around the Gravedigger in the middle.  He dropped corpses with Recent Funeral to be in range to eat for resources.

When it came to putting Intel tokens on models, he put Intel on everyone but the Bokor.  I put intel on Asura, Mortimer, Toshiro, Forgotten Marshal, and Gravedigger.

Turn 1
He stones for cards, while I do not.  I win initiative, and give him first activation.  Neither of us get pass tokens this turn.

He opens with Toshiro, who summons an Ashigaru off of one of his Recent Funeral Corpses, then heals it up and grants it shielded with Foul Mouthed Motivation, and walks into concealing terrain.

I Ambush my Gator forward and walk twice towards the left corner, aiming to drop some Spread them Out markers.  He has his Gravedigger drop another corpse, concentrate, and walk up.  I Ambush my Adze forward, walk, and then Lure Zoraida up, hitting Quick Reflexes to Lure McTavish as well.  He flies the Vulture and Concentrates.  

I go with Zoraida next, using Obey on the First Mate, Spawn Mother and Bokor to walk up, and I manage to get the Burn Out trigger to make the Spawn Mother fast.  I refresh our hands with Threads of Fate, and summon the Voodoo Doll.  My opponent walks his Ashigaru forward.  I have the Voodoo doll attack the Gatreaux Bokor twice for two Glowy and a Fast, hitting a cheeky moderate and a weak before Serving its Purpose for a card.  

He goes with Nicodem next, using Grave Robber to summon a Mindless Zombie.  He then used Reanimator to summon a Guild Autopsy and another Mindless Zombie, stoning for the suit.  He then Concentrates, and uses Rigor Mortis on the Forgotten Marshal for Fast.

I have Spawn mother drop an Egg marker, then stone for the Ram on Hatch Eggs, flipping Red Joker so I hit the trigger to keep the marker.  I Hatch again, netting me two Gupps.  With her last action, she Concentrates.  Asura summons a Mindless Zombie, Concentrates and then commands one to walk forward.  My Bokor uses Healing Spirits on the Spawn Mother for 1, then on himself with the Healing Burst trigger to heal the Spawn Mother to full.  With my last action from fast, the Bokor uses Obey on McTavish to walk.

He activates his Guild Autopsy, uses Loot Their Corpse on the Mindless Zombie for a stone before Concentrating.  The First Mate walks forward and leaps before dropping a scheme marker, cheating to draw from Showboating.  Mortimer digs up a corpse, concentrates and walks.  McTavish uses Gator Snack and On the Move to get forward, hitting the Dig It result to drop another marker.  He then Concentrates and walks again, staying in concealing terrain.

To end the turn, the Forgotten Marshal eats a Mindless Zombie for a soulstone, fails to summon anything, walks and concentrates.

Turn 2
Neither of us stone for cards.  I gained a net one pass token on him for initiative, but he wins the flip and gives me the first activation.

I open with the first Gupps, who walk towards the top right corner and fail to leap.  His Gravedigger makes a corpse, walks up and concentrates.  My second Gupps copies my first, walking twice and failing to leap.

Next he goes with Nicodem, who digs up a corpse.  He then uses Reanimator to summon a Flesh Construct, and uses Rigor Mortis on it to give it Fast to cancel the Slow.  He then takes a walk.  My Bokor goes next, flipping the Black Joker on an Obey for the Adze.  I then heal myself and hit the Deja Vu trigger, and fail to cast Protective Spirits.

Toshiro goes next, summoning another Ashigaru, but failing Foul Mouthed Motivation before walking.  I have Spawn mother walk up and lay another egg and Concentrate.  He has Asura summon a Mindless Zombie and walk twice, trying to get his Necrotic Font models away from his summons so he can generate corpses.

I walk my Gator twice, getting safely into the corner, but opting not to Ambush at this time.  He walks a Mindless Zombie.  I then have First Mate Leap and Charge into a Mindless Zombie, killing it with a cheated attack to draw from Showboating.  He walked his Autopsy twice.  McTavish goes next, using On the Move to be able to shoot the Autopsy.  I hit the Maim trigger with moderate damage, and on the second shot hit the Red Joker to kill it.  I then Gator Snack back to safety, hitting the Ram trigger.

Mortimer summons a Mindless Zombie, then uses Fresh Meat on a Zombie to move most of his crew up the board.  I have my Adze move to Lure the Forgotten Marshal forward, cheating for the Quicksand trigger but he passes the test.  The Forgotten Marshal Walks and shoots the First Mate, doing a moderate Crit Strike and I stone 2 of the damage away.  He then fails to summon a Crooligan, and eats a corpse marker for a stone.

With our hands exhausted, I go with Zoraida next.  I use Hex on the Forgotten Marshal through McTavish, getting through his Focused defense flip and doing moderate damage.  I do it again, but even with the Injured he avoids the hit.  With my last action, I use Obey on the Adze with the Ensorcel trigger.  It uses Lure on the Forgotten Marshal twice, giving him Distracted on the second Lure.  In a risky move, I summon a Voodoo Doll and choose to not use my bonus (so he doesn't refresh his hand).

He has his Flesh Construct go Reckless, and double walk and charge into the First mate, doing weak damage and I Butterfly Jump away.  I have my Voodoo Doll ping the Bokor for weak damage, walk up and Serve its Purpose to drop a scrap.  He walks the Vulture to try and heal, but fails.  He then walks his Ashigaru towards the Adze, using Vile Reclamation to give it Injured.  He then charges, using Puncture to hit moderate damage and receive Distracted.  His second Ashigaru just walks forward.

At the end of the turn, neither of us reveal any schemes nor score the Strategy.  The score was 0-0.

Turn 3
Neither of us stone for cards.  I cheat initiative to win, gaining 2 pass tokens.

I open with Zoraida, using Hex through Adze onto the Forgotten Marshal.  He uses the Ashigaru to Take the Hit, I hit it with the My Loyal Servant trigger to heal the Adze, and do 1 to the Ashigaru.  We repeat this entire process again, and I heal the Adze back up.  With my last action I Obey the Adze with Ensorcel to swing on the Forgotten Marshal.  He takes the hit one more time, taking weak damage and a poison.  My second action he takes on the Marshal, but I fail to hit.  I use Threads of Fate to refresh our hands, and summon the Voodoo Doll.

He goes with the wounded Ashigaru, discarding for Penetrating Stench.  He uses a Focus to attack the Adze through Distracted, hitting Puncture for solid damage.  He then uses Vile Reclamation on the Adze, going above Hard to Kill.  He then attacks again, but Distracted gets him to flip the Red Joker so he chooses Shove Aside.  He kills the Adze, then pushes into McTavish.  I Black Joker the defense on his free attack, and he lands Severe damage on me in return.  I stone 2 of it away.

I have McTavish go next, using a combination of On the Move and Gator Snack to attack the Forgotten Marshal, but he Takes the Hit (again!) and I drop him to Hard to Kill.  I swing again, he Takes the Hit again, and dodges the hit.  

He walks Vulture into position to heal his Ashigaru above Hard to Kill again.  I have the First Mate drop a scheme marker and use Menacing Croak, but the Flesh Construct passes.  His Gravedigger digs up a corpse marker, pushes towards it.  He then walks and uses Stitch Up on his Ashigaru with the Tome Trigger to give it Focused.

With his hand exhausted, I walk by Bokor to Obey McTavish to attack the Forgotten Marshal, and hit Moderate with the Execute trigger.  He burns a stone to live.  I then heal McTavish, and fail to use Protective Spirits.  He goes with Toshiro, and a combination of Intuition and a soulstone allow him to summon a third Ashigaru.  He then uses Daimyo’s Gift with the Mask Trigger on it.  He fails to use Foul-Mouthed Motivation on it.  

I have Spawn Mother walk up and attack the Forgotten Marshal, and he Takes the Hit with his last card, I hit with Infect for 2 and Red Joker the damage, dropping his Ashigaru back to Hard to Kill.  He walks a Mindless Zombie and uses Braaains.  I have Voodoo doll charge the Bokor, give it Fast and Glowy for a single damage, then draw a card with Served its Purpose.  He uses a pass token, and I forget the Bokor’s Big Voodoo ability.

My Bayou Gator drops a scheme marker, and concentrates.  He walks an Ashigaru up, fails his Vile Reclamation, and then charges my Gupps with a Focused attack, but misses.  I have those Gupps walk around the Ashigaru, Leap away, and drop a Scheme Marker.

He walks Asura twice, and fails to use Reanimator on the Flesh Construct.  My second Gupps fail their leap, so choose to walk and charge into his Ashigaru, doing moderate damage.  His newly summoned Ashigaru just walks forward.  He goes with his Forgotten Marshal, gaining Stunned from my Penetrating Stench.  He fails to Disengage from me, then opts to use Assist on his injured Ashigaru.

Mortimer walks through terrain, using Fresh Meat on his Vulture with the Ram Trigger to heal his Ashigaru back above Hard to Kill.  Nicodem walks twice, using Decay on the Forgotten marshal to heal him.  Then he digs up a corpse.  The Flesh Construct goes Reckless and charges my Bayou Gator, but fails to hit. 

At the End of the turn, the wounded Ashigaru is reduced to 1 wound from the poison condition.    Neither of us score the strategy again.  I reveal Spread them Out, he reveals Take Prisoner on the Gator.  The score was 1-1.

Turn 4
Neither stone again.  I cheat to go first.  I gain a few pass tokens.

I start with Zoraida, and like last turn I start by using Hex on the Forgotten Marshal through McTavish.  He Takes the Hit with his Ashigaru, but I kill it this time.  I then use Hex on the Forgotten Marshal again, giving him injured and 3 damage.  I then Obey the Spawn Mother, stoning for the Ensorcel trigger. She charges the Forgotten Marshal, and kills him.

At this point, we make a misplay.  We thought that the owner of the model dropped the intel marker - not the opponent.  So he drops his on the far side from the Spawn Mother, who walks to cover it.  If we had played it correctly, I would have had the Spawn Mother pick it up.

Zoraida ends her activation by using Threads of Fate and summoning the Voodoo Doll.

He has an Ashigaru walk and charges the Spawn Mother, neglecting to use Vile Reclamation.  I spend Focus defensively, but he flips the 13 of Masks and declares Shove Aside and pushes to cover the Intel Marker.

I have my Bokor heal up my Spawn Mother with Deja Vu, but Black Joker the heal flip.  I heal the Spawn Mother a second time with Deja Vu, this time getting 2 wounds back.  With my last action, I Obey McTavish to shoot the Vulture, but my opponent uses Take the Hit to tank the shot.  The Bokor again fails Protective Spirits.  

His Gravedigger digs up a corpse, walks and uses stitch up on an Ashigaru, then eats a corpse for a stone.  I have the Voodoo Doll charge bokor for 2 damage, fast and glowy before serving its purpose for a card.  Toshiro goes next, burning the fresh stone to summon another Ashigaru, walking forward and using Foul-mouthed Motivation to heal it 1 and give it focus.

The First Mate walked and used Leap, stoning to get the Sudden Strike trigger on the Vulture.  He uses Focus defensively, and I drop it to 1 wound.  I swing again, he Takes the Hit and I get the Pouncing Strike trigger.  I Red Joker the damage flip on the Ashigaru, bringing it to 1, and do the Pouncing Strike attack on the Vulture, killing it.  I draw a card from Showboat.

He has Asura walk twice, and command a Mindless Zombie walk.  I have McTavish shoot the Ashigaru on Hard to Kill, and kill it.  I then Charge into Asura, doing Moderate damage with the Execute trigger, which he discards cards for.  I then Gator Snack a Scheme marker for a card.  

Nicodem goes and summons another Flesh Construct and a Mindless Zombie with his Red Joker.  He then walks and uses Decay on McTavish, blasting on the First Mate and spreading Injured around.  He fails to dig up a corpse at least.

The Spawn Mother walks, Ambushes, and then charge Asura, and with Focus hits Asura for moderate damage and Infect for 2, dropping her to 1 wound with 2 poison.  Mortimer heals up and walks through the Cactus, using Decay onto McTavish and blasts onto the First Mate as well.  He successfully digs up a corpse marker.

I walk one of my Gupps and drop a scheme marker, but Black Joker the leap.  He walks a Mindless Zombie through hazardous terrain.  My second Gupps walk and leap, then drop a scheme marker.

His new Ashigaru fails to use Vile Reclamation on the First Mate, and I Butterfly Jump away.  He then charges the First Mate, misses, and I Butterfly Jump again.  My Gator fails to Disengage from the Flesh Construct, and I don’t have the card to Ambush away.  His second Flesh Construct charges McTavish, hits him for weak and gets Infect off.  Another Ashigaru walks and charges my Bokor, but misses.  The Flesh Construct next to my Gator gains stunned, and then moves to stay close to the Gator.
  
At the end of the turn, Asura dies to poison.  He reveals Let Them Bleed.  The score was 1-2.

Turn 5
Neither of us stone for cards.  I win initiative.    

I go first with Zoraida, using Hex on his Ashigaru for weak twice, then Obey the Bokor with Ensorcel.  I use Swamp Spirits on the Ashigaru and kill it, with the Reposition trigger.  I then heal itself for 3.  I Threads of Fate to refresh my hand, and summon the Doll.

Nicodem goes next, using Decay on McTavish but I Red Joker the defense.  He hits with the second Decay with the Siphon Life trigger, and kills McTavish.  He then attacks the Spawn Mother, and hits Red Joker for damage to kill her.  I summoned another Gupps from the Egg marker I had laid several turns ago.  Nico then summons a Mindless Zombie.

