Fresh Ham: A Redemption Tale

[Kalkris]

Hey all, this is a little story I wanted to write out, just on a whim. I'm not looking to get heavy criticism (although it's always nice to receive input), due to its nature. It's not your average, orthodox Malifaux tale because it takes place here, and now. It's about a Master who was scorned for sheer power's sake, and how he got a second chance at redeeming himself. It is also about a Henchman who once loved that Master, but after countless failed encounters with him, threw him aside for others, and how he learned that second chances were invaluable lessons for life. So, without further ado, I give you:

Fresh Ham: A Redemption Tale

by Josh Nelson

I loved tokens.

Not *token* tokens, mind you. I was never a fan of regionally-useful (or regionally-useless) coinage, good for a trip to God-knows-where, No-Man's-Land. I was always a Metrocard man myself, hailing from New York City.

But I loved tokens. I was an avid player of the game Magic: the Gathering from around age 11, and loved producing cards which weren't *actually* cards. Goodness knows why. By the time I got to college, I had in my possession a number of decks which revolved around the production of countless creatures, and ways to pump those creatures up to ridiculous sizes so they could kill any player who opposed their daddy.

As time went on, however, Magic got rather stale, and I found myself in the need for other, more challenging and fruitful venues with which to challenge my wit. This is how I found another game, a game which, if one is not familiar with the tabletop-gaming genre, one would not have ever heard about (unlike Warhammer, which seems to be rather popular - and popularly criticized). On the flipside, if one has familiarity with tabletop gaming, one might have heard of Malifaux. This is the game which to this day I play.

At first, I was drawn in by the aesthetics. Each steampunk-inspired model is supplied disassembled and unpainted; I was to be dealing with blank canvases of pewter (and eventually resin and plastic). I could paint my models however I wanted, and, being an artist, this thrilled me.

After long enough, I came around to being taught Malifaux by a local Henchman at my college's gaming club. I learned the basics of the game, such as how its randomization factors differed from other war games, and how this game could be conceived as anything but a war game (with the objective strategy called Slaughter notwithstanding). I bought myself my first box (Hoffman, who at this moment is under the ownership of a dear friend of mine, and whom I'd never painted) and got to playing with a pal of mine (incidentally the aforementioned dear friend) who had gotten a box of Freikorps. I promptly got my behind handed to me.

I knew Hoffman wasn't a proper fit for me at that point, despite his super-cool Construct pals. I needed a Master who would strike true terror into my friend's very soul and make him shiver where he stood.

The next time I was at the local gaming store where I bought Hoffman, I spoke with a few regulars about overpowered Masters. It seemed that many Masters who were among the strongest also had the highest learning curves. I couldn't help but be distracted by the display the store had, featuring their Malifaux product.

Suddenly, one of the boxes caught my eye.

I went and grabbed the box, bringing it to the player who was lecturing me about good-versus-bad Masters to start with, and his eyes widened.

"You're not *seriously* thinking of playing him, are you?" he inquired.

"A-yup." I nodded eagerly.

"Well, that's your decision and I won't stop you. Just know that you're gonna have a very hard time playing with him for a very long time," responded the man. "Let's see how you do. We'll play a 25 soulstone demo and we'll see if you can handle him."

That was the first time I ever played using Hamelin the Plagued, and boy oh boy, did I have it rough!

As I mentioned before, I love making tokens. The analog to token production in Malifaux is the summoning of models from outside your starting Crew. By that notion, I suppose I would have been better suited to play Resurrectionists, or even Leveticus if I was to challenge myself, but, as I said before, I am an artist and have a flair for certain aesthetics. As it stood, the Pied Piper of Hamelin was (and still is) one of my favorite childhood stories, and the Black Plague is one of my favorite Wikipedia binge-topics. I couldn't let a summoner slash Pied-Piper of Plague out of my grasp.

