SoCal 2019 Tournament Report

[James Dyson]

This thread is an after-action report for the three games I played at Lost Planet Games in Torrance, California on 12/08/2019.  It was a 50ss tournament using the Gaining Grounds document, with the rounds having been announced before the event.   

In the weeks leading up to the event, I painted up several crews and went back and forth on what crews I wanted to bring.  I ended up going with Brewmaster - I finished painting the last models from the Backdraft Box the day before the event, and I felt that he was able to really compete in all 3 rounds.  I wanted to run a single master for two reasons - first, due to time.  I've not yet gotten a full 5 turn game in anywhere close to the round times for this event, and figured that limiting myself to one keyword would help speed up crew selection/ remembering rules.  The second was because I still haven't found my footing in 3e yet, and 3 rounds of one keyword would be a good way to see what it can do.

A quick word or two about the event.  LeperColony put on the event, and did a fantastic job.  Prizes came in the form of tickets given each round - bonus tickets for winning and fully painted crews.  You then put the tickets into a cup for a prize drawing, which resulted in just about everyone who attended walking away with something (for my part, I won a box of Freikorps Engineers!).  To add to this, he provided us lunch to save us from having to drive around for our lunch break.  He was on top of the clock and letting us know how much time was left in the round, and kept the event running smoothly.  

The venue, Lost Planet Games, is my current FLGS and is a darn fine one.  A shoutout to the owner Mike who graciously opened up shop early and helped set up.  If you find yourself in the Los Angeles area and are looking for a place to play Malifaux, I can't recommend them enough.

[James Dyson]

Round 1 i was paired up against forum user Uraj.

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
Flank Deployment
Turf War
Vendetta, Deliver a Message, Take Prisoner, Dig Their Graves, Harness the Ley Line

I announced Bayou, he announced Arcanists.  I announced The Brewmaster, and he announced Sandeep.  

The crew I built was:

8ss
The Brewmaster w/ Twelve Cups of Coffee
Apprentice Wesley
Fingers Leong
Trixiebelle
Whiskey Golem
Tanuki
2x Akaname

His crew:

6ss
Sandeep Desai
Banasuva
Kandara
Kudra
Wind Gamin
Wind Gamin w/ Magical Training
2x Fire Gamin
Metal Gamin

This was a doozy of a crew to go into this game with.  I felt that Take Prisoner was a poor pick, as I’d have a very small number of models I could reliably choose for it (since Sandeep could just kill any of his Elementals), and Vendetta would be tricky as most of my punchy models were more expensive than his models.  

I opted for Dig Their Graves and Deliver a Message.  I figured that I could score Dig from the Akaname dropping markers through their bonus action, and Deliver could be scored by Luring in Sandeep, or sending one of my models into Sandeep.  With how much synergy his crew had, I wanted to pick his team apart at range - and keep myself in my own synergies.  This meant that Harness was out of the question.  

My opponent chose Dig Their Graves (due to Metal gamin’s ability to score it’s secondary) and I believe Harness the Ley Line, but did not end up scoring it.     

Deployment
He was attacker, and chose a corner that did not inconvenience either of us.  We both deployed in a cluster, with his Wind Gamin off to the sides.  We both had one model deployed on the Turf Marker in our deployment zone.

Turn 1
We both stone for cards this turn, and he has me go first.  We both claim our first Turf Marker and set up for Dig their Graves - me with an Akaname, him with his Metal Gamin.  I rack up poison and focused on Brewmaster and the Whiskey Golem with my cheaper models, while he generates some incredible value through Mantra effects from Kandara and Banasuva, generating a ton of burning and focus on his Fire Gamin.  

Mid turn, we both unpack our crews and advance.  I move Trixie up, who then Lures Brewmaster up.  He moves Kandara a little to far forward, ending up within Lure range of Brewmaster.  Sandeep orders some Gamin and Banasuva about, before summoning the third Fire Gamin he needs to create a Fire Golem.  

Brewmaster goes, and with a combination of a nice stack of poison, burning stones and focus condition is able to Lure Kandara in and deal some respectable damage to her.  He sends Kudra in to save her, shoving the Whiskey Golem away.  Unfortunately, Whiskey Golem is Nimble and is able to get into position to charge and kill Kandara with his own Focused attack.  The Fire Golem tries to toss a few Tornadoes out, but I pass all my tests. 