At this point, I concede and we agree to talk out the rest of the activations.  I did not feel that I could score Take Prisoner (he had too many other significant models near his Gravedigger), I would likely score the second point of Spread them Out (thanks to my Gupps), but I wouldn’t get any Strategy Points.  Likewise, He’d get a Strategy Point this turn and his second Take Prisoner, but my Gupps would prevent him his second Let Them Bleed point.  

We agreed that the final score would be 2-4 in his favor.  

Post-Game Thoughts
This game went according to my plan at the start, but things fell apart quickly when I underestimated the Ashigaru.  As I suspected, once his deathball of a crew connected with mine, it ground me down through attrition.

Scheme wise, I really should not have selected Take Prisoner into a Summoner.  Even if I had Lures and Obeys, his Ashigaru could use Take the Hit to prevent me from targeting the model - and even then, he could always run a Flesh construct or other summoned model closer after I was activated.  Spread Them Out went according to plan.  The Spawn Mother did some work, and the Gupps she summoned did their job.  

MVP for this game goes to the Ashigaru for my opponent.  A Hard to Kill, Armor 1, Take the Hit, heals as a bonus model is a really solid package for an easily summonable model.  It’s attacks are nothing to sneeze at, either.  His crew had a lot of redundant healing, so he was able to really make the most of its ability to negate attacks.

My takeaways from this game would be:

  1. Swampfiends suffer against models with Armor, due to relatively low weak damage across the keyword.  
  2. Many of the Swampfiend models are indeed as squishy as they look - do not let your opponent get into range to hit them.
  3. Injured is a powerful debuff if you can stack it - both my opponent and I used it to great effect this game in bursting down models.

MVP for me would go to the Spawn Mother, since she denied a point from my opponent and helped me score 2 of my own, thus being responsible for a good chunk of my victory points.

Thank you for reading!
 

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal with @Insomniakwulf on 03/21/2020. Once again I requested we play the 4th round of the Malifaux Vassal League, as I wanted more practice for it with the drubbing I had previously.     

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
The map was the High Ground map.  All the green locations were Severe, Dense, Concealing terrain.  The cacti were Hazardous, Severe.  The water was broken into different ‘pieces’, separated by the rocks.  The water was Severe.  The hills were treated as Dense for purposes of seeing into, off of, but not through them (and to allow pushes).

The pool was:
Corner Deployment
Recover Evidence
Breakthrough, Let Them Bleed, Spread Them Out, Sabotage, Take Prisoner

I announced Bayou, he announced Bayou.  I announced Zoraida, and he announced Zoraida as well. It would be a true mirror match! 

The crew I built was:

6ss
Zoraida
The First Mate
McTavish
Adze
Grootslang
Gatreaux Bokor
Bayou Gator

His crew:

5ss
Zoraida
Bad Juju w/ Two Gremlin in a Ghillie Suit
2x Gatreaux Bokor
2x Silurid
2x Bayou Gators

I had changed my crew from my previous game to swap the Grootslang in for the Spawn Mother.  I figured the Grootslang would be able to fill the void of a mobile scheming piece, while also being more durable than the Gupps.  

Seeing his crew, I once again opted for Spread Them Out and Take Prisoner, this time on one of his Bokor.  I figured that I could use the same plan of Luring/ Obeying his Bokor into position, and that the Stealthed models in his crew were off limits.  I also didn’t want to get into a melee with Juju, and with his Roots I couldn’t Obey him anyway.  

He chose Spread them Out and Let Them Bleed.  

Deployment
I was the attacker, and took the bottom right corner again.  He was in the top left.  He had me deploy McTavish first.  He deployed spread out, and in response I kept myself mostly on the edge of my deployment zone.  

He put intel on all of my models except for my Bokor, and I put intel on Bad Juju, both Gators and both Silurid.

Turn 1
Neither of us stone for cards, and I win initiative.  I give him first activation, and gain a pass token for crew differences.

He goes first with a Bayou Gator who walks and concentrates.  I use a Pass token, and he gives Zoraida two Focus from both Bokor’s Big Voodoo.  I stick with the choice, even though my opponent offered to let me walk it back, since it was an honest play error I made.   

He has a Silurid leap and walks forward before concentrating.  I Ambush my Gator forward, walk and concentrate.  His second Silurid copies the first, moving forward and concentrating.  I Ambush the Adze forward and Lure Zoraida up.  He walks his remaining Gator forward and concentrates.

Most of our easy activations done, I go with Zoraida.  She uses Obey on the Bokor to walk, then uses Obey on the Grootslang with the Ensorcel trigger.  This lets me use Create Lair and focus the Grootslang.  Lastly, I Obey McTavish to walk forward.  I Threads of Fate, and he discards the Red Joker.  I end by Summoning the Voodoo Doll.  

He has Bad Juju Ambush and walks forward.  I have the Voodoo Doll punch my Bokor for Fast and Glowy, and then Serve its Purpose to draw a card.  

He has his Zoraida go, and Obey Bad Juju with the Burn Out trigger to give him Fast for next Turn, and then have him take the concentrate action.  She then uses Obey on my Adze through Bad Juju, spending a Focus to hit with Ensorcel.  The Adze takes two walk actions, flying right into the crosshairs of his crew, and taking two points of Hazardous Terrain damage.  He then Obeys his Bayou Gator to charge the Adze, using Focus to hit but I dodge the attack.  He then summons a Voodoo doll, and puts the Wanga Mojo upgrade onto the Adze.

I have the Grootslang use Lair to Lair to the middle Lair marker, then use Ambush and a Charge into his Bayou Gator.  I spend my focus, getting the Slink Away trigger.  I kill the Gator, and drop the Intel marker next to the Adze before teleporting back to the central Lair marker.

He has his Voodoo Doll attack his Bokor, but flips Black Joker on the damage, taking the built in trigger to ping the Adze for a damage through the doll.  On his Triggered attack, he hits the Bokor for 1 to give it Glowy and Fast.  He then attacks the second Bokor, declaring the trigger again to ping the Adze again, but doesn’t take the second attack.  He then Serves his Purpose to draw a card.

I move McTavish with On the Move, then use Gator Snack and get the Surge trigger.  He then walks up and Concentrates.  He has a Bokor walk, then heals his other Bokor with the Deja Vu trigger.  He then heals Bad Juju, spending his glowy token for Deja Vu.  I have First Mate walk, leap and concentrate.  He has his other Bokor concentrate, then shoot at the Adze with the Concentrate.  He does moderate damage with the Magical Feedback trigger, then shoots again but due to concealing terrain misses.  

To end the turn, I have my Bokor walk up, concentrate and then Obey the Grootslang to Teleport to the bottom left corner of the board with Lair to Lair.

Turn 2
Neither of us stone for cards.  He secures the initiative, and goes first. 

He has Zoraida activate first, and Obeys Bad Juju with the Ensorcel trigger to charge the Adze, and kills it.  WIth the second action, Bad Juju walks.  He then uses a focus to Obey my McTavish to charge my Bokor, but misses the hit.  WIth his last action, he Obeys one of his Silurid to walk.  He then uses threads of fate and summons the Voodoo doll.

I have my Gator move up with a combination of walk and ambush.  He has a Silurid leap and attacks my Bayou Gator, hitting Onslaught and killing the Gator, which drops him a strategy marker.  He then picks up the marker with his second action.  

I have First Mate leap with Sudden Strike onto the same Silurid, burning stones for it.  He Butterfly Jumps away, and I charge him.  I burn another stone and a high Ram for the Critical Strike with a minimum enough to kill his Silurid, but the Black Joker on damage saves him and he Butterfly Jumps away again.  I settle for dropping a scheme marker with my last action.

He has Bad Juju walk, ambush and Charge the First Mate.  He spends his Red Joker to hit me, choosing the trigger to gain Focus from the attack.  He then uses his Fast action to attack with that focus, but the Black Joker makes him miss.  Grootslang drops a scheme marker, then uses Lair to Lair again to escape the Bad Juju, heading to the top right corner.  He has his Voodoo doll punch a Bokor, then draw a card with Served its Purpose.   

I go with Zoraida now, and Obey McTavish to walk back into Concealing terrain.  I Threads of Fate mid-activation, as I had poor cards in hand.  I walk Zoraida twice, to try to be in a better position on the board.  I have her summon the voodoo doll, and put the Wanga Mojo upgrade on Bad Juju.

He has his fast Bokor walk and heals the other Bokor, spending Glowy for Deja Vu, then Concentrating.  I have my Voodoo Doll charge my own Bokor, using Frantic Attack trigger to ping Bad Juju for damage.  He has one of his Gators move up to my central Lair marker and destroy it.

I have my Bokor use Obey on McTavish, spending Focus to get around Concealing terrain, and have him shoot the exposed enemy Bokor.  I get 4 damage on the hit.  The Bokor then heals itself with the Deja Vu trigger.

He remaining Bokor uses Protective Spirits, then heals the wounded Bokor twice, hitting Deja Vu once.  I have McTavish shoot the previously wounded Bokor, but only manage to hit once for weak damage.  I end by dropping my Swampscreen marker.  He has his remaining Silurid leap up and drop a scheme marker.

At the end of the turn, he scores the strategy.  Neither of us reveal schemes.  The score was 1-0.

Turn 3
He stones for cards, and I win initiative.  

I go first with Zoraida, and use Hex on his Silurid for weak damage, and he Butterfly Jumps away.  I do it again, but he avoids the hit and jumps away a second time.  I choose to use my third action to Obey the First Mate with Burn Out for Fast, then use Threads of Fate to refresh our hands.  I don’t summon a Doll, as mine was still alive.  

He responds with his Zoraida, who Obeys a Bokor to heal his Silurid with the Deja Vu trigger.  He next Obeyed Bad Juju with the Ensorcel Trigger to eat the scheme marker that First Mate had dropped, then charge into my First Mate and Black joker the damage.  She then Concentrates for her third action, and uses Threads of Fate.  He summons his doll.

I have First Mate discard a card due to Penetrating Stench, then spend a stone for Sudden Strike, leaping and punching his Silurid again.  I do weak damage, and he Butterfly Jumps away.  I charge with my second action, and cheat to force the kill through, then pick up his Strategy marker.  I walk with my last action, away from his Bad Juju.

He has his Voodoo Doll punch both of his Bokor for Glowy and Fast, then serve its purpose for a card.  I have McTavish maneuver with on the move to take a shot at his wounded Bokor, missing once and landing a weak on the second shot.

Once again, he has his fresh Bokor heal the wounded Bokor, then Obeys it to pick up a Strategy Marker.  He then heals a second time with Deja Vu.  I have my Voodoo doll punch my own Bokor for Fast and Glowy, then draw a card from Serve Its Purpose.  His remaining Bokor moves and Obeys Bad Juju to walk, then shoots McTavish but fails to hit.  

I have Grootslang drop a scheme marker and walk into concealing terrain.  He has his remaining Gator charge into McTavish, and hits with Puncture.  I stone the damage away.  He Flurries into McTavish, hitting Execute which eats a card in my hand.  His third attack he spends focus, doing Severe damage.  

I have my Bokor walk, drop a scheme marker, then heal McTavish.  He has Bad Juju charge my First Mate for 4 damage, then walk towards my side of the board after I Butterfly Jump away.  He has his remaining Silurid charge my Bokor and hit with Infect, then eats my Scheme Marker because the Bokor has no engagement range.

At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy.  He reveals Let them bleed.  The score was 1-3.

Turn 4
Neither of us stone, and I win initiative.  

I have McTavish discard to avoid Penetrating Stench, then attack his Bayou Gator.  Unfortunately, the Red Joker on his defense makes me miss the first hit, and he cheats to avoid the second hit.

He has his Gator attack McTavish with the Puncture trigger, cheating Severe and dropping a Strategy Marker, which he proceeds to pick up.  He then Ambushes away.

I have Zoraida walk and Obey his Bokor to attack his Bayou Gator with Swamp Spirits, taking the Reposition trigger to walk into terrain as well.  She then Concentrates, and refreshes hands with Threads of Fate.  I summon a voodoo doll, putting the Wanga Mojo on his Bokor.  He goes with the Bokor next, discarding the upgrade with stones and walks out of Terrain.  He Obeys the Gator to walk away.  I have First Mate discard to Penetrating Stench, then leap away and drop a marker.  

He has Zoraida Obey his Gator with Ensorcel to drop a scheme marker, and charge my Voodoo Doll and kill it.  She then Walks into range to Obey the First Mate, declaring the Burn Out trigger to kill him.  She uses Threads of Fate before summoning a Voodoo Doll.

I have the Grootslang drop a scheme marker and walk, trying to get him into some place to be relevant.  He has a Bokor use Obey on Bad Juju to walk, then spend Focus to Obey his other Bokor to walk.   He has his Silurid move into my half of the board and drop a scheme marker.  He has Bad Juju walk twice and Ambush into my side of the board.  His Voodoo Doll serves its purpose for cards.

At the end of the turn, we both reveal Spread Them Out.  He scores the strategy.  The score was 2-5.

I concede. We discussed that I would not be able to get any more points, and he would likely score the end condition on all three of his schemes.  We agreed that the final score would be 2-8.

Post-Game Thoughts
This game felt like a masterclass lesson in “How to Play Zoraida”.  I felt like my opponent was able to use her abilities, and her keyword, very effectively.  I didn’t note it in the play-by-play, but my opponent had his Zoraida in position to regularly use her Reading the Cards ability, to discard good cards off my deck.  The fact that terrain prevented my own Zoraida from taking advantage of this ability, unless I spent actions Moving, was a real pain in the neck.