So, after long enough, I had my first few games with Hamelin - all losses. I figure it must have been because I was just starting out, since Hamelin had such a reputation of broken plays, but the more I played, the less faithful I was in the model and its capabilities.

I had a whole summer to simmer over multiple losses with the Piper. I did not have anyone to play while on break, so I let it go for a bit, but when school rolled around alongside Gencon, a game convention in which Wyrd Games (the makers of Malifaux) often unveil new products, I found myself tempted by other, newer possibilities.

Once being an avid Magic player, I knew the ins and outs of power-creep, so I figured that getting a newer box set such as Dark Debts (a box with a card-shark under the control of a manifestation of the darkness) would work in my favor. Luckily for me, the store where I frequented had the whole ensemble of the Dark Debts box. I bought everything I could, and began to play using that. I still lost, but the games were far more fun for me because I was doing even better than I had been with Hamelin.

Meanwhile, Hamelin went by the wayside. I still wanted to use him, but I didn't know how. By this time I also had his Avatar (a souped-up version of Hamelin), the Avatar of Contagion, and everything I had for Hamelin was painted up (that is to say, his box and the Avatar). Sadly, that paintjob didn’t see much daylight while I reveled in the idea of the Neverborn faction (one of the groups that card-shark was affiliated with).

Eventually, my interest in the Neverborn grew, and I bought another crew – Pandora, a being of legends, known for that infamous snafu with a certain box of horrors. I soon learned every trick I needed to with Pandora, and grew even more detached from my first pewter flame.

All the while, my friend who had the Freikorps box had decided he would learn the ropes of the Guild (another faction, one of gunslingers and fighters). When he got fed up with them, he decided to do something I would never have expected. He took up Hamelin himself. And, heck, he was very good with him, abusing every trick he had, to my knowledge. Fortunately I was able to work against this with certain objectives I could set so that I could one-up my pal at his own game. Still, I hadn’t won a game and that was getting to me. I decided I needed to force myself to learn better strategy in this game, while expanding my own collection. This is partly why I became a Henchman.

My planning to become a Henchman began with my purchase of every Ten Thunders faction piece (or those compatible with the Masters involved). These pieces were new and as such, they’d be good to teach new players with, as well as be a good insight into the other factions due to their own attributes.

Somewhere along the way, I decided to put Hamelin far to the wayside and give him to my friend. After all, he never painted models, and what harm would giving him painted models do? I also had a bit of a debt to him, so that patched things up nicely.

While awaiting my application’s result, I had been looking onto the Wyrd Games forums, because somewhere along the lines, somebody (or multiple people) must have complained about my old buddy Hamelin and the higher-ups were bound to knock him down a few pegs in terms of power level. Honestly, the old Hamelin slowed games down immensely, which was a problem for other players. I saw this first-hand when my friend made half of the first round of the game take over an hour by himself.

So, soon enough, there was an update on the status of the rules regarding Hamelin, and there was much rejoicing. Granted, my friend was not all too pleased with the update, but everybody still felt it was fair and warranted. And, wouldn’t you know it – after that, I got my Henchman confirmation e-mail! All was rather right with the world, or so it seemed.

I still had my Avatar Hamelin figure, and it still sits on my desk. I have been staring at it intently as of late, as if I longed for the days when I kept losing with the Master I truly felt was best to begin this game with. I realize now that I got better by playing this game with Hamelin to start out, and while I’m still not the best player, I still do fairly well.

I knew that my friend also happened to have a spare Hamelin figure, unpainted and disassembled and everything. I told him about my thoughts on the update, and how it might be a good time to revisit the Master, and he gave the piece to me. I take this gift as a challenge to myself. I want to start anew – I will get all of Hamelin’s pieces fresh and unpainted, paint them, and field them as my own Crew. I am doing this for me, for my friend, and for nostalgia. And I’ll be damned if revisiting Hamelin at this point in time is considered a bad idea, because such an interesting character deserves attention.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Kalkris