Turn 2
This turn, he goes first and guns hard for Trixie, shoving Banasuva into the middle of my crew.  Trixie smacks him back, dropping a scheme marker and getting the Whiskey Golem to hit him for Severe with a couple of Sharp Wit attacks.  My opponent sniffs out the Dig play, and neutralizes it with Kudra.  Sandeep summons a Wind Gamin and gives the Golem a few more Fire Tornado shots, but a hot deck saves me from most of the tests.  

I try to Sober Up the burning off my models, but miss it on Wesley.  On it’s activation, the Golem uses Draw off Flames to jump into my crew from Wesley, and keep going after Trixie.  Banasuva is left at one wound, and I try to lock down Kudra with Brewmaster and kill a Wind Gamin, which gets Banasuva to jump out of the way where he wouldn’t neutralize a Turf marker.  

At the end of the turn, Banasuva dies to poison.  

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

Turn 3
The turn opens with me flipping the Black Joker on initiative, and he goes first.  He has the Fire Golem go after Trixie, who is left at 1 wound after all is said and done.   I have Fingers go to my left flank to get poison onto Kudra, so that she would be slowed by Brewmaster on her activation.  With his next activation, my opponent kills Trixie with Sandeep before walking closer, and turning my Turf marker Neutral.  

I move my left Akaname to tag Kudra with more poison, but fail to drop my third Dig Their Graves corpse/ scrap marker.  My opponent drops his third with the Metal Gamin.  Kudra does escape engagement, but is left with only her bonus and is unable to land it.  

I run Brewmaster into Sandeep, and Deliver a Message for a point.  In the last few activations of the turn, I realize that I need to either engineer getting the Whiskey Golem to the central Turf marker (past the engagement of the Fire Golem) or getting close to Trixie’s corpse to get my Dig point.  Unfortunately, my opponent sniffs this out and parks a Wind Gamin in front of the Corpse Marker, and I am unable to score either.  

This was the end of the first round due to time, so we had to call the game here.  My opponent scored his second Turf point and a Dig point, so the final score was 3-2 in his favor.   

Post-Game Thoughts
This was a hard fought game, and I was impressed with my opponent’s ability to overcome some horrendous flips to score the points when it was needed.  A few of my main takeaways from this game were:

1. I need to remember to watch the clock.  Once again, my play was aiming to score on turns 3 and 4, when I needed to score a turn earlier.  Both my opponent and I played pretty quickly turn 1, but turns 2 and 3 definitely got bogged down with all the plays we had.  I know I went into the think tank for several plays, especially mid turn 3.  

2. I need to keep the schemes in mind.  I had two opportunities Turn 3 to set up the second Dig point, and completely neglected to do it.  I also forgot that Trixie had ‘Don’t Mind Me’, meaning I didn’t need to use the trigger to drop a marker next to Banasuva in range for Kudra to remove.  I also didn’t need to drop it in range of her.
   
3. I feel I did an adequate job of using Lure this game to pull Kandara out and remove her, despite the resources it took.  My opponent commented that she was a great target due to being the main source of card draw for his crew.  Given how his deck performed turns 2 and 3, this definitely applied pressure to his hand.

MVP of the game goes to the Brewmaster himself.  In this game, he put the major hurt on Kandara, and scored me a point on Deliver a Message.  He also massively disrupted my opponent’s models with his various auras.

Thank you for reading!
 

[James Dyson]

Round 2 i was paired up against forum user Flinroz.

Pictures from this game can be found here.  

Set Up
Wedge Deployment
Plant Explosives
Detonate Charges, Breakthrough, Hold Up Their Forces, Outflank, Assassinate

We both announced Bayou.  I announced The Brewmaster, and he announced Mah.  