I did not appreciate how much card draw Zoraida had access to, until I saw the Bokor with Deja Vu in action.  My opponent was regularly seeing 20+ cards from his deck through all his draw effects, and as a result he often had what he needed to hit me - even if the Jokers sometimes got in the way.  

Scheme wise, I think Spread them Out was a decent pick, and is still one I like with this set up.  Take Prisoner fails me yet again, and I’m thinking that the Swampfiends are just too squishy to reliably get it.  Let Them Bleed proved remarkably easy for my opponent, given how well he could reach out and hit my models.   

My three takeaways are:

  1. Gatreaux Bokor are good, but two seem much better than one.  Especially if you focus on their Deja Vu healing.  I should consider this for the next game.
  2. I should aim to get Zoraida into Line of Sight of my enemy crew more often, since the deck control that Reading the Cards provides is really powerful.  At least, it feels really powerful.
  3. Bad Juju was a mobile, tough, super useful vantage point for Eyes in the Night.  I should consider him over McTavish, who didn’t really do a lot.  

Thank you for reading!
 

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal with AgentRock on 03/28/2020 as the 4th round of the Malifaux Vassal League.

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
The map was the High Ground map.  All the green locations were Severe, Dense, Concealing terrain.  The cacti were Hazardous, Severe.  The water was broken into different ‘pieces’, separated by the rocks.  The water was Severe.  The hills were treated as Dense for purposes of seeing into, off of, but not through them (and to allow pushes).

The pool was:
Corner Deployment
Recover Evidence
 Breakthrough, Let Them Bleed, Spread Them Out, Sabotage, Take Prisoner

I announced Bayou, he announced Ten Thunders.  I announced Zoraida, and he announced Lucas McCabe.  

The crew I built was:

6ss
Zoraida
Bad Juju w/ Two Gremlin in a Ghillie Suit
The First Mate
2x Gatreaux Bokor
2x Silurid

His crew:

5 ss

Lucas McCabe
Luna
Misaki Katanaka
Minako Rei
Samurai
Lone Swordsman
Shadow Effigy

With the last two games under my belt, and knowing I was going up against Thunders and McCabe, I expected some combination of Trained Ninja Samurai, Dawn Serpent, Thunders Goodstuff, and Hucksters.  I took inspiration from my last loss and brought two Bokor to be a card drawing engine, and opted for Bad Juju over McTavish for an Eyes in the Night node.  I took two Silurid because of their speed and surprising punchiness.

When I saw his crew as a variant of Ten Thunders Goodstuff, with a second master in tow, I hard shifted to Let Them Bleed as my second scheme.  He didn’t have much in the way of out of activation healing, so I figured I could ping damage to get the reveal, and hopefully wear him down by the end.  I took Sabotage this time, selecting a piece of terrain deep in his territory.  Again, the intent was to force his crew to spread out, and hopefully I could pick them apart.
My opponent ended up taking Breakthrough and Spread Them Out.  

Deployment
He was the attacker.  He picked the top left zone, putting me in the bottom right zone.  He deployed McCabe on the river, between hills with Samurai, Lone Swordsman, and Luna.  I deployed my crew on the edge, keeping leapers in terrain. He then put Misaki on the hill, and everyone else conservatively placed. 

I placed Intel markers on everyone that was a legal target for his crew, and had one left over.  This one went into the top right corner, far away from where the action would take place - I figured sending a Silurid up to it would either draw Misaki out of the fight for a turn or two, or it’d be an easy Victory Point.  He put Intel markers on everyone on my crew except a Silurid. 

Turn 1
Neither of us stone this turn, and he wins initiative.  He has me go first, and Buries Misaki.

I open with sending a Silurid towards the Strategy Marker on the top right, Concentrating for it’s second action.  He has Luna dig up a Scrap marker, then use it to attach the Phantasmal Mask upgrade, which she tosses to the Shadow Effigy.

I have Bad Juju Ambush and walk forward into the forest, and Concentrate.  He has McCabe use Ride with Me on the Lone Swordsman, then walks twice and shoots Bad Juju with the Netgun.  Despite Concealment, he hits and does 2 damage, slows and staggers Bad Juju.  I have the second Silurid move up and Concentrate.

He has Misaki Unbury, walk twice and charge my Silurid, doing moderate damage with the Reposition trigger.  We both reposition a little bit, and then he Black Jokers the Abandon Honor bonus.    

I have Zoraida activate, and use Threads of Fate to refresh our hands.  I then Hex Misaki through the Silurid, which he avoids.  I Hex again, hitting severe and he stones 2 of it away, but importantly giving Misaki Injured.  I declare the My Loyal Servant trigger on that hit, healing the Silurid to full.  I then Obey the First Mate, stoning for Ensorcel for him to walk and concentrate.  I then summon a Voodoo Doll and giving him a Pass Token.

He has the Shadow Effigy activate, give the Samurai the Phantasmal Mask, and then walk twice.  I have the Voodoo Doll punch both Bokor, hitting moderate on one of them.  Both gain Fast and Glowy.  I then Serve its Purpose to draw a card.  Minako walks twice.

I have a Bokor heal itself with Deja Vu, then walk and heal Bad Juju, but Black Joker the Protective Spirits.  He has the Samurai Charge, then walks twice before tossing the Phantasmal Mask to McCabe.  I have my other Bokor use Obey to have the First Mate walk up towards Misaki, then use Healing Spirits with Deja Vu twice, healing Bad Juju and itself to full.  I successfully use Protective Spirits.  He has Lone Swordsman push and walk up.

At the end of the turn, I have the First Mate stone for a Ram on his Leap, getting Sudden Strike.  I Red Joker the hit on Misaki, and am able to cheat Severe damage on her, and he stones 2 of it away.  I swing again, stoning again for a ram for Crit Strike.  I hit, doing weak of 3 which he prevents only 1 with a soulstone.  With my third attack, I stone for a Ram again and burn my Focus, which is enough with my hand to kill Misaki outright.  He draws me a card from Showboat.

Turn 2
Neither of us stone for cards.  He wins initiative. 

He goes with McCabe first, walking before picking up the Lone Swordsman with Ride With Me and pushing through Bad Juju, who fails the Make Way! Test.  He then stones for a mask on his Bull Whip attack, declaring Like the Wind.  He Red Jokers the damage flip, pushes through Bad Juju (who fails the test again), and ends near Zoraida and the Bokor.  He whips a Bokor, declaring Rear up (which most of my models pass), then pushes through a Bokor who takes some damage.

I have Zoraida activate, and use Hex on the Lone Swordsman through Bad Juju, cheating the My Loyal Servant trigger in to heal him.  I hit the Swordsman a second time, getting severe damage and the trigger to let Bad Juju punch him as well.  Bad Juju hits for weak.  Lastly, I obey Bad Juju with Ensorcel to punch the Swordsman twice, I drop him to hard to kill, but black joker the last damage flip.  I then Threads of Fate and summon the Voodoo doll, putting Wanga Mojo on the Swordsman.

He goes with the Swordsman, discarding to Penetrating Stench.  He gives himself Rams from Adaptive.  He then uses Last Breath on Bad Juju, and swings twice.  The first hit drops Juju to 1, so we drop my Strategy marker.  The second procs my Demise (Eternal).  Since Juju was alive at the end of his activation, the Swordsman died and dropped his own Strategy Marker.  I go with Juju next, healing to 7 due to being in severe terrain and pick up his marker, clearing my Slow and Staggered.   

He has the Samurai concentrate for free, and shoots at Bad Juju twice, once using the focus.  In a remarkable flipping display he does two sets of Moderate 4 damage and kills Bad Juju.  I forget to summon a Bayou Gremlin from his upgrade.    I have the Voodoo Doll activate, and it swings on a healthy Bokor to give it fast and Glowy.  I then sacrifice it to draw a card.  He walks the Shadow Effigy up and puts up it’s concealing aura.

I activate a Bokor who takes Life Leech damage.  I then heal the Fast Bokor twice with Deja Vu to refill my hand, and put up shielded.  He has Minako use Equality of Fate to draw 2 cards, then summons a Katashiro for a stone.  He then walks her up.

I leap my Silurid further towards the marker on the top right corner, and concentrate.  His Katashiro moves towards the middle.  My fast Bokor heals itself with Deja Vu, then again with Healing burst to heal Zoraida some.  I do fail to put up Protective spirits, and fail Swamp Spirits on McCabe.  Luna runs to catch up.

First Mate Leaps and charges McCabe, getting the Slow trigger on him with the Anchor.  My remaining Silurid charged into his Katashiro and killed it.  

At the end of the turn, I score the strategy.  The score was 1-0.

Turn 3
Neither of us have any stones left, and I go first.

I have Zoraida take a damage from Leech Life, then Hex McCabe twice for Moderate and 2 injured.  I then Obey the First Mate with Ensorcel to swing.  On the first hit, I get Crit Strike which forces McCabe to Dismount.  I then use the second action to Concentrate.  I use Threads of Fate to refresh hands, and summon a Voodoo Doll and put Wanga Mojo onto McCabe.

He has McCabe activate, drawing cards off of Scrap lying around.  He uses the phantasmal Mask bonus to remove his Injured condition with the ram trigger, drops a scheme marker and Concentrates.

I have my Silurid on the top right pick up a Strategy Marker, then move back towards the middle of the board.  He walks the Shadow Effigy onto the Strategy Marker Juju dropped.  I have the Voodoo doll punch a Bokor with the built in trigger to ping McCabe some damage, then do the same to Zoraida.  I keep it around to keep Wanga Mojo on McCabe. 

Minako walks and drops a scheme marker.  I have a Bokor heal itself twice with Deja Vu to refill my hand, then Obey the First Mate to walk.  Luna walks again.  I have my other Bokor heal Zoraida with Deja vu, then itself with Deja Vu.   He charges his Samurai up to be a threat to my Bokor, concentrating for free.  My remaining Silurid walks and drops a scheme marker to set up for Sabotage.

I then go with the First Mate, using Menacing Croak with the trigger to remove the marker McCabe had dropped.  McCabe passes the test.  I then spend focus to hit McCabe with the anchor, and between Red Joker and a Crit Strike I kill McCabe.

At this point, my opponent conceded.  He felt that he would not be able to score Spread them Out at this point, as I had more activations (and if he spent pass tokens, Big Voodoo on Bokor would give me free focus) and the First Mate could just remove scheme markers with his Croak.  He felt that he would not be able to score Breakthrough either, because he didn’t have enough fast models to get there.  He felt that he would be able to maybe get the Strategy Marker, if he won the next turn - and I agreed that he’d likely get at least one Strategy Marker.  He would not send someone to deny Sabotage.  I would likely get the end game condition for Let them Bleed, as I kept killing his models without letting them live to heal up.

The agreed upon final score was 5-1.

Post-Game Thoughts
This game felt like a textbook example of what happens when you can get reps in with a master.  The changes I made to my crew felt like a good fine tuning compared to my previous runs with Zoraida.  Even with my opponent having many high willpower, armored models; a summoner; and two masters, I only felt pressure when McCabe or Misaki attacked - and even then, I was able to collapse on them and put them down.

I acknowledge it was resource intensive to kill Misaki turn 1, and I’m lucky to have accomplished it.  She was a huge investment in points, and a huge threat - being forced to walk twice (because her movement had been reduced while buried) was a lifesaver.  

I’m in love with the Deja Vu trigger now (if that weren’t obvious from how often I bring it up!) because between Zoraida and two Bokor, I had enough Obeys and healing to get a ton of work out of First Mate.  Bad Juju didn’t perform amazingly this game, but he did soak a ton of attention, score me a strategy point and killed the Lone Swordsman, so that isn’t too bad.

Scheme wise, I think I was satisfied with my picks this game.  I don’t think I’d change anything about the crew or the schemes. 

My three takeaways this game are:

  1. Hex is proving to be a more common action for me than Obey, and I like it - the flexibility that Hex and Obey have for Zoraida feels much better than just using Obey all the time. 
  2. The Card draw engine that Zoraida can build is bonkers, and I love it.  I regularly flipped my entire deck every turn.  That said, it does leave you vulnerable (I had Bokor on 2 wounds several times), so I don’t think it’s truly busted.
  3. So far, Penetrating Stench has been an ‘ok’ defensive tech, but Stealth is far more useful.  I’m finding that if a model goes in on a Swampfiend with Penetrating Stench, by the time it’s relevant the model is either dead, or the Swampfiend is.  

Honestly, I can’t tell who my MVP for the game is.  Points wise, my Silurid scored me a Strategy Point, two scheme points, and would contribute to getting a 4th scheme point.  The First Mate did all the heavy lifting in the damage category, and the Bokor kept my hand full.  Plus, Zoraida herself did a great job of setting everyone else up for success.

Thank you for reading!

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is an after-action report for Round 5 of the Facebook Malifaux Vassal League, played on 4/04/2020.  For more information, please check out the Malifaux Vassal Players facebook group here.  It was a 50ss game between myself and @santaclaws01

Pictures from this game can be found here.  

Set Up

The Vassal Map was Mausoleum.  The plant areas were dense, severe, concealing terrain.  The gravestones were height 2 blocking, impassable, climbable.  The open coffins and bone piles were severe terrain.   The center building was a height 4, enclosed building.  

The pool was:

Standard Deployment
Corrupted Leylines
Assassinate, Vendetta, Hidden Martyrs, Claim Jump, Runic Binding

I announced Bayou, he announced Neverborn.  I announced Zoraida, and he announced Titania.  

