Cincinnati Tournament

[LoboStele]

So we had our second Malifaux tournament this past Sunday afternoon at Art Of War Miniatures and Gaming in Cincinnati, OH. Only had 4 players show up, though several people said they couldn't make it due to working.

Anyways, of those 4 players, 3 of us were running Arcanists, lol. 4th player had Outcasts, and was running Levi.

I was jazzed for this event to get a chance to try out my Raspy crews a bit more.

We also were using the 'Gaining Grounds' format that the henchman are playtesting right now, to see what needs to be tweaked before it is released as 'official' tournament rules. Build total was 35 SS

So, the first game was against Nick and his favorite, Ramos.

My crew consisted of Raspy, Essence, Kaeris (proxies were allowed), a 2nd Essence, Silent One, December Acolyte, and 2 Gamin, for a cache of 7 SS. His crew had Ramos, Mobile Toolkit, Steamborg Executioner, Joss, and 4 Arachnids. Our playing table was set up much like the center of town. Had mostly buildings around the edges, with a tower in the middle. So most of the action happened around that tower. We had Shared Contain Power for our Strategy. He took Bodyguard and Assassinate (Raspy) for Schemes, while I did Bodyguard on both Raspy/Kaeris, and a good thing too! The game played out mostly with Nick charging his forces, and me furiously trying to defend myself. I made a bone-headed move early on though, and his Steamborg charged my Silent One, then proceded to flip a Red Joker on damage, and one-shot killed it. The worst part was, I had Raspy and Kaeris with their totems stacked right behind the Silent One, so I lost BOTH totems due to shatter. From there, I was forced to pummel the Steamborg and got some nice, and fairly lucky flips with the Acolyte and my Gamin. Thank God for the Steamborg's low Df, lol. Joss came in close next, and Kaeris was able to really light things up thanks to her trigger. By the time I finally finished off those two in my face, the Spider swarms (which there were 2 of them now) were in my face. When the time limit for the round ended, we had actually only played through 3 rounds, but I only had Raspy, Kaeris, and the Acolyte left, while Nick only had Ramos and the Mobile Toolkit, lol. So, I won 4-3 VP

Second round was against Mike, who just started playing Levi and was just getting the hang of him. I flipped 'Get the Stuff!' for my Strategy (which, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, you have to interact with 3 different markers, at least twice, and you get points based on a card you flip), while Mike got Slaughter. So, knowing that I needed some fast movement to interact with all the Markers, I decided to go with a Crew led by Colette, and the typical Cassandra, 2x Coryphee, 2x Performers, and 2x Mannequins. Mike started off his crew with Alyce, Ryle, Cannine Remains, and 4 Steampunk Abominations. In the first round, I spread out my forces, working toward the Power Ritual Scheme (which is so easy with Colette's crew). However, Mike chose to allow Levi to get killed in the first round, in his effort to put 2 Waifs on the table. And because I had already used Dance Partner with Cassandra/Coryphees, I had the Duet half-way across the table, and only about 15" from his first Waif. So, rather than just doing the Interacts for Power Ritual and the Strategy, I figured I would take a leap and try to keep Levi out of the game. So my Coryphee Duet dashed across the field, and took out 1 Waif, then moved to the 2nd Waif and killed it as well, eliminating Levi from the table in Round 1. Mike conceded at that point, as he wanted to get some food, rather than play the rest of his game without his Master. So I got the full VPs of 9 for that game.

Last game was against Bryan, but due to low VPs in his first two games, even if he won this game with 8 VP, I still would have won the tournament (VP's first, then wins for ties). So, we sort of decided to play for fun, with Raspy against Raspy. He had Slaughter, while I pulled Contain power. I ran the same squad as Round 1, except with both Silent Ones instead of the Acolyte. He ran Raspy, Essence, Silent One, Hans, Convict Gunslinger, and 2 Gamin. This game turned into a hilarious shooting gallery of dropping Ice Pillars (8 on the table at one point), shooting Ice Pillars, and dropping Flame Pillars from time to time as well. I mis-estimated my distances twice and came up about a 1/4" short, LOL. In the end though, he kept too many of his pieces bunched together, and when I was finally able to get LOS and range from one of my Silent Ones on one of his Gamin, and I was sitting on 4 :masks cards (7,8,9, and 12) in my hand...yeah, Raspy went to town. I wiped a Gamin, Hans, and the Essence, and put some decent damage on the Silent One and the other Gamin as well. We called the game after Round 4 or 5, when all he had left was Raspy and the Silent One, while all I had lost was a Gamin.

So I pulled off a total of 17 VPs for the tournament.

A few things we noted though....

Raspy is not suited for Contain Power, lol, especially if the opponent is running a Caster or Summoning Master, and they have no incentive to get close enough for you to attack them. So, I think in the future, if I flip Contain Power any more, I will definitely be playing either Ramos or Colette.

Power Ritual is somewhat Cheap as an allowed Scheme. The 'Gaining Ground' tournament rules have some basic Schemes included (like Assassinate, Bodyguard, etc.), but says that Master/Faction specific schemes are up to the tournament organizer's discretion. There are very few ways to rack up 9 VPs, and hardly any crews can do it as reliably as Colette with Power Ritual. So, thinking that perhaps this one would be restricted from use in the future. If you want an Arcanist specific one, then Sabotage is still fairly easy in many cases.