The crew I built was:

7ss
The Brewmaster w/ Twelve Cups of Coffee
Apprentice Wesley
Popcorn Turner
Cooper Jones
Whiskey Golem
Mechanized Porkchop
Tanuki
Akaname

His crew:

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

The board had a big old open space in the center, with a lot of scatter terrain on the outer sides.  With his crew and double Miners, I figured my opponent would go for some combination of Breakthrough and Outflank and maybe one other scheme; I didn’t expect detonate charges.  I also figured he’d come in on me, and so I opted for Hold Up Their Forces and Assassinate.  He had several expensive, durable models that I could engage with my cheaper models, or summon a Whiskey Gamin in position to engage them.  Assassinate I chose because Mah only has stones and Scamper to keep her alive, and I figured that with Brewmaster’s auras she’d be unable to really retaliate.   

My opponent chose Breakthrough and Assassinate.     

Deployment
I was attacker, and deployed centrally behind the stage terrain.  I opted for the side where I’d be able to gun for one of the sides with Popcorn to deny Outflank if he went for it, while the rest of my crew pushed forward in the center to force the strategy.  My opponent spread his crew wide, with Brin hard to the left, Mah hard to the right, and Trixie in the middle.

I gave 2 bombs to Popcorn, and one each to Brewmaster, the Porkchop and Cooper.  He gave one each to the Soulstone Miners, one to Mah, and one to each Rooster I believe.

Turn 1
This turn started expectedly, with me using the Tanuki to load up focus and poison on Brewmaster and the Golem while my opponent buried his Miners and gained stones.  I made a series of errors with my Mechanized Porkchop activation, starting with forgetting Walking Forge and thinking it was still the 2e rule that dropped a scrap after a walk.  I realized this after the game.  

We continue moving up our models - him moving Brin and a Rooster up, me moving Brewmaster and Akaname up.  The Whiskey Golem goes hard to my right flank, trying to kill the Rooster near Brin but I only managed to leave him on half wounds.  The rest of my turn was summoning a Whiskey Gamin and advancing up the board.

My opponent was able to shoot the Porkchop with his Bushwhacker, hitting the trigger to push him closer to a Pit Trap.  This left him in Lure range of Trixie, who pulls him into gun range of the Rooster.  By the time Mah got to him, the Porkchop was dead and had done little but drop me a scrap.  

Turn 2
He wins initiative, but gives me the first activation.  I realize I need to make up for the loss of my Porkchop, and have the Golem try to finish the job on the Rooster but fails.  His Rooster hits back, and I reply by healing the Golem with the Tanuki.  Brin Slows the Golem, and the game shifts to the center again where Trixie lures the Golem through some Pit Traps.

In the center, Wesley tops off Brewmaster before Brewmaster lures in Mah, getting some damage and loading her with poison.  He tosses his second Rooster into Brewmaster, landing some solid hits.  My Akaname charges Mah and fails to hit her, but does get some poison onto her.  For her activation, Mah only had two actions but still managed to land two solid blows on Brewmaster.  

Popcorn drops a bomb for me before swinging towards the center, now that I dominated my left flank.  The rest of my activations featured my models getting stuck into the scrum in the center, while Cooper summoned the second Whiskey Gamin.  For his part, my opponent’s Miners popped up in my backfield, prepared to score some serious points.  To make matters worse, his Bushwhacker lands a shot on my Golem and kills it.  

At the end of the turn I revealed Hold Up Their Forces and scored the Strategy, while my opponent was unable to score anything.  The score was 2-0.

Turn 3
In the start phase, I have Cooper drop into her barrel seeing as she was where I needed her.  He wins initiative, going with Mah while he could.  She knocked Brewmaster into a pit trap and then charged into Cooper who lives.  Brewmaster replied in kind by dropping a Bomb and charging Mah, dropping her below half wounds but taking some injured from the Pit Trap, which his Rooster took advantage of to knock some wounds off.  My Tanuki heals up Brewmaster and removes the injured, setting him up for a kill play next turn.

His Miners drop a scheme marker and a bomb marker for Breakthrough and the Strategy, respectively, while my crew continues to pass around poison but otherwise doesn’t kill much in the center.  Popcorn drops another bomb before clearing away a Pit Trap so he can dive in next turn.  The Bushwhacker kills my Akaname, while his second Rooster charges but fails to kill my Tanuki.  Lass tries to push Trixie into relevance, but fails.  Cooper heals herself and a Whiskey Gamin.  Trixie lures Brewmaster into a pit trap again, dropping him below half wounds.  Brin, for his point, walks and calculates and doesn’t do much else.