The crew I built was:

6ss
Zoraida
Bad Juju w/ Inferiority Complex
First Mate w/ Inferiority Complex
Lucky Effigy w/ Effigy of Fate
2x Gatreaux Bokor
Will o’ the Wisp

His crew:

5ss
Titania
Gorar
Aeslin
Mysterious Emissary
Serena Bowman
Killjoy
Autumn Knight w/ Ancient Pact

Well, that is one tanky crew!  When we discussed terrain, the central building being Height 4 meant that I opted to not put Two Gremlin in a Ghillie Suit onto Juju (he wouldn’t fit in the building then!).  I took two sets of Inferiority Complex to get through terrifying, and the free focus.  

I figured with this being a mostly killy pool, I opted for Assassinate and Hidden Martyrs (I selected a Gatreaux Bokor and the Will o’ the Wisp).  I didn’t have good targets for Vendetta, and didn’t feel comfortable trying for Runic Binding (it would be a huge tell as it’s the only scheme marker scheme).  

My opponent took Vendetta on Bad Juju and Assassinate.  

Deployment
I win the flip to be the attacker.  I chose the right hand side, as it would give me more mobility for the Effigy to get to strategy markers. I proceeded to completely mess up my deployment, putting Zoraida and two Bokor down first, with the bokor placed so a Voodoo doll could be summoned between them.  The problem here is that it prevented my other, bigger base models (like Juju) from entering the building; and if I moved them, the whole ‘placed for Voodoo Doll’ measurement was wasted.

My opponent deployed his crew, putting Serena and the Gorar near Strategy markers, and the rest of the crew on the line.  I put the rest of my crew clustered together, with the First Mate prepared to swing to my bottom flank.

I placed my Lodestone token on the Lucky Effigy; he put his on the Gorar.  He put Killjoy’s upgrades on Titania and the Gorar.  My opponent dropped Underbrush Markers to really muck up my ability to unpack my deployment.

Turn 1
Neither of us had pass tokens, and neither stone for cards.  I win initiative, and give him first activation.  

He starts with the Gorar walking next to a strategy marker and concentrating.  I realize my deployment errors at this point, and go with the First Mate to walk (getting a free Focus from the upgrade) then concentrating.  I got off a Leap to threaten the bottom flank.

We proceed to alternate walking our crew up, with Killjoy, the Will o’ the Wisp, and the Autumn Knight going in succession.  The Autumn Knight spiced things up by Germinating as well.

Finally I had to go with Zoraida.  I used Obey on a Bokor to walk, hitting Ensorcel to give it a Concentrate action.  I then Obey Bad Juju with Burnout for Fast, and he walked up.  Her last action was Obey with the Burn Out trigger on the second Bokor, walking up.  She then used Threads of Fate to refresh hands and summoned the Voodoo Doll.

He went with Titania next, using Germinate with the Cradle of Life trigger before Walking, and taking an Awakened Hunger attack on my Wisp.  Luckily, my Wisp dodges the hit. I have the Voodoo doll flip Black Joker to ping a wounded Bokor, then charge the other bokor for Fast and Glowy.  I then draw a card and sacrifice it.

The Mysterious Emissary walked up and put up the aura of deception.  I have a Bokor Obey Bad Juju to walk, then fail to get Healing energy off on him.  I do pulse out Shielded though.  Aeslin Walks up and casts Germinate with the Surge trigger for a card.  I walk the Lucky Effigy twice, having to thread the needle to get into base contact with the strategy marker (again, because I put Zoraida in a bad spot in deployment and failed to move her).  Serena walked up. The second Bokor tossed out healing, hitting the deja vu trigger twice and healing both Bokor back up.

Bad Juju finally activates, regenerating to full before using a combination of Ambush, fast and charge into the Mysterious Emissary.  I hit it twice, spending focus and getting the Focused Attention Trigger.  Both hits land Severe Damage, and the Emissary was on Hard to Kill at the end of the turn.  

At the end of the turn, we both claim markers.  

Turn 2
We both stone for cards.  This was an important initiative flip - because if I went first, I could kill the Emissary and get a massive tempo swing.  I spend the Red Joker here, but my opponent had the pass token I gave him and the bonus from Ancient Pact, so he was able to tie for a reflip.  We reflipped 3 times, and he won in the end.

He opens with Serena who charges Bad Juju for two minimum hits, which was enough to reveal Vendetta.  She then heals the Emissary with the Swift Action trigger, healing it up to 6 wounds.  I activate Zoraida, hoping to salvage the situation - but she was just out of range of Bad Juju.  With move 4 and being in an Underbrush marker, I have to walk twice to be in range.  I Threads of Fate to have a decent hand again, then Obey Bad Juju with Ensorcel to take two swings on the Emissary.  He misses the first attack, and only gets weak on the second.  She ends by summoning the Voodoo doll, and putting Wanga Mojo on the Emissary.

The Emissary goes next, healing up and disengaging from Juju.  It then attacks Zoraida with his Roots attack.  I spend a stone to put him on a negative to damage, and wouldn’t you know it - he flips Red Joker!  I stone 3 damage on the attack on Zoraida, but he blasts onto my Bokor and the doll.

The Will o’ the Wisp Ambushes, Concentrates, and tries to Lure Juju back to be able to swing twice on the Emissary (he was engaged with Serena, and the terrain in the center prevented me from Ambushing away) - but the Black Joker denied me.

Aeslin attacks Juju with Decay twice, getting Into Thorns for extra damage.  I stone twice, and reduce damage a fair bit.  Bad Juju Walks around Serena and takes a single attack on the Emissary, but fails to connect.  The Autumn Knight charges Juju in return, hitting with the Into Thorns trigger for more damage.  He flips the Black Joker for damage.  The second swing he misses, despite my stacks of injured.

I have a Bokor walk through hazardous terrain and pulse out Shielded to my backline, then heal the other Bokor with Deja vu.  The Gorar walks and tosses the Lodestone to Titania.  My other Bokor healed the Effigy with Deja Vu, and fails to hand out shielded.  

Titania goes next, walking and using Awakened Hunger on Serena.  He forces the Into Thorns trigger to go off, placing Serena next to the central Strategy Marker.  He then tosses her the lodestone.  He ends with Queen’s Command on the Underbrush in my backline, triggering to do it again.  This strips the Shielded off my crew.

I walk the Effigy twice, losing shielded.  He walks Killjoy up and Focuses. I durdle with First Mate, cheating a failing leap to showboat. 

At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy.  My opponent scores a point for Vendetta on Bad Juju.

The score was 1-2.

Turn 3

He stones for cards.  I flip the Black Joker for initiative, and no one gains Pass tokens.  I have the Effigy turn into the Emissary.

Serena opens again, healing the Emissary before disengaging from Juju and killing a Bokor with Twist Reality.

I start with Zoraida, walking out of the Underbrush and using Obey on the Hidden Martyr Bokor with Ensorcel to walk it twice back behind the building.  Deciding I need to remove his advantage on Initiative, She then uses Hex on the Autumn Knight through Juju, getting Weak damage.  I use Threads to refresh hands, and summon the Voodoo doll and put Wanga Mojo on Titania.

The Autumn Knight activates and attacks Juju twice for weak each time.  Juju takes a focused swing on the Autumn Knight, missing and taking some Parry Damage.  The second attack hits for weak with the Quicksand trigger, slowing his Knight. 

Titania goes next, attacking Bad Juju with Awakened Hunger.  Her first attack procs my Demise (Eternal), She then Germinates with the Trigger.  She Black Jokers her Queen’s Command.  Her last action is to attack Zoraida with Awakened Hunger, getting Into Thorns and doing a whopping 7 damage to Zoraida.  My Gatreaux Bokor tosses the lodestone from the Emissary to the First mate, then heal Lucky with Deja Vu.  I end by handing out Shielded.

Killjoy walks and charges into Juju, killing him for good.  Lucky walks and Steamrollers through the Underbrush, removing the markers.  Mysterious Emissary attacks the Voodoo doll for weak damage, and fails to hit the Wisp.  

The Voodoo Doll activates and dies due to Titania’s Life Leech aura.  The Gorar spits venom at the Wips and flips the Black Joker.  The First Mate walks to the Strategy Marker on the bottom.  
Aeslin concentrates and walks up.  My Wisp takes a damage from Titania before walking twice to engage Serena.

At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy.  He reveals Assassinate.  The score was 2-4.

At this point, I saw no point in continuing the game, as my opponent had a commanding board position and I had no realistic way to secure any additional points.  We agreed I’d likely get the first point on Hidden Martyrs (he’d kill the Wisp next turn to free up Serena) but I’d be unable to deny him his points.

The agreed score would be 3-8.

Post-Game Thoughts
This is the second time I’ve faced Titania as Zoraida, and the second time I’ve choked.  Titania feels like she’s becoming a boogeyman for me - her kit has her reliably deleting models every turn, and I felt like I had little way to combat it.  My opponent played her very well, which didn’t help matters either.

On reflection, I really should have gone with Zipp or Somer in this pool instead of Zoraida.  Zipp has a better chance of denying the schemes in the pool, and is just as effective at scoring the strategy.  The board also had lots of obvious choke points which would have been great Piano spots.  Somer would be able to clog the board with bodies that drew him cards, while slowly moving towards the center.  

My main takeaways from this game were:

  1. Do not be hasty in Deployment.  I shot myself in the foot early, and I never really recovered.
  2. I shouldn’t try to force the ‘killy’ schemes if my opponent is bringing a ton of Armor/ Hard to Kill/ super killy models themselves.  I should have tried to go for more schemey options, and let my opponent waste his actions moving instead of meeting him in melee.
  3. For all my card draw, I got too focused on the Bokor that I stopped doing useful things.

For MVP, I’ll give it to the Effigy - he scored me some points, and cleared some Underbrush.  Overall, my crew performed poorly - because of my piloting, not because they are bad models.

I do think after a half-dozen games, I'm going to take a break from Zoraida.  She's just not clicking for me right now, so I'm going to try out some other keywords.

Thank you for reading!

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is an after-action report for Round 6 of the Facebook Malifaux Vassal League, played on 5/06/2020.  For more information, please check out the Malifaux Vassal Players facebook group here.  It was a 50ss game between myself and @KingCrow    

Pictures from this game can be found here.  Note that I completely forgot to take Deployment and End of Turn 1 pictures.

Set Up

The Vassal Map was Prison Break.   

The pool was:

Corner Deployment
Symbols of Authority
Claim Jump, Hidden Martyrs, Sabotage, Spread them out, Breakthrough

I announced Bayou, he announced Arcanists.  

The crew I built was:

5ss
Ulix Turner
Penelope
Old Major
Gracie
The Sow
Hog Whisperer
2x Squealer
Piglet

His crew:

6ss
Sandeep Desai
Banasuva
Kandara
Fire Gamin
Metal Gamin
Miner w/ Magical Training
Saboteur
Shastar Vidiya Guard
Oxfordian Mage

With the pool being corner deployment and heavily focused on scheming and interacting, I decided to lean heavily into the Pig part of Ulix’s keyword.  I went with the 3 Big Pigs to start - Gracie as a taxi and generally good model; Old Major as someone who I think I always will bring with Ulix; and the Sow to churn out more piglets.  For the rest, I thought that I should bring a Hog Whisperer for Tools for the Job to help cycle my hand, and otherwise be another source of Herd Em and the bonus range on melee.  Two squealers to give me some good grow targets early, and a single piglet to help me bluff/ take Hidden Martyrs if need be.  I figured my opponent would have some armor, and probably go for a Fire Golem early.  

Seeing the pool and my opponent’s crew, I ended up going for Spread them Out  and Hidden Martyrs (Sow and Piglet).  I figured I could grow the Piglet and send him in to attack, and keep the Sow back to pump out piglets before charging in at the end of the game.

Deployment
He is attacker, and I was defender.  He took the top right deployment zone, which did a good job of cutting me off from a chunk of his board half due to the walls and the small gaps between them (my 40mm and 50mm models wouldn’t be able to get through).

I deployed in two chunks - Ulix and a few big pigs in the right chunk of building, and the Sow, Piglet and Squealer on the left.  I deployed Penelope with From the Shadows to support the rightmost group of pigs. 

Turn 1
We both stone for cards, and my opponent wins initiative.  He has me go first.

This turn featured us mostly getting our respective engines online.  I start by having Penelope using Herd Em to walk a Squealer, with Ulix hitching a ride.  She then moves Old Major with Herd Em, and takes the Reposition trigger to get Gracie in her aura.  The Fire Gamin concentrates, benefitting from Kandara, Banasuva and the Vidiya Guard’s mantras.  It Walks through the resulting Pyre Marker for Burning, then consumes it with Pyreheart.

My Squealer on the left flank drops a scheme marker for the Sow to eat, then goes reckless and walks up and concentrates.  His Metal Gamin Concentrates, again benefitting from Kandara, Banasuva and the Vidiya guard’s mantras before walking, making a good pile of scrap markers.  

I go with Ulix next, using Herd Em on the Squealer next to him to walk, hitching a ride to get into the middle of my board.  He then uses Grow Up Strong on the Squealer to make him a Wild Boar.  I then Grow Up Strong the other Squealer into a Wild Boar.

My opponent has his Soulstone Miner make a stone, concentrate and bury.  He hits the trigger on the bury, so he makes a Pit Trap marker.  I have my Piglet go Reckless and walk three times, hiding behind some walls and being in position to run to the top left corner for Strategy markers next turn.  Banasuva concentrates, benefitting from the same three Mantras and opting to drop a Scrap marker.  He then uses Lord of the Elements on Kandara, who Concentrates (more Mantra proccing) before he walks up.

