Bog Roll Brawl - Homebrew Strategy

[GJ Yan]

So my friend and I recently got into Malifaux, sadly the current situation has made games practically (and reasonably) impossible but we didn't let that stop us so we decided to carry on learning the game together over Vassal. Anyway, we were joking around with the idea of doing a game of Malifaux in which social distancing rules apply, and off the back of that we decided to have a go at making our own Strategy to reflect the times.  So, here it is. I want to point out that we're both very new to Malifaux, neither of us are game designers, and we haven't actually tested this yet (we're going to try it out some time next week), but I thought I'd post it on here to see what other people's suggestions might be. No idea if this is in any way balanced, it's just for a bit of fun.

 

Bog Roll Brawl

After the Attacker chooses a Deployment Zone, but before Deployment, starting with the Defending Player, each player alternates Creating four neutral Strategy Markers centred on the centreline, at least 2” away from another Strategy Marker.

Strategy Markers are Impassable.

A friendly-controlled model in base contact with a Strategy Marker can take the Interact Action to remove the Strategy Marker and gain a Bog Roll Token.

A friendly-controlled model with one or more Bog Roll Tokens can take the Interact Action to discard one Bog Roll Token and Place a Strategy Marker within 1”.

After a model with one or more Bog Roll Token(s) is killed, it discards any Bog Roll Tokens and the opposing player must Drop an equal number of Strategy Markers into base contact with the model. If a model with a Bog Roll Token would be Buried by a friendly-controlled effect, it discards any Bog Roll Tokens and the opposing player must Drop an equal number of Strategy Markers into base contact with the model.

If a model ends its Activation within 1” of one or more friendly or enemy model(s), the opposing player may have that model gain Poison +1 or Distracted +1.

At the end of each Turn, a Crew gains 1 VP if there are more Strategy Markers in this Crew’s Deployment Zone than this Crew has earned VP from this Strategy.

[solkan]

This looks interesting.  Scanning over it for possible rules issues...

1.  The rules for Dropping impassible markers use the rules for Create, and that has the important provision:  Cannot overlap other markers (or models).  So if you surround a model with markers or models before it's killed, you can make it impossible to put the strategy markers on the table.

2.  You call out getting killed and friendly Bury effects for causing the strategy markers to be dropped.  But what about enemy Bury effects?  Because there are models like Aionus who can unbury enemy models, and in combination with Stutter time used by a different model, that's potentially throwing a token carrier across the board to be killed.

3.  To be fair to the maximum number of crews, I wonder how the "social distancing failure" penalty would work as "gain Distracted +1.  While within 1" of another model, Distracted cannot be lowered or removed."  The problem I see with "gain Poison +1 or Distracted +1" is that there are the perverse metabolism crews that will love Poison being added to the table, but those crews aren't equally spread across the factions.

How much do you want to lean in on the "Enforce social distancing" theme?

 

[GJ Yan]

5 hours ago, solkan said:

1.  The rules for Dropping impassible markers use the rules for Create, and that has the important provision:  Cannot overlap other markers (or models).  So if you surround a model with markers or models before it's killed, you can make it impossible to put the strategy markers on the table.

2.  You call out getting killed and friendly Bury effects for causing the strategy markers to be dropped.  But what about enemy Bury effects?  Because there are models like Aionus who can unbury enemy models, and in combination with Stutter time used by a different model, that's potentially throwing a token carrier across the board to be killed.

3.  To be fair to the maximum number of crews, I wonder how the "social distancing failure" penalty would work as "gain Distracted +1.  While within 1" of another model, Distracted cannot be lowered or removed."  The problem I see with "gain Poison +1 or Distracted +1" is that there are the perverse metabolism crews that will love Poison being added to the table, but those crews aren't equally spread across the factions.

Thanks for your thoughts!

1. I didn’t really think of that. What would you suggest the markers be treated as? Severe perhaps?

 

2. That’s a good point, I didn’t consider enemy unbury effects. Maybe just changing that to all Burying causes markers to be dropped would be fine? I don’t think that would work too much to the detriment of Bury-focused crews as they can still put enemy models in inconvenient spots?

 

3. The idea of Poison +1 was definitely more of a conceptual one than anything else and I did think this could be problematic with some crews hence the “or Distracted”, but your idea is probably a lot more mechanically sound. The way you’ve written it, would the only way to get rid of Distracted be to actually take the penalty on the model’s actions? I think that would be enough of a detriment to consider when positioning models. I think the social distancing should be there to discourage a lot of close interactions and basically prevent player’s from throwing their models into engagement unless it’s going to score them points.

Perhaps instead of Poison, it could be some sort of unique Token that deals damage at the end of turn? 
 

Greatly appreciate your feedback and I’ll probably make these changes before we try it out on the (digital) table. 🙂

[GJ Yan]

We tried out Bog Roll Brawl today, so I thought I'd do a bit of a report of the game in case anyone is interested how it went. I played Ten Thunders McCabe and my opponent went for Guild Lucius.