At the end of the round, we both reveal Assassinate, my opponent reveals Breakthrough, and we both score the strategy.  The score was 4-3.

Turn 4
Last turn was called as we started Turn 4, so I refocused on getting things done.  Unfortunately, my opponent flipped the Red Joker on Initiative and opened with Mah, who despite only having two actions manages to kill Brewmaster while I have no stones, securing his second Assassinate point.  Popcorn comes in and uses Blood Poisoning to end Mah, then charges into Trixie but doesn’t land damage.

My opponents Soulstone Miners drop a second bomb and a scheme marker, but he realizes he can’t get the other markers down in time.  I use heals and poison passing to speed up my Whiskey Gamin, who are able to engage Brin and Trixie at the end for my second point of Hold Up Their Forces.  

At the end of the Turn, we both score the strategy and the second point of Assassinate, but I score my second Hold Up Their Forces point as well.  The final score was 7-5.

Post-Game Thoughts
My opponent played Mah wide, and while he was still getting to grips with how she performs in 3E I feel he did a great job of focus firing on my big models.  For my part, I was pleased with how the ‘Construct Brewmaster’ build worked in practice, despite the bumps.  My main takeaways this game were:

1. I need to put the Mechanized Porkchop on the table more.  I misplayed his Scrap Generation, and I overextended him and lost him turn 1.  I realized that I should have used Vent Steam to protect against incoming movement shenanigans, and kept the crew centralized.  Armor 2 is nice, but the spiky damage tracks with moderate 4 can really chew through low wound count models.  

2. I feel I did a much better job of being mindful of my schemes.  I played to score points each turn, and it shows in me scoring the maximum I could in 4 rounds.  I think this is down to picking schemes that fit Brewmaster’s strengths.
   
3. I feel I kept a better eye on the time as well here; the first time I hit Turn 4 in a timed event in 3e so far.  Demonstrable progress is the best kind of progress!

My MVP for this game was Popcorn.  I was very much impressed with his mobility, and single-handedly scoring me two Strategy points and one of my Scheme Points while generally being a nuisance.  Runner up was Brewmaster, who again did a lot of work with every action, except for turn 1. 

Thank you for reading!

[James Dyson]

Round 3 I was paired up against forum user (and Tournament Organizer) LeperColony.

Pictures from this game can be found here.

Set Up
Corner Deployment
Reckoning
Detonate Charges, Search the Ruins, Dig Their Graves, Power Ritual, Claim Jump

I announced Bayou, and my opponent announced Guild.  I announced The Brewmaster, and he announced Sonnia.  

The crew I built was:

7ss
The Brewmaster w/ Twelve Cups of Coffee
Apprentice Wesley
Popcorn Turner
Cooper Jones
Whiskey Golem
Mechanized Porkchop
Tanuki
Akaname

His crew:

5ss
Sonnia Criid w/ Lead-Lined Coat
Purifying Flame
Samael Hopkins
Witchling Handler
Thalarian Queller
3x Witchling Stalker
Sanctioned Spellcaster

This board was a doozy - a few pieces of severe and dense terrain with a massive wall (with elevated bridge area) cutting through the center.  I kept the same crew as before, as we were a little tight on time.  I chose Power Ritual and Claim Jump on Cooper- Power Ritual because I figured that I could score it with Popcorn and/or the Whiskey Gamin, and Claim Jump on Cooper who had impressed me with her tankiness. 

My opponent chose Search the Ruins and Claim Jump on his Witchling Handler.  

Deployment
My opponent was the Attacker, and chose the corner that split both our deployment zones by the wall.  He deployed Sonnia first, and I countered by putting most of my crew on the other side of the wall.  I knew that Sonnia could ignore line of sight to burning models, but figured if the rest of his crew couldn’t see me, they couldn’t get the burning to begin with.  I didn’t appreciate how many ways he had to give out burning - especially when he put both Samael and the Queller on the bridge.