I have the Sow go next, and go Reckless.  She walks forward a bit, then uses Birth twice.  The first time I ate a scheme marker for the suit, the second time I had the card in hand.  Kandara Concentrates again (Even more Mantra!) and walks forward.  I have Old Major take a walk (being a little bit faster thanks to Penelope), and use Nudge On the Wild Boar to give him Crows.  I was aiming to have the Boar get a charge off on the Fire Gamin at the end of the turn (if I could manage it), so that I could stop the Fire Golem from being summoned.  Old Major then tries Mark Territory and gets a lucky Reposition trigger, so he is able to move next to Ulix.

Sandeep goes next, using Command Elements on the Fire Gamin to - what else - concentrate, benefitting from Banasuva and Kandara’s Mantras.  He then uses Command Elements on Banasuva to - you guessed it - Concentrate.  He then Summoned a metal gamin.  I have the Hog Whisperer go next, recouping a 13 of Masks with Tools for the Job.  He fails to use Herd Em on Gracie (I didn’t want to cheat the few good cards I had in hand).  He then hits her with Stick ‘Em, and I then remember he doesn’t have Hitch a Ride.  I declared the mask trigger, so opt to make her take a Concentrate action.  

The summoned Metal Gamin concentrates, benefitting from Banasuva and Kandara.  He then uses Magnetism to push towards the other Metal Gamin.  I have Gracie use Ride with Me to bring the Hog Whisperer up, then take a walk and Concentrate again.

The Oxfordian Mage concentrates and walks around Sandeep.  My last model - the Wild Boar who had brought Ulix up the board - goes Reckless, and has enough movement to walk twice and charge Banasuva.  I go for it, because I figure I could put the hurt on him.  Between Stampede, and Hog Wild from Old Major, I end with doing three damage to Banasuva and heal 2 from Tear off a Bite to heal to full.  

His Saboteur goes next, charging into the Boar.  He gets the No Witnesses trigger, doing 3 damage to me.  He then has the Shastar Vidiya Guard move up, push the Saboteur out of engagement, and attack the Boar.  He hits on a positive twist (He flipped a face card, I flipped an ace).  

He declares Ricochet, and based on the recent FAQ to Nekima’s ‘Enraged by Insolence’ ability, he was able to Ricochet onto the Wild Boar with a positive twist to damage.  Two positive twist damage flips later, and the Boar was dead.  I did drop a scheme marker with Demise (Delicious Bacon).

Turn 2
He wins initiative, and has me go first.  Due to the various models summoned, neither of us had a pass token after initiative.

I start by walking Penelope twice, to spread her +1 movement aura to the rest of my pigs.  He has the summoned Metal Gamin start the Concentrate/ Mantra train off, and walks forward.  One of my Piglets goes Reckless and walks twice, picking up Ulix and dropping him in range to Grow a few models.  I then Concentrate.  The Oxfordian Mage walks off the building, tanking the damage with his Arcane Shield.  He does fail to use Arcane Conduit (the Black Joker finally coming out to play).

I then go with Ulix, and start with Proper Care to heal my crew to full.  He then uses Grow up strong on the original Piglet, stoning for a tome.  I grow it into a Wild Boar, and then use the trigger Some Pig and Herd Em to take a walk. I use Grow up Strong on the other Wild Boar into a War Pig with the Some Pig trigger, and the Herd Em makes it walk into the auras for both Penelope and Old Major.  I try to Grow the other piglet, but fail.

Sandeep goes next, using Command Elemental on Banasuva, and he uses Toss on the Fire Gamin.  Sandeep then uses Command Elemental on the Fire Gamin to push and walk to intercept my boar on the left flank.  For his last action, he Summons Two fire Gamin by spending a stone.  

I have the fresh Wild Boar activate, and with Reckless am able to walk twice and tear down a Symbol marker.  His other Metal Gamin concentrates for Kandara’s mantra and moves up the board. I have a Piglet go Reckless, drop a scheme marker, and run to the centerline.  He has his original Fire Gamin Concentrate and walk forward, racking up focus and burning from the Pyres.  

I have the Sow summon a Piglet from the scheme marker I dropped.  She goes reckless, drops a scheme marker and immediately eats it to summon a second piglet (bringing me to 4 summoned Piglets this game).  Banasuva concentrates to benefit from all the mantras, walks forward, and uses Lord of the Elements on himself to breath fire on my Warpig.  He spends focus and a Severe from hand to do 4 damage and apply burning to the Pig, and 3 damage to Ulix and a piglet - killing the piglet and hurting Ulix.  I have the piglet drop a corpse, so that his Saboteur wouldn’t have something to blow up.  

I have the Hog Whisperer go next, using Herd Em on Old Major to walk next to Ulix.  I then walk the Hog Whisperer up.  His other Metal Gamin concentrates for Kandara’s Mantra, then walks.  I have Old Major use Assist on Ulix to put out the fire.  I then Concentrate, and use Mark Territory and hit Surge for a card.  His Saboteur uses his bonus action to convert the scheme marker I dropped last turn, then walks twice.

I have Gracie use Ride with Me on the Hog Whisperer, then charge into Banasuva.  I satisfy Stampede, and spend the Red Joker to declare Blank stare (because would not be able to kill him).  He sends Kandara up to rescue Banasuva, then charge into the Hog Whisperer, doing weak damage.  As my last activation, the War Pig goes reckless and thanks to Penelope and Old Major, charges into Banasuva and kills him, healing to almost full.  He does drop a Pyre marker under me.

The Soulstone Miner makes another stone, then pops up next to one of my symbols.  He Concentrates.  He has a Fire Gamin shoot Gracie for weak and some Burning.  He has the remaining Gamin turn into the Golem and walk towards the top left corner.  

The Shastar Vidiya Guard walks, uses Follow my Path on the Oxforidan Mage, then shoots the Warpig with Ricochet.  He hits Severe damage, and Red Joker on the Richochet flip to one-shot the Warpig.

At the End of the turn, I score the Strategy.  Neither of us reveal any schemes.

1-0

Turn 3
We both stone for cards.  I win initiative (thanks to the pass tokens he gave me from summoning the Gamin last turn), and I take the first activation.  Oddly enough, he gains 2 pass tokens due to my many Piglets, giving him the advantage on next initiative.

I start with the Wild Boar in the top left, going Reckless and walking towards another Strategy marker and tearing it down.  His Soulstone miner gains a stone, tears down a strategy marker, and walks towards the next one.  I have the Hog Whisperer grab a high moderate from my discard pile, and then walk around Kandara and use Herd Em on Gracie to make her drop a scheme marker under herself, where the Saboteur couldn’t see.

My opponent walked his Metal Gamin and Concentrated for Kandara’s Mantra.  I have Penelope use Herd ‘Em on Old Major to walk forward, carrying Ulix with him.  I Reposition off of it, then use Herd Em on the Piglet on the centerline to drop a scheme marker, and Reposition into the woods. 

His Oxfordian Mage shot my Piglet, doing weak damage which is enough to kill (the Piglet had gone reckless previously), and I drop another scheme marker with Delicious Bacon.  He then drops a shot on Gracie, getting Severe damage.  I activate Gracie in return and use Ride with Me to get a charge angle on the Mage, but take some burning from his Pyre markers.  I land a hit with Tear off a Bite, costing me a card (his Counterspell Aura) but giving me some wounds back.  I attack a second time, and on a lucky negative twist get two severes to kill the Mage, and heal 2 more from Eat Your Fill.

The Shasa Vidiya Guard swears vengeance, and charges Gracie.  His first attack hits for weak, but with the Armor Piercing trigger.  He hits a second time with Armor Piercing, leaving Gracie at Hard to Kill and Burning.  The then uses Follow my Path on the Saboteur to push him a bit.

I go with Ulix next, and use Grow Up Strong on a fresh Piglet to turn into a Squealer.  I Grow up the remaining Piglet into a Squealer, and get Some Pig to Herd the Piglet into a walk.  At last, I use Herd Em on Old Major to walk the pair of them towards Kandara.  The Fire Golem activates and gives my Wild Boar some Burning before charging in.  Due to remarkable series of flips (and the Black Joker), my Wild Boar lives on one wound with burning - and this Boar was one of my Hidden Martyr targets!  I accept that I won’t score the reveal, and start scrambling to secure more VP.

Old Major charges into Kandara, spending a focus to hit her through Serene Countenance.  The first swing connects and I get the Good for a Laugh trigger, and weak damage.  Unfortuantely, I was so attack happy I immediately go into a second attack on her, and it’s only after I spend a stone and flip the card to hit that I realize that I forgot to actually resolve the Good for a Laugh trigger.  I continued on (because it wouldn’t be fair to my opponent to go back and do the draw/ discards and all), and my opponent dodges the hit.  I use Mark Territory but don’t get any relevant triggers.

In the simplest activation yet, Sandeep walks foward twice and summons a third Metal Gamin.  I have the Sow walk forward and turn a corpse marker into a Piglet.  A Metal Gamin uses Rail Walk to be near their brothers, and Concentrates for Kandara’s Mantra.  I have a Squealer go reckless, walk twice and drop a scheme marker for Spread Them Out insurance.  My opponent spends a pass token, so I send my other squealer Reckless and run him three times, to jockey for position to snag a third Strategy point next turn.  The Saboteur uses his bonus to convert one of my scheme markers, and then uses Arson on a second marker to blow it up.  He then walks again.

Kandara takes a swing on the Hog Whisperer, failing to hit.  She uses Flurry and misses again.  She then opts to use Agile and walk away to the center of the board.   The remaining Metal Gamin combines with his brothers to become the Metal Golem with Focus 7, then pushes forward.

At the end of the turn, my Wild Boar and Gracie die to burning, dropping scheme markers for each of them with Delicious Bacon.  

We both score the Strategy.  I reveal Spread Them Out, and remove the markers closest to his models.  He reveals Hidden Martyrs - his Oxfordian Mage and his Saboteur,  and Claim Jump on Kandara.

The score was 3 - 3.

Turn 4
He stones for cards.  I win initiative.

I realize I have no way to get a Squealer into position to take either of his remaining Strategy Markers, so I opt to try and blunt his offense.  The Squealer goes Reckless, drops a scheme marker for Spread Them Out, then takes two shots on the Shasta Vidiya Guard, but fails to hit either time.  The Fire Golem goes for the Squealer on my left flank, and kills him.  I drop another Scheme marker from Delicious Bacon, but it’s clear he can remove both of them next turn with the Golem.

I go with Ulix, and heal my crew with Proper Care.  I then grow a Piglet into a Squealer, then into a Wild Boar with the Some Pig Trigger.  I have it move up towards Kandara, then walk Ulix closer to Old Major.

The Shasta Vidiya Guard charged another Squealer, and does weak damage.  The second swing misses, and he ends by pushing Sandeep with Follow my Path.  Penelope uses Herd Em on my Wild Boar to concentrate and reposition, then uses Herd Em on the Sow to Concentrate.  The Metal Golem gives itself shielded before moving to use Off the Rails into the Hog Whisperer and Old Major.  He kills the Whisperer, whos death heals Old Major.  

I send my souped up Wild Boar into Kandara, going Reckless and Concentrating first to get two Focused attacks.  Unfortunately, both fail to hit.  Sandeep goes next, summoning a Wind Gamin.  He fails to Command the Elements on the Wind Gamin.  He ends by shooting the Wild Boar, flipping Black Joker on the attack.

I have Old Major walk twice, bringing Ulix with him to engage Kandara.  I try to use Mark Territory but fail to get it off.  His Soulstone Miner makes some stones, and moves to get another strategy marker next turn.

I have the Sow drop a scheme marker and summon a Piglet from it.  The Wind Gamin leaps and walks towards my other Strategy Markers.  The Saboteur walked and Concentrated.  To end the turn, he has Kandara walk and concentrate, using Sandeep’s Mantra to kill my Squealer, who drops a marker with Delicious Bacon.

At the end of Turn, the match was still 3 - 3.

At this point, it was getting late and I realized that I would be unlikely to score more than a single point next turn, and I’d have a hard time denying my opponent 3 points.  I would likely get the last point for Hidden Martyrs (by running a Reckless Sow into a Golem), but wouldn’t be able to get either remaining strategy marker.  I also wouldn’t be able to spread out enough for scheme marker drops, with his Saboteur easily able to blow up 3 in an activation.  

I wouldn’t be able to stop him getting another Strategy point with his models in my backfield.  I could try to gun for the Saboteur, but with a Metal Golem and Sandeep in the way, getting to him would be tough.  If I was to have a chance to deny anything, it would be killing Kandara - and it would take a lot of effort to do that.

Post-Game Thoughts

On the whole, I really like how the game unfolded for Ulix.  The synergy between his Pigs, and the Grow mechanic, felt viable and useful but not busted.  It’s been a while since I put Ulix on the table, so I know my positioning/ bubbling was hampering me, and once I get a better feel for where my support pieces want to be I expect better results.

Of the Big Pigs, they all did lovely jobs.  Gracie killed things and took damage well.  Old Major provided a fair bit of passive support, and I worry that I’m walking with him too often.  The Sow churned out something like twice her cost in piglets over the course of the game, and for that I’m impressed with her.  

For the Minion Pigs, my only disappointment was losing the first Wild Boar/ the Warpig as quickly as I did.  Piglets are nice and fast for their cost, and Wild Boars being Unimpeded is a really nice feature.  I don’t have much of an opinion about Squealers yet, as I used them as glorified scheme runners this game.  War Pigs are likewise a Model that didn’t do much this game - but I have had some pretty impressive results in the past.  

The one model I felt less impressed by was the Hog Whisperer.  In future games, I think I’ll try swapping him out for more pigs (maybe upgrade the Piglet into a Wild Boar or Warpig from the get-go).  While Ulix has a lot of auras that buff pigs, their speed is why I’m playing them.  