 

Standard Deployment

Bog Roll Brawl

Scheme Pool: Hidden Martyrs, Sabotage, Claim Jump, Breakthrough, Runic Binding

I chose Hidden Martyrs on Ruffian (Bob) and Desper, and Breakthrough

My opponent chose Hidden Martyrs on the False Witnesses, and Breakthrough

Crews:

Ten Thunders
Size: 40 - Pool: 7
Leader:
  Lucas McCabe
Totem:
  Luna
Hires:
  Desper LaRaux
  Dawn Serpent
  Huckster
  Ruffian
  Ruffian 2

Guild
Size: 40 - Pool: 2
Leader:
  Lucius Mattheson
Totem:
  The Scribe
Hires:
  Agent 46
    - No Prisoners
  Pale Rider
  Guild Steward
  False Witness
  False Witness 2

Deployment
My opponent flipped to be Attacker and decided to Deploy on the left side of the board. This is what the board looked like after placing Startegy Markers and Deployment:

Turn 1
(We're using Flicker Tokens here to represent the Bog Roll Tokens) Turn 1 was mostly both Crews moving forward and picking up some Strategy Markers. Lucius Hidden Snipered Desper 3 times forcing me to use 3 soulstones to keep him alive (which proved the right choice in the end as it enabled me to score Hidden Martyrs). McCabe managed to get a shot of his Net Gun onto the Pale Rider to give him Slow and Staggered.

Turn 2
In Turn 2 McCabe ran back with a Bog Roll Token and dropped it in my Deployment Zone allowing me to score my first Victory Point for the Strategy.  Lucius finally managed to erase Desper out of existence which allowed me to reveal Hidden Martyrs at the end of the turn for a second Victory Point, not really the way I wanted to score that point but it made his death slightly less bitter. Other notable Actions included Agent 46 cornering the Huckster preventing her from Disengaging or Secret Passaging away, but ultimately getting rescued by Ruffian Fred with his  Chain Gang. Guild Steward and The Scribe both Dispelled Magic on Pale Rider allowing him to pick up another Strategy Marker and start running back towards his Deployment Zone with a Bog Roll in each hand.

End of Turn 2 Score: Ten Thunders 2 : Guild 0

Turn 3
The Huckster managed to Secret Passage and False Claim to eventually score me the first point for Breakthrough, using Ruffian Bob to drop another Scheme Marker which I later removed for False Claim. The False Witness on the top half of the board tried to chase her down to deny it but McCabe shot her down with his Net Gun and picked up another Strategy Marker. Dawn Serpent moved back into my Deployment Zone and dropped another Strategy Marker directly underneath his base to score me a second Victory Point for the Strategy. Pale Rider ran back and dropped a Strat Marker of his own to score my opponent his first Strategy Point. At the end of the turn he also revealed Hidden Martyrs for a second Victory Point.

End of Turn 3 Score: Ten Thunders 4 : Guild 2

Turn 4
Turn 4 was pretty disasterous for McCabe and Co; Lucius managed to Hidden Sniper Ruffian Fred and Luna and kill both of them, while Pale Rider killed the Huckester, forcing her to drop a Strategy Marker in his Deployment Zone, leaving only McCabe, Ruffian Bob and the Dawn Serpent alive. McCabe ran back with the other Strategy Marker and dropped it, allowing me to score my third Strategy point. Agent 46 ran down the left flank, getting ready to score a Breakthrough point in the next turn.

End of Turn 4 Score: Ten Thunders 5 : Guild 3

Turn 5
In the final Turn, Dawn Serpent tried to desperately kill the remaining Flase Witness to deny my opponent his second Hidden Martyrs point but ultimately failed to do any damage despite having a great hand due to the False Witness' Tell No Lies , meaning that my opponent would score his second Hidden Martyrs point.  He did however manage to tie up the False Witness for the entirety of his activation, preventing him from dropping a Strategy Marker, before getting Hidden Snipered by Lucius. McCabe tried to chase down the Pale Rider but failed to do any damage as by that point the Pale Rider had built up a large stack of Fate Tokens, which he used to reduce damage with his defensive trigger. I also completely forgot about his Ride With Me which allowed him to slip away and put down a final Strategy Marker for another Victory Point. Agent dropped a Scheme Marker for Breakthrough and Ruffian Bob hid in a tree to get me my second Hidden Martyrs point.

 

Final Score

Ten Thunders: 6
Bog Roll Brawl: 3
Hidden Martyrs: 2
Breakthrough: 1

Guild: 6
Bog Roll Brawl: 3
Hidden Martyers: 2
Breakthrough: 1

Post Match Thoughts
Congratulations to my opponent for a great and tight game. A well deserved tie. My biggest mistake, by far, was picking up a Strategy Marker with the Huckster, allowing my opponent to shoot her down and drop it in their Deployment Zone for an easy second Strategy point. I think I might have played Desper too aggressively in Turn 1 but ultimately I managed to score both Hidden Martyrs points.

Bog Roll Musings
Both me and my opponent really enjoyed the Strategy and it posed some interesting choices in whether to run back to our own Deployment Zones to score points or chase down the other player's models to deny them. I think we will come back to this Strategy in a few games' time, probably with different Masters and at 50ss.