I chose to not put anyone on the bridge, figuring that I would fight in a scrum in the center and send some flankers to the corners, and hopefully render the models on the bridge wasted for my opponent.  Unfortunately, I misdeployed and did not leave anyone in range to drop a marker for Power Ritual.

Turn 1
This turn went remarkably quick - the combination of the distance between our crews, and the wall blocking most Lines of Sight, meant there was little for it but moving up.  I did have to spend Popcorn’s actions moving to drop a marker in my corner, as he would have the most mobility to get to drop the other Power Ritual marker on my right flank.  He ran his Spellcaster back to his corner to bluff Power Ritual.  I went hard to my left flank, remembering to pop up Vent Steam with the Porkchop and summon a Gamin.  Unfortunately, due to the Severe Terrain I ended up getting bottlenecked, and taking unnecessary poison damage on the Porkchop.

Turn 2
I win initiative and have him go first, wanting to draw one of his models to the central gate before I exposed one of my models.  I summoned a second Gamin, and then my opponent had Samael Hopkins unload from the top of the bridge, killing a Gamin and scoring a Reckoning Point.  I proceed to load up my remaining Gamin with poison, hoping to rocket to the far corner to score Power Ritual.  We continue to dance around each other, moving minions up but not exposing either of our real threats.

Eventually, he pushes his Handler up and tried to put burning on Cooper but fails.  My Golem uses Nimble to get into charge range, and lands one hit on the Handler for her troubles.  Sonnia gets stuck in, landing a Red Joker on damage against the Golem and giving him several stacks of Burning.

I go with Brewmaster at the end, landing a single hit on a charge.

At the end of the turn, my opponent scores the strategy.  The score was 0-1.

Turn 3
I go first, and have the Golem heal up Brewmaster before punching the Handler, who manages to live thanks to stones and Shielded.  The Handler replies by attacking the Golem, killing him and herself thanks to his Demise ability.  

Now that she’s all boozed up, Brewmaster charges into Sonnia.  This is when I began to really respect Counterspell.  I eat all but one of her stones, and Sonnia lives thanks to her armor and shielded.  My opponent uses a Stalker to strip the poison from Sonnia,  something I had overlooked.  

My Whiskey Gamin sets up to score my first Power Ritual point, while his crew continues to move up and take shots at my crew.  I run my Akaname in to tie up Sonnia and reapply poison, and she kills him for the trouble.  Wesley strips burning off of Brewmaster, who had quite a bit thanks to the various Burning effects in the Witchhunter crew.  My opponent also spends several activations seeding Search the Ruins.  

At the end of the turn, we both score the strategy and I reveal Plant Explosives, while my opponent reveals Search the Ruins.  The score was 2-3.  

Turn 4
Last round was called when we started this turn, and it was an important one for both of us.  We both cheat the initiative flip, and I end up winning it.  I open with Brewmaster, and pour most of my hand and remaining stones into trying to kill Sonnia, who spends her last stone and lives.  My opponent again strips the poison I built on Sonnia away with a Stalker.  

The rest of the turn had our crews either dropping scheme markers, or getting into the scrum to try and kill something.  We agreed to talk through the remaining game points, and agreed on a 4-4 score - as I would be able to get my second Power Ritual point, while he could do the same with Search the Ruins - but I was more likely to kill off enough to score the Strategy again, while he would have to struggle (or luckily kill Brewmaster) to get another strategy point.  We both agreed that neither of us would get Claim Jump - me because he had too many models alive, him because his target was dead. 

Post-Game Thoughts
I did not appreciate how much pressure Sonnia’s keyword can put on my hand.  Between all the shielded, armor, and condition removal negating my main damage source, I had a hard time actually killing anything.  Furthermore, Counterspell Auras absolutely wrecked my hand turns 2 - 4, leaving me incapable of contesting his flips when I needed to.  

1. I feel like I did a good job on the clock this round as well.  Despite my opponent being the TO and adjudicating other tables while playing our game, we made it through Turn 4.  While part of this is due to the first turn being a simple one, it is nice to get that extra turn and makes 5 turns seem a lot more likely.