MVP to me is going to go to the Wild Boar.  They scored me the bulk of my points this game, and were an all-around solid model.  MVP to my opponent will go to Kandara, who scored him points and drew him I don’t even know how many cards.  Honorable Mention goes to the Shastar Vidiya Guard who one-shot two of my models, and effectively one-shot Gracie. 

Thank you for reading!

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal on 5/17/2020.  For more information, please check out the Malifaux Vassal Players facebook group here.  It was a 50ss game between myself and Axelst (shoutout to Axel!).   

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up

The Vassal Map was New Grassland Pond.   

The pool was:

Wedge
Symbols of Authority
Claim Jump
Let Them Bleed
Sabotage
Breakthrough
Catch and Release

I announced Explorers Society, he announced Outcasts.  I announced McCabe, he announced Tara.

The crew I built was:

5ss
Lucas McCabe
Luna
Desper LaRaux
Sidir Alchibal
Hucksters x3
Ruffians x2

His crew:

6ss
Tara
Karina
Aionus
Hodgepodge Emissary
The Nothing Beast
The Midnight Stalker w/ Soldier for Hire
Prospector

I chose McCabe for this pool, because in my opinion he is the better choice for Symbols in the existing Explorer’s Society pool.  The schemes having so many mobility based options led me to run the 2-Ruffian 3-huckster set up, as I needed more scheming than punching.  When I saw his crew, I knew I needed to hurt his weak stuff, but I just lacked the teeth to really put down his big models.  So I discounted Let Them Bleed.  Tara can bury models pretty well with her omnipresent Glimpse the Void trigger, so I figured Catch and release was likely to be a 1-point scheme if anything.  Same with Claim Jump - my opponent could just kill or bury anyone I wanted to put in the center.  So I opted for Sabotage and Breakthrough, and decided to go aggressively into my opponent’s crew.

My opponent ended up taking Breakthrough and Claim Jump on the Emissary.

Deployment
He was the attacker, and I was the defender.  We both spread our crews out, and I made sure to keep my Hucksters in position for Secret Passage.  I also put the Ruffians and Sidir together to Chain Gang him up the board.

Turn 1
We both stone for cards, and I win the initiative and have him go first.  He burns his pass tokens for the first two activations.

I started with Luna, who dug up a scrap marker and turned it into the Phantasmal Mirror.  She then tossed it to a Huckster.  I then have that Huckster use False Claim, and hit the trigger to drop a Scrap.  I put the scrap marker next to the two Hucksters for future card draw.  With fast, that Huckster then tosses his mirror to the next Huckster, and uses a Secret Passage up the board and drops a sacrificial scheme marker.

Tara was his first activation, and he buried the Nothing Beast.  She then drops a scheme marker for his Prospector, walked up and dropped another scheme marker. I have the next Huckster with the mirror activate and give the mirror to Sidir.  I then teleported up, took a walk and concentrated.

The Prospector dug up a soulstone, then appraised two scheme markers, drawing two cards and dropping a marker.  I have a Ruffian draw a card, push Sidir up the board.  Walked and focused with swagger, and concentrated.  The Midnight Stalker walked, leaped, and charged the Huckster and hit it for 4.  He then drew a card from Showboating.  My remaining Ruffian drew a card, pushed Sidir and then walked and concentrated for 2 focus.

The Emissary used his bonus on Aionus, then gave Tara the Regeneration trinket.  It ended by concentrating.  I went with Sidir next, using his fast action to Swagger up, concentrate and take a shot on his Prospector.  I spent a focus to hit the severe damage, but my opponent cheats the Red Joker to dodge the hit.  I drew a card with Know the Warrior.  He reactivates Tara, and charges into Sidir.  She hit him and I drew a card from Know the Warrior.  She then swings on my Ruffian and misses, then concentrates.

I have McCabe go next, using Ride with Me to bring Depser up.  I then walk, concentrate, and shoot Aionus, landing the Slow and Staggered through a weak prevention flip.  Aionus goes next, failing his bonus on McCabe before Unburying the Nothing Beast.  My last Huckster fails to Secret Passage twice.  The Nothing Beast charged a Ruffian, and I dodged the first hit.  That second hit does land and buries the Ruffian.  He then uses the bonus on Sidir, making him fast but I draw from Know the Warrior.

Desper walks twice and Leaps into my opponent’s side of the board.  Karina takes two shots on Depser, and I stone some damage away.

Turn 2
This turn, my opponent wins initiative.  He opens with Tara who summons a Void Hunter, spending a stone.  She then attacks my buried Ruffian twice, flipping Black Joker once and killing on the second swing.  I have Luna go first, digging up a Phantasmal Mask and giving it to McCabe before dropping a Scrap marker next to him.  

Aionus charged into Luna and failed to connect twice, and failed to stutter McCabe.  McCabe forgot to draw a card from Loot, and I went straight into attacking Aionus with his Bullwhip.  I push, and he passes all my Rear Up tests.  I use Ride with Me to rescue Luna and get a charge angle on Karina.  I then charge Karina, and kill her with the simple duels.  His Emissary passes his tests.  With everyone I could hit having manipulative, I opt to remove a corpse marker and try to attach an upgrade but I miss the TN.  

His Prospector makes a soulstone, then appraises for cards and gets to drop a marker for free.  I have Desper leap to a Symbol of Authority, tear it down, and drop a marker for Breakthrough.    The Void Hunter unburies next to Sidir, and bites him twice.  He eats my focus and buries Sidir, though I do stone away 3 damage.  I move the last model in my deployment zone, a Huckster, up the board and use Sales Pitch on Aionus, giving him a 13 of tomes and me a stone.  

Tara charged a Huckster, and uses Focus to get around the Manipulative to kill.  Her second attack hits the Ruffian for weak and buries.  She uses her bonus on the Void Hunter, who relents and gets buried.  She hits the trigger to ping some damage on Sidir.  I activate a Ruffian, which is unburied behind a Huckster on the left flank.  I chain gang the Huckster forward, then concentrate and shoot Tara.  He cheats a cheap mask to negate the attack.

The Nothing Beast charges into Luna, doing weak damage and pinging Sidir.  He then uses his Bonus on Luna.  I activate Sidir before he dies, and gets placed on the left flank.  I Juggernaut for 1, then swagger up and fail to hit the Midnight Stalker.  The Emissary heals himself (from Life Leech), then bonuses out of engagement.  He takes a shot at Desper, landing the slow trigger even though I stone the damage away.  He then walks in McCabe’s engagement to deny Breakthrough.  My remaining Huckster uses Sales Pitch on Tara , giving him a 9 of rams for a stone for me, then walks twice towards the left side of his deployment zone.  My opponent ends the turn by leaping and going fast to take down a symbol marker, drop a scheme marker, and draw a card from Showboat.

At the End of the turn, we both score the strategy, and my opponent reveals Breakthrough.  The score was 1-2.

Turn 3
We both stone for cards, and then he wins initiative.

He opens with a Void Hunter, who unburies next to Luna and attacks her.  The Best Doggo gets lucky, and he flips Black Joker on the damage flip.  He then uses his bonus on McCabe to give him fast, and charges McCabe and causes weak damage, but I pass the Glimpse the Void test.  Luna gets herself out of danger by unburying, and is put next to my Huckster.  I have her dig up a scrap, turn it into another Mask, and toss it to Desper - which would clear the Slow from him when he activated.

His Prospector moves up and digs up a stone, then appraises some more for more card draw and cycling.  Desper leapt and secured a second Symbol marker for me.  The Nothing Beast failed his bonus action on the Huckster, then took a concentrated attack on the Huckster to get around Manipulative, spending two severes from hand to hit and then kill my Huckster.

I have Sidir draw a card, punch Tara and do severe with Critical Strike, then attack again and cycle a card with Bloody Fate.  Tara walked to punch my Ruffian, and even with focus she hits and buries him.  She then uses her bonus on the buried Ruffian, cheating a crow to use her trigger and kill him.  She then swings on Sidir, but I dodge and draw a card from Know the Warrior.

I have my remaining Huckster walk up and use False Claim to set up Sabotage.  Aionus uses his bonus on McCabe, walks up and tries to kill Luna with Eventuality, but I avoid the hit.  McCabe uses Ride with Me to clip the Emissary, and starts to swing on the Prospector.  After a few Bull Whips, the Prospector is dead and a few more simple duel fails spread some damage on his crew.  I opt to push back into engagement with his emissary and the Void Hunter, and do 3 damage to the hunter with my last Bull Whip.  On reflection, I should have tried using Net Gun on the Emissary.

The Emissary activates, and uses a combination of walks and Weary Road to get into position to deny Sabotage.  Tara goes again, moving into my backfield.  He ends with the Midnight Stalker scoring another strategy point and setting up the end of Breakthrough.

At the end of the turn, we both score the Strategy and I reveal Breakthrough. I remove a backfield scheme marker to satisfy False Claim.  The score was 3 - 3.

Turn 4
We both stone for cards again, and I win initiative.  I start with the Huckster, moving and tearing down a symbol marker.  I go for Sales Pitch on the emissary, and miss but I burn the Black Joker.  He has Ainous kill Luna, bury the Void Hunter, and then charges McCabe, slowing him.

I spend a pass token, and he has Tara move up and tear down a strategy marker.  I send Desper along his board edge, dropping two markers for Breakthrough with a leap.  He has Tara drop a scheme and walk.  I have McCabe use Ride with Me out of engagement (forgetting I could have purged Slow with his upgrade), charge the Emissary but fail to hit due to Manipulative, and then walk to block his line of sight to my markers (but I didn’t sit on top of them).

The Midnight Stalker dropped a pair of markers for Breakthrough.  Sidir drew a card from Loot, then walked up and discarded from juggernaut to heal 1.  The Emissary disengaged from McCabe and walked to be in Claim Jump range, using his bonus on the Nothing Beast.  The Nothing Beast, now with bonus movement, charged into my Huckster and gave him fast and left him on 2 wounds.  The Void Hunter unburied from the Huckster, and failed to do anything to him.

At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy.  He reveals claim jump, and - score strat each he scores claim jump.  The score was 4-5.
 
Turn 5
He stones for cards, and cheats Initiative to go first.  Notably, we both flipped the Black Joker on our initial flip for Initiative - this turn was off to a great start!

He starts with the Nothing Beast, who kills the Huckster and buries the Void Hunter.  I decide to abandon Sabotage, and send McCabe to claim the final Symbol marker, and drop a scheme marker for Breakthrough insurance.  He has the Midnight Stalker secure Breakthrough.

I burn a pass token, and he has Tara secure Symbols.  I burn another pass token, and he has Aionus walk and unbury the Void Hunter (with the trigger for 2 pass tokens) next to Desper.

I have Desper Leap away, and opt to try and at least contest Claim Jump (as I was in position to score breakthrough and the strategy, all that remained was wounding or killing the Emissary) so I stone to get through Manipulative on my Grapple Hook, and he cheats to dodge.  He has the Void Hunter remove a scheme marker.  I have Sidir take a focused shot on the Emissary, but fails to hit.  

The Hodgepodge Emissary heals above half wounds with his regen, but fails to heal himself any more with his plenty of wares action.

At the end of the game, we both score the fourth point on the strategy.  My opponent scores full points on his schemes.  I score my second Breakthrough point, and am denied Sabotage.

Final score: 6-8

Post-Game Thoughts
This was a great match to showcase that while killing is important, mobility and careful play is what wins games.  My opponent had very clean play throughout, and had clear plans for every model in his crew.  I was especially impressed with how he was able to make so many of his models very hard to remove from the table - between Eternal, Hard to Kill, Incorporeal and handing out fast and slow, Tara’s crew proved far more durable than I expected.  At the same time, I felt like Sidir and McCabe posed serious threats, with McCabe accounting for my entire body count alone.

I still agree that this was the build of the crew to run - I don’t think swapping Sidir for Basse would have been as worth it, as Basse’s kit would accomplish much the same that Sidir would have, with far less card draw from Know the Warrior.  

I recognize that my main misplay occurred in turn 3, when I had the chance to push McCabe out of engagement of the Void Hunter and the Emissary, or back in.  I chose to put him back in so he would tie models up, but in reality neither of the models he was engaging could be reliably tied up (Hunter could be buried; Emissary could push).  Instead, I should have pushed out and slowed the Emissary - it would probably have been enough to deny the Sabotage denial, and make it a one point game.  Another option I could have gone for was to drop both scheme markers for False Claim in such a way that McCabe could sit on top of them, denying Line of Sight to them on turn 4.  It wouldn’t solve the issue of scoring the final Strategy point, but it’s hard to say more without getting too far into ‘what-if’ land.

My main takeaways from this game would be:

  1.  Ruffians continue to be cheap activations that can draw me cards and move Sidir - but otherwise, I don’t expect much from them.  I should be more free with their Focus defensively.
  2. Sidir’s threat is much reduced when he isn’t fast every turn - but I needed Luna to keep passing upgrades out to mitigate the Slow my opponent was giving me.  He seems much better at anchoring a side and drawing cards, but not exactly doing damage to big beaters.
  3. Secret Passage is a great ability, but I need to be more mindful of terrain with deployment.  The two Hucksters on my left flank had no way to Secret Passage into my opponent’s deployment zone, and I even selected the terrain that was hard for me to get to for Sabotage!  I should have committed hard to the right flank, accepted that he would run roughshod over my left, and focus on him clumping up around the Blocking terrain so that McCabe’s pulses would be more effective.

If I had to do it over, I might consider swapping Sabotage for Catch and Release.  Even if I only get one point on it, it would be easy enough to get stuck in turn 2 or 3 for the easy point, and wouldn’t be limited to trying and securing scheme markers against the LoS of an equally mobile crew.