2. I definitely messed up in deployment this game.  I wasted actions dropping my initial Power Ritual marker when I didn’t need to; I got clumped up and was left exposed to his shooting with no real way to contest it.  I could have done much better by simply summoning the Gamin turns 1 and 2, sending them on the Power Ritual run, and swinging Cooper in late Turn 3 or 4 (after clearing out more enemy models) to get the Claim Jump.
   
3. I avoided the wall terrain, and by doing so ceded a massive advantage to my opponent.  I need to keep unusual terrain features like this in mind and be flexible with them; for example, I could have put Popcorn on there, and gone for tying up his models on the wall to prevent their shooting.

My MVP for this game was Popcorn again.  He helped secure me full points on Power Ritual, and my opponent felt like he had no way to contest him on the flank.  I feel I didn’t play Brewmaster to his strengths this game, as I didn’t appreciate how much of his value came from triggers.   

Thank you for reading!

[asrian]

Nice write up. One note on the first fight vs Sandeep. Take Prisoner allows you to also score the second point if the model dies from a friendly model. Let him kill it....gladly. 😁

 

[Math Mathonwy]

Cool report with good pictures! Loved it! Thank you for the write-up!

Some questions:

What did you think of Cooper? From the sounds of it, she didn't do much else than Summon Gamin, occasionally heal them, and tank - was that correct?

Do you find Condition Removal to be the bane of your existence?

What's your opinion on Fingers? It seemed that you didn't use Popcorn much for fighting - would Fingers have been a better choice for Scheming or is Popcorn's ability to be a threat (even if it doesn't manifest it still affects things) and higher mobility the thing that makes the difference.

[James Dyson]

Thanks for the feedback folks!

On 12/10/2019 at 9:28 PM, asrian said:

Nice write up. One note on the first fight vs Sandeep. Take Prisoner allows you to also score the second point if the model dies from a friendly model. Let him kill it....gladly. 😁

 

I'll be honest, I forgot about the text on Take Prisoner scoring that second point if he kills the model.  That actually would've been a good way to guarantee one VP - which if I'm playing for 3 or 4 turns, is as good as trying to gun for another point.  Something to keep in mind!

 

16 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Cool report with good pictures! Loved it! Thank you for the write-up!

Some questions:

What did you think of Cooper? From the sounds of it, she didn't do much else than Summon Gamin, occasionally heal them, and tank - was that correct?

Do you find Condition Removal to be the bane of your existence?

What's your opinion on Fingers? It seemed that you didn't use Popcorn much for fighting - would Fingers have been a better choice for Scheming or is Popcorn's ability to be a threat (even if it doesn't manifest it still affects things) and higher mobility the thing that makes the difference.

Thank you for taking the time to read it!  Those are some good questions.

1.  I was rather pleased with Cooper, despite being one-dimensional in what she did.  You are correct that all she did was make Gamin and tank - and with the schemes in the pool, that's all I needed her to do.  She feels very much like a pick you bring when you have a scheme that requires significant models in a specific location (Take Prisoner, Hold up Their Forces, Claim Jump, Outflank, etc).  This has the added bonus of keeping her activations short, which in turn helps keep my overall gameplay speed down.  All that said, I don't think I'd bring her unless I was going for one of those schemes.

2.  Condition Removal is a mixed bag.  Most of his crew has ways to hand out poison in a pulse, and Beer Goggles only requires one stack of Poison to activate, so getting it back on an enemy model isn't too hard.  What hurts the most is stripping it from Brewmaster himself - he wants the biggest stacks of poison to fuel Drunken Strength.  

3.  Fingers feels very different from his 2E incarnation.  The loss of "Don't Mind Me", Reckless, the downgrade on his Squeal, and his self heal going to a bonus all make him a lot less of an independent  and mobile schemer to me.  He feels more like a piece that wants to stay near Brewmaster's bubble and disrupt enemy schemers.  Popcorn on the other hand has a free 3" push on top of a 6" move, making him hard to pin down.  He has the same Alcohol Poisoning aura, Blood Poisoning bonus, and ability to hand out poison on his attacks as Brewmaster does, so he can extend the effects across the board.  Add in soulstones and Trusty Flask, and he seems like a perfect candidate for being an independent piece running a flank.  In the third game my opponent admitted he gave up on trying to take Popcorn out because of his threat potential, so you are right on the money with that.