MVP for my opponent goes to the Midnight Stalker, who accounted for roughly 4 of his victory points.  MVP for me goes to McCabe and Desper, who accounted between them for all of my victory points.

Thank you for reading!

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal.  It was a 50ss game between myself and @ShinChan generating using the Malifaux App.   

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up

The vassal map was Mausoleum

Flank Deployment
Symbols of Authority
Take Prisoner, Hidden Martyrs, Breakthrough, Leave your Mark, Claim Jump

I announced Bayou, he announced Resurrectionists.  I announced Ulix, and he announced Molly.  

The crew I built was:

9ss
Ulix Turner
Penelope
Old Major
Gracie
The Sow
3x Squealers

His crew:

6ss
Mary Blacktongue Bonnet
Wayward Mariner
Arrrchie
Rogue Necromancy
Forgotten Marshal w/ Whisper
Dead Rider
Night Terror

I took Ulix because of how fast his crew would be, and how many scheme markers I’d drop with Delicious Bacon.  Naturally, I saw Molly and decided that scheme marker schemes would be difficult with how many she could eat in a turn.  Of the three non-scheme marker schemes, I took Hidden Martyrs on the Sow and a Squealer, given how reliably I could keep the Sow safe.  I went back and forth, and ended up selecting Claim Jump on Old Major.  Partially because I had a lot of stones to keep him alive (between triggers and prevention flips), and I hoped I could dive in deep late game for the reveal point.

My opponent took Leave Your Mark and Hidden Martyrs on the Rogue Necromancy and the Wayward Mariner.

Deployment
I was the attacker, and chose to deploy in the bottom right corner, which would limit his access to cover.  We both spread our Symbol markers out, and deployed our crews aggressively.  I kept the Sow out of line of sight of Mary, and kept space for the Squealers in front of my big Pigs.  I deployed Penelope with From the Shadows to cover as many pigs in my bonus move aura as I could.

Turn 1
I stone for cards, and his rider gets 1 fate token.  I win initiative, and let my opponent go first.  He opens with Arrrchie, running him forward on the left flank.  I respond by having Penelope toss out a pair of Herd Em’s out - first to the Sow to drop a scheme marker, and the second to walk a Squealer up the board.  The Rogue Necromancy Ambushed forward, walked and concentrated.  I had the Sow go reckless and birth two Piglets.  The Forgotten Marshal moved up and summoned a Night Terror.  

My first major activation was Ulix.  I grew the Squealer who was a Hidden Martyr into a War Pig, stoning for the trigger to use Herd Em and give the War Pig a concentrate action.  I then used Herd Em to walk the remaining Squealer forward.  I pulsed out a heal to bring my pigs to full wounds, and ended by using Herd Em on Old Major to walk forward, hitching a ride to follow up.

The Dead Rider used Ride with Me to bring Mary forward, then concentrated and moved up.  I had a Squealer go Reckless, move up, and take a focused shot on his new Night Terror, but fail to connect.  The Wayward Mariner dropped a scheme marker, and gave me a card from my discard back.  He chain activated into the Night Terror, who moved quickly towards my Symbol marker in the top right marker.  I have my last Squealer go Reckless, move up and take a focused shot on the new Night Terror, but he flips the Red Joker.

He went with Mary next, and ate two scheme markers to refill his hand before doing her bonus action, pulsing out focus and pushes to quite a few models.  I have Old Major use Nudge em On on Gracie to move her up, then walked to clear the entrance for her, dragging Ulix along.  I tried to get the bonus off, but failed.  He sent the new Night Terror into the middle of my crew, and put up his Negation Aura.  

I sent Gracie up to be in position to dive in next turn.  My last activation was my War Pig, who went reckless and moved around Archie, and concentrated.  

At the end of the turn, the War Pig pushed towards the Symbol marker on the left flank with Deadly Pursuit.

Turn 2
I stone for cards this turn, and luckily win initiative.

I start with the War Pig who tears down a Symbol marker, then went reckless and ran deep into my opponent’s deployment zone.  I hoped he would send Arrrchie after it, or that it might otherwise split his crew.  Instead, he sent a Night Terror with a Negation Aura into Old Major, getting the Stagger trigger, but I stone most of the damage away.  This causes him to push and he takes his second attack on a Squealer for moderate.

I respond with Ulix taking a focused shot on the Night Terror, stoning for a Ram to heal my injured Squealer.  I charge him in to finish the job, killing the Night Terror.  I ended by pulsing out a heal.  Spending my Master’s activation killing a summoned model wasn’t ideal, but his aura would be a big problem, and I didn’t have the best hand for growing with the terrain as it is.

My opponent had the Wayward Mariner give me a 6 from my discard, then dropped a marker for Mary.  He chain activates into Mary, who pulsed out her bonus and drew some cards.  I have a Squealer go reckless, and take a focused shot on the Rogue Necromancy for 2 damage, then pulsed out some healing with a Song of Night and Day.

The Rogue Necromancy took a focused shot on Gracie, hitting the trigger for Slow and blasting onto both Squealers, Ulix and Old Major!  He took a second shot at a squealer, hitting Severe and spreading the damage to everyone except Gracie.  One activation, and most of my crew had been rendered significantly less threatening.  

Penelope used Herd em on Gracie to get out of the Severe terrain, and hit the preposition trigger.  She then used Herd Em to have the Squealer use Assist on the Old Major to remove the Distracted.  Unfortunately, Penelope took some damage from Lethe’s Caress.   The Forgotten Marshal summoned a Skellywag, then kills a Squealer with a Critical Strike.  He shoots a second Squealer, dropping it with another Critical Strike.  Both dropped scheme markers near Old Major with Delicious Bacon.  

I have a Piglet go Reckless and run to the right flank, and fail to Truffles the Sow away from Arrrchie.  His remaining Night Terror tore down the Symbol Marker in the top right corner.  The Sow walked, when reckless and summoned another Piglet.  Arrrchie failed his leap, then walked and charged for the distance to get towards my backfield. I sent another Piglet into Arrrchie with Reckless and Stampede, but failed all of my Terrifying checks.  He spent a Pass token, so I had Old Major use his Bonus Action to eat some scheme markers, and cheated the reposition trigger.  I discarded a card to Reposition Gracie, then concentrated.

He has his Skellywag concentrate to burn an activation.  I sent a reckless Gracie into the Rogue Necromancy, but had pushed her too far from Old Major to benefit from Hog Wild.  As a result, I was unable to heal up (no built in ram for the trigger).  To make matters worse, I failed my first terrifying test, and on the second one I black joker’d the damage.  He sent the Dead Rider up to drop a marker for Leave Your Mark, and failed his bonus action.

At the End of the turn, poison ticked down for my models.  My War Pig pushed into range to grab a Symbol Marker next turn.  We both score the Strategy, and my opponent reveals Leave Your Mark.

The score was 1-2.

Turn 3
I stone for cards, and win initiative again.  I open with Gracie, and I have her escape from the Rogue Necromancy with Ride with Me, and then run her out of the building.  I figured that if she escaped she could live to fight another day, and maybe heal up again.  My opponent sent Arrrchie into a Symbol marker with a leap, tore it down, then charged the Sow.  he failed his first hit, and flurried but failed that hit too.  I had my Warpig go Reckless and run to another Symbol marker, and tore it down.

The Dead Rider used his Bonus action, spending two Fate tokens and flipped a crow to get the Spinning Scythe trigger, then charged into Old Major.  I burn stones and discard cards to Sturdy Critters to keep Old Major standing, and a lucky Black Joker on his attack saved me from the third strike.  Unfortunately, this did exhaust most of my soulstones and my hand.  In return I had Ulix tell Old Major to walk, hitching a ride with him.  I then told a Piglet to walk, and grew him into a Wild Boar before pulsing out heals with Proper Care.

His Wayward Mariner moves up and heals the Skellywag and drops a marker for Mary.  I move a Piglet up, and he sends his Skellywag into Old Major, dropping him a few wounds and hitting Challenge with the trigger to Stun him, locking me out from getting my heal triggers.  I move another Piglet towards the right flank, to tie up his Night Terror next turn.

The Forgotten Marshal summoned a Crooligan, then shot my War Pig for moderate damage.  Penelope failed to Herd Em on the Sow, so I just concentrate.  The Night Terror heads down the right flank towards my remaining Symbol markers.

Old Major kills the Skellywag, then walks and pulls Ulix with in.  the Rogue Necromancy moved to drop a scheme marker for Leave Your Mark.  I send the fresh Wild Boar into Mary and the Crooligan, hitting the Always Eating trigger on the attack that killed the Crooligan and healed me to full, while also removing his scheme marker.  I concentrated at the end to avoid unnecessary damage from Lethe’s Caress.

Mary ate a corpse, but failed to draw cards.  She attacked Old Major, stripping my focus and slows him.  She then uses Disturbing Story on him to Stagger him, and leave him on one wound.  Her bonus pushed the Rogue Necromancy.

I send a Reckless Sow into Arrchie, getting a weak damage on him.  I figure that I had enough wounds to make it hard for him to kill the Sow, and if he didn’t kill my Warpig I could hide it and let Sow die.

At the end of the turn, we both score strategy.  I lose Old Major to Poison.  The score was 2-3.

Turn 4
He stones for cards this turn, and wins initiative.

He opens with the Rogue Necromancy, who ambushes into the Wild Boar, but black jokers the damage.  I send a Piglet into the Night Terror, cheating for the Slow trigger.

Arrrchie leaps up to the Symbol, tears it down, then charges towards the remaining symbol  I have my Warpig go reckless, then walk and charge the Mariner.  Between Armor Piercing and Stampede, I kill him and heal.  With my remaining action, I tear down my third symbol.  The Dead Rider uses his bonus, spending Fate for the Soulfire trigger.  He kills the War Pig, and does severe to the wild boar and moderate damage to Ulix.

The wounded Wild Boar disengages from the Rogue Necromancy, goes reckless, then charges into the Forgotten Marshal.  I want to stay engaged, so I cheat to avoid the Rampage trigger and fail the hit.  The Night Terror fails to do much of anything.  Penelope fails a Herd Em, then charges into the Dead Rider and gets a cheeky Moderate, eating 2 of his fate tokens on the defensive trigger.

Mary eats my scheme markers for cards, then pulses out her push and focus to free the Forgotten Marshal.  Gracie uses Ride with Me and two walks to engage the Forgotten Marshal.  He Disengages, then takes a Focused Shot on the Wild Boar.  I flip the Black Joker, and he kills me.  He then summons a Crooligan.

I walk a Piglet twice to be in range to rescue Ulix.  His Crooligan uses By Your Side to eat my scheme marker, and teleport to the Rogue Necro to help with Leave Your Mark.  Ulix uses Herd em on the Piglet to walk, hitching a ride.  I then take a focused shot on the Crooligan, hitting severe damage and blasting onto Mary, who stones it to 1 damage.  I fail to cast Proper Care.

The Sow took a walk and charge into Arrrchie and get RJ on attack.  Does moderate with Crit Strike.  I went reckless and tried for a third hit, figuring I could survive one activation of his next turn, but fail to connect.

At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy.  We both reveal Hidden Martyr.  

The score was 4-5.

Turn 5
He stones for cards, and ultimately wins initiative after some cheating.

He sends Arrrchie into the last Symbol, tears it down, then charges the Sow.  He drops her to below half wounds.  I send a Piglet to tear down the last symbol.  Mary just walks, drops a scheme for Leave Your Mark, and eats a scrap for cards.  She then pulses out her bonus.

Ulix Charges into the Rogue Necro, failing to hit.  He tries Herd Em, but fails that too.  Lastly, he attacks the Rogue Necro again and gets Good for a Laugh to draw some cards.  He fails his bonus.  The Forgotten Marshal takes a focused shot on Gracie, dropping her to hard to kill.  His second shot kills Gracie. 

My remaining Piglet does nothing of value.  His Dead Rider fails to hit Penelope, then uses his bonus action with Soulfire trigger to kill her, and leave Ulix on one wound.  He drops a marker for Leave Your Mark.  The Sow went in on Arrrchie, and we both flip the Red Joker, but I win the duel.  I opt to choose the heal trigger, which pulls me above half wounds for Hidden Martyrs.- walk, Red Joker, he red Jokers.  I do weak to heal.

At the end of the game, we both score the strategy.  We both score the second point of Hidden Martyrs.  My opponent scores the second point of Leave Your Mark.  The final score was 6-8.

Post-Game Thoughts
This was a fun game!  I haven’t had a five-turn game that felt this close in a while.  I’m starting to find my feet with Ulix, and am feeling more comfortable with how his models perform.  While i do think I could work on my scheme selection skills, I am glad that I was able to score full points on the ones I did manage to score.

Once again, Claim Jump failed me.  I really need to stop taking this scheme!  While I do think it would be harder to score one of the Marker schemes against Molly/Mary, I realistically could have gotten at least one point on Breakthrough, if not more (or at least, forced his crew to split apart a bit more).  I’m still learning how I want to use Gracie in this list - she is a powerful tool, but I keep messing up her positioning and thus am left with either no resources, or too few attacks.

My main takeaways this game would be:

  1. Wild Boars are quickly becoming a model that does work for me.  War Pigs are also fine, but Wild Boars are better at eating scheme markers - which might make them a better grow target.
  2. Balancing when to grow and when to use Ulix’s various slop attacks is important.  Herd em is good, but sometimes you need to heal or clear a model.
  3. Hitch a Ride is super useful, and Truffles is something I should look into as well.  

My MVP for the game would go to my War Pig.  He scored me three of my four strategy points, and one of my two Hidden Martyr points.  MVP for my opponent is a toss up between Forgotten Marshal and Arrrchie.  The Marshal summoned a ton of models, and was able to kill quite a few models as well.  Arrrchie scored all of my opponents strategy points, which is nothing to sneeze at either.

Thank you for reading!

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This is an after-action report for a game played on Vassal with one of my locals from Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 05/25/2020.  It was a 50ss game between myself and Ron (shoutout to Ron!) generated using the Malifaux App.   

Pictures from this game can be found here

Set Up
The map was Welcome to the Jungle

Corrupted Ley Lines
Standard Deployment
Vendetta, Hidden Martyr, Let Them Bleed, Take Prisoner, Breakthrough

I announced Bayou, he announced Guild.  I announced Mah Tucket, and he announced Dashel Barker.  

The crew I built was:

3ss
Mah Tucket
The Little Lass
Big Brain Brin
Trixiebelle
2x Bushwhacker
2x Rooster Rider
Soulstone Miner

His crew:

2ss
Dashel Barker
The Dispatcher
Mounted Guard w/ No Prisoners
Mounted Guard
2x Rifleman
Sergeant
The Judge

It’s been a while since I played Mah - the first time since the errata.  Rather than trying to put in reps with Ulix, I felt like it was a pool that would benefit being able to attack at range.  Against Guild, I forgot they had Laugh Off on an upgrade and went with Tricksy for their mobility and offensive repositioning abilities.  I brought in Trixie for her Lure, and the rest of my crew were just redundant good minions who would make Hidden Martyrs a viable choice for me.  Once I saw my opponent’s crew, I opted for Let them Bleed and Hidden Martyr (Miner and Rooster).  

Let them Bleed was to punish my opponent using Risk of Reason on the Judge- yes he had heals in the form of Dashel, but one of the two models who would count for me would hurt themselves.  My second choice was Hidden Martyr, and I selected the Soulstone Miner and  Rooster Rider.  I figured for this, the Miner could stay buried until later in the game, and then make a mad dash/ get pushed into scoring position for the second point. 

My opponent ended up taking Vendetta (Guild Sergeant against Trixiebelle) and Breakthrough.

Deployment
He was the attacker.  He took the bottom board edge for deployment.  I had him deploy Dashel, Dispatcher, the Riflemen and the Judge first, as they were the more static elements of his crew.  I deploy clustered around Mah, keeping to the woods to negate his gunline.  He responds by putting his mobile pieces on the far flanks.  I put my pit traps on the flanks, and blocking off the right side.

He gave his lodestone to Rifleman 1, and I gave mine to Rooster Rider 1.  The Bushwhackers deployed 6” out from Mah, to benefit from her Creative Cussing trigger.  

Turn 1
I win initiative thanks to Ill Omens, getting a mask on Careful Planning.  This lets me move Trixiebelle and Brin a little forward.  He gets a pass token to start.  I let him go first.

He opened with the Mounted Guard on the right flank, walking up and destroying my Pit Trap.  I have Mah go, using Horrible Hollerin’ on the Little Lass and cheating for the Creative Cussing trigger.  I charge out of the concealing terrain with Diving Charge, and Concentrate.  I end by creating a Pit Trap, hitting the Good for a Laugh trigger to freshen up my hand.

He goes with the Guild Sergeant next, walking up and destorying the Pit Trap on the left flank.  He then pushed the Mounted Guard to him with Consolidate Power.  The Soulstone Miner gave me a soulstone, concentrated and then Buried itself.  The Mounted Guard on the Left Flank walked around the Sergeant, and used Ride with me to push up with the Sergeant.  It ends by concentrating. 

The Rooster Rider on my left flank goes Reckless, walks up and takes a focused shot on the Mounted Guard, doing severe damage.  He has the Rifleman with the Lodestone walk up and concentrate next to a Leyline.  I sent Little Lass pushing Brin up, then walking.  The second Rifleman walked, concentrated as a bonus thanks to Dashel’s Shouting Orders aura, then shot at Mah by spending focus for range.  He hits with the Ricochet trigger, doing moderate damage to Mah and severe damage to the Bushwhacker.   I stone 2 of the damage on Mah.  

Trixiebelle walked up, and dropped a scheme marker to set up Pull the Strings on my Rooster Rider.  The Dispatcher walked up, and used Consolidate Power to rescue the Mounted Guard.  I went with Brin, calculating the Possibilities before using Pull the Strings on the Rooster to concentrate.  He walks the Judge up and concentrated, and fails to use Risk of Reason.  I have my injured Bushwhacker walk, and take a focused shot on his Rifleman, but he flips Red Joker on defense.

Dashel walks up, and summons an Executioner off the Dispatcher.  He uses Foul Mouthed Motivation on his Mounted Guard to heal him for three, then concentrates.  My remaining Rooster Rider walks up, and kills the Rifleman with the Red Joker thanks to focus.  I then go Reckless to Concentrate.

He uses a Pass token, and I have my Bushwhacker take a focused shot on th Executioner for weak damage.  He sends the Executioner up, drawing a card from Trail of Gore on the Dispatcher.

At the end of the Turn, we both claim a Leyline.

Turn 2
Neither of us Stone for cards, and I win initiative.  I get a crow on Careful Planning, and opt to put shielded on Mah and a Rooster Rider.  He gets a pass token.

Mah opens with Horrible Hollerin’, pushing my injured Bushwhacker back into concealing terrain and pulsing out Focus with the trigger.  I go in the tank for a minute, and opt to take a focused shot on the Executioner.  He dodges the hit, but it took a severe out of his hand to do it.  I end by creating a Pit Trap with the Good for a Laugh trigger to refresh my hand.

His Mounted Guard used Ride with Me on his Sergeant to get the mobility bubble further up, then took a shot at my Rooster Rider.  He connects, and uses the ‘Catch Them!’ ability from his upgrade to drop the Executioner in base contact with the Rooster Rider. I immediately go with that Rooster Rider, and in my haste take a focused attack before realizing I was one reckless away from proccing my Grit.  It didn’t matter as the Black Joker made me waste my attack.  My second focused attack hit the Rip and Tear Trigger, and I cheat the Red Joker for the damage flip to drop the Executioner to Hard to Kill.  The Rip and Tear trigger puts him under.  I opt to not Reckless this turn.  The Dispatcher walked and concentrated, then used Consolidate Power on the Sergeant to have a shield.  I have the Little Lass push Trixiebelle.

Dashel goes next, summoning a pair of Riflemen.  He then moves and tries to heal his Mounted Guard, but fails.  He Concentrates to end his activation.  I have a Bushwhacker kill one of his summoned Riflemen thanks to a focused shot, then try to shoot the Dispatcher.  He opts to pass the attack off to the Mounted Guard in Concealing terrain, and I fail to hit.

His Sergeant walks, whiffs a shot on my Rooster Rider, and eats a corpse for a soulstone.  Trixiebelle lures Brin twice.  His original Rifleman takes a focused shot on Trixiebelle thanks to his extra range, doing weak damage and the Execute trigger, but I ditch a card to live.  Brin goes next, Calculating the Possibilities and getting the trigger to Stun the Mounted Guard and the summoned Rifleman.

The Mounted Guard on the right flank fails to Ride with Me, and opts to just move and Concentrate.  My remaining Bushwhacker takes a focused shot on the Dispatcher, and with no cards to pass the attack off he gets dropped to one wound.  The summoned Rifleman fails to shoot Brin.  

On the left flank, I finally go with my Rooster Rider carrying my Lodestone.  I go Reckless, and walk three times to zip onto his left flank Leyline marker.  This does force me through some barbed wire, so I take some damage from the hazardous terrain.

His last model to go is the Judge, who walks twice and uses Risk of Reason to take 2 damage, but draw the 13 of Rams.  I really want to kill the Dispatcher, so I unbury the Soulstone Miner without generating a Stone, and proceed to attack it with two focused attacks.  The first he predictably dodges with his fresh 13 of rams, but the second swing we were both top-decking, and I won that contest and killed the Dispatcher.

At the end of the Turn, I claim my second Leyline marker.  We both score the first point for the Strategy, and neither reveal any schemes.

The score was 1-1.

Turn 3
He stones for cards.  I win the initiative flip, cheating the tome for Careful Planning to draw two cards.

I open with Mah, use Horrible Hollerin’ on Brin, with the ram trigger.  She then Charged into the Mounted Guard, getting moderate damage and injured+1.  She fails to make a Pit Trap, but swings again, killing the Mounted Guard and turning him into a Guard patrol.  

Dashel responds with a swing on my Rooster Rider, killing it and making my Soulstone Miner catch the Lodestone.  He then takes a focused shot on my Soulstone Miner, stoning for the tome for Drop it!.  He then fails to summon a Warden from it, because he was out of resources.  He then flips the Black Joker on Foul-Mouthed Motivation.  At the end of the turn, he regains a soulstone from my Rooster Rider’s corpse.

I bury my Soulstone Miner after generating a soulstone, forcing the Lodestone to go to Brin.  I then Concentrate.  His fresh Rifleman takes two shots at Mah, one is Focused.  He does severe on the first shot (though I deny his Ricochet trigger with Brin) and I scamper into the forest.  His second shot connects despite the concealing terrain, landing a cheeky Execute Trigger.  I stone to prevent some damage, and end with Mah on half wounds.  I have a Bushwhacker exchange gunfire with the Guild Sergeant, but in the end I kill him (though his Backup ability dropped my Bushwhacker to 2 wounds).  The Judge walks up, uses Risk of Reason for 3 and gets the Red Joker into his hand, practically refilling it.  He charges Brin, spending focus and his fresh Red Joker to nearly kill my henchman.  I stone and spend focus defensively, living with 3 wounds.  Mah scampers closer to be a shield for Brin.

Brin goes, Calculating the Possibilities before slowing the Judge with Sharp Wit, getting the Surge Trigger.  His original Rifleman tossed the Lodestone to his Mounted Guard, then shot Brin.  I passed the attack off onto Mah, and he fails to hit.  My remaining Rooster Rider charges into the Judge, dropping to Grit levels of wounds from the Rifleman’s aura.  When the dust settles, the Judge was dead.  He spends a pass token, so I have the Little Lass walk up.  His Mounted Guard finally uses Ride with Me to be in position to shoot my Rooster Rider, but I avoid the hit.  To end the turn, my Bushwhacker lands a moderate hit on his Mounted Guard.

At the End of the Turn, I claim a third Leyline marker and score the strategy.  I reveal Hidden Martyrs.  He reveals nothing, and doesn’t score the strategy.  The score was 3 - 1, and he conceded here.

Post-Game Thoughts
My opponent conceded the game here because he was locked out of one scheme - Vendetta - and had inadvertently made it unlikely he’d get more than one point on Breakthrough.  He felt he didn’t have enough actions/ activations to score the second point on Breakthrough as well as more than one point on the strategy.  At the same time, it was unlikely he’d stop me from scoring the second point of Hidden Martyrs, as I could unbury the Soulstone Miner Turn 4, and Turn 5 just use Mah’s pushes to get him into base with Dashel after Dashel had activated.  I had quickly dwindled his crew, so it would be relatively easy for my long range guns to wound the rest of his crew to score the first point for Let Them Bleed on Turn 4, and finish him off for Turn 5. 

On the whole, this game went well in my favor.  I had strong hands for the first few turns, and my opponent struggled with a lot of his simple duels on things like Ride with Me, Consolidate Power and Foul-mouthed Motivation.  This, plus Mah’s crew having so many 14” guns, meant that we could both reach out and attack each other well before our melee elements connected; unfortunately for him, I had more guns.

I was struck by how similar our two crews were.  We both had focus bubbles; 14” guns with solid triggers; and mobility shenanigans.  I give MVP for his crew to his Riflemen and Mounted Guard, as they scored/ would have scored his VP.  The Riflemen also put out the most damage in his crew, and I was thankful I had the concealing terrain to hamper their threat.

My main takeaways this game would be:

  1. The changes to Mah encourage her doing more with her activations than pulsing out focus, and that made her a lot more interesting to play.
  2. I was struck by how similar our two crews were.  We both had focus bubbles; 14” guns with solid triggers; and mobility shenanigans.  It makes me want to take a closer look at Dashel.
  3. The changes to Brin didn’t seem to impact my use of him at all.  I’m finding he’s a good mid-turn activation with Calculate the possibilities letting me use my Severes in hand aggressively; then relying on focused shots to revisit them at the end of turns.

MVP for this game go to the Rooster Riders.  They scored me 3 of my VP (two points on the Strategy, and the first point on my Hidden Martyrs) and killed several problem models in one activation.  If I had to do it over, I’d probably swap Trixiebelle for another minion - probably a Rooster.  She didn’t do much other than lure Brin, which could have been made up for by having the Little Lass push him instead.  

I give MVP for his crew to his Riflemen and Mounted Guard, as they scored/ would have scored his VP.  The Riflemen also put out the most damage in his crew, and I was thankful I had the concealing terrain to hamper their threat.  

Thank you for reading!

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1 hour ago, Diceman87 said:

The Bushwhackers deployed 6” out from Mah, to benefit from her Creative Cussing trigger.  

Don't understand this, Creative Cussing has 3" Range. 

 

1 hour ago, Diceman87 said:

The second Rifleman walked, concentrated as a bonus thanks to Dashel’s Shouting Orders aura, then shot at Mah by spending focus for range.  He hits with the Ricochet trigger, doing moderate damage to Mah and severe damage to the Bushwhacker

He had the luck of flipping two moderates and then two severes, or you left him win the duel by 6+? 

 

I really like your posts. Thanks for them. 

 

P.S: I really hate the Rooster Riders. 

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