Gremlin guy's demo

[Gremlin guy]

Malifaux demo: 25 SS brawl

I had set up a Malifaux demo at my LGS, arrived an hour early, and picked out my crews and started picking terrain. Originally I was going to demo Som'er vs Nico. However, I still don't have hog whisperers, so I decided to go with a 25ss Marcus vs Collodi with me playing Marcus.

For the terrain, I wanted a ruined city that turned into Forrest and other natural terrain, with Collodi in the ruins and Marcus in the trees.

Terrain set up: ruined buildings into forest

Crew 1 (27 ss cost with 5 ss left)

Collodi ( henchman 7) total 32 ss available

4 marionettes (8 ss)

3 wicked dolls (9 ss)

2 stitched together (10 ss)

Strategy: destroy evidence

Schemes: breakthrough, bodyguard

Crew 2 (22 ss cost with 7 ss left)

Marcus ( cache 4)

Myranda (7 ss)

Sabertooth Cerebus (8ss)

Razorspine rattler (7ss)

Strategy: distract

Schemes: power ritual, sabotage

While setting up, a father an son came in for the demo. The son was a 40k player but had seen me play malifaux and wanted to come in for the demo. Since he's not old enough to drive, his father brings him in and waits.

Before turn 1, I spent about an hour and a half going over some basic rules, The stats on the cards, and the different action types. I won the flip for setup, which was good because I could show how placement is done.

Around this time, another guy came for the demo. I offered to let him play Marcus, but he just wanted to watch. During the game, he bought Perdita's box set.

Collodi won initiative and I helped my opponent by showing him how Collodi and his marionettes could activate to get to one of the evidence tokens with Collodi and 2 marionettes activating, and using doll friend to activate a wicked doll after Collodi and his marionettes. I wasn't sure if the marionettes or the wicked should go after Collodi, but since the ability to activate the marionettes said immediately and doll friend just said after, I went with the marionettes going before the wicked. I let him control the activation for the other 2 marionettes and the wicked and he was able to destroy the second evidence token, earning 1 vp in round 1 before I could activate any models.

I activated the rattler, and started power ritual in the corner, then walked. By the end of the turn, I had myranda engaged with 2marionettes with 2wicked dolls in charge range, 2 corners of power ritual were complete, with the Rattler and Marcus headed to the opposite side to finish it. Myranda was engaged with a marionette and a wicked, and saber tooth was engaged with Collodi and a marionette.

At the end of the turn, my opponent decided Malifaux wasn't for him and got a game of 40k going. My Opponents dad, who usually just reads while his son plays 40k, decided Malifaux was a game for him and took over. I think it may have helped that the other guy watching and I are about the same age as him.

Turn 2 I got initiative. Saber tooth planned on using his 3headed to kill the marionette close to Collodi, and then make Collodi spend his SS to avoid the rest of the attacks. I had nothing higher than an 8 in my control hand, with most of it being 2s and 5s, but I was fairly confident in the saber tooth.

First attack draws an ace, with marionette drawing a 13 defense.

Second attack draws another ace with marionette drawing a 10.

Third attack draws a 2 with M drawing a 12. The fourth attack drew a red joker and got a positive flip for damage! Damage cards drawn were a 13 severe, and... A black joker.

Collodi and the 2 marionettes within 6 activated and killed the saber tooth, but he did use a few ss to do it.

The rest of the turn had myranda killing a marionette, then getting reduced to 2 wounds by wicked dolls (red joker on damage) and a marionette and getting a poison token from the marionette in base contact with wicked. Marcus, killed the wicked near myranda that hadn't activated, and the rattler changed focus and did his 1action charge to engage the marionette and Collodi.

Turns 3and four were mostly Collodi summoning marionettes to replace the ones I was killing, myranda and all the wicked dolls dying.

On turn 5, Collodi was standing on his last evidence marker with 1 severly wounded marionette near, the two stitched where struggling through severe terrain, still on their side of the board. Rattler was down to 6 wds and standing next to Marcus, both about 3 inches away from Collodi. My plan was to win initiative, with a ss if necessary, turn Collodi into a beast and Aplha him, making him double walk away from the evidence marker. The marionette was engaged with Marcus and the tiger so he would have to pass 2disengaging strikes if he wanted to destroy evidence with it.

Initiative, I flip a 10 and he flips a 2! Collodi uses his last ss to refill initiative, which is usually a bad choice, and not great odds vs a 10. Collodi refills the red joker!

Collodi and his marionette activate with Collodi destroying evidence, and breathing life for Melee expert. Collodi then walked, and attacked Marcus, flipping the black joker, Marcus remained unharmed.

Rattler activated and took out the marionette triggering lightning quick, and pushed 6 inches away towards terrain for sabotage, which was on the way to the corner for power ritual. the corner we needed for power ritual.

The stitched were out of sever terrain, but only was was in position to do anything other than move toward breakthrough. The stitched gambled his life against the rattler and lost, taking moderate damage. Marcus activated, setting down Myrana's purse, and casting his 0 spell cheating a tome for 3 effects! I chose tiger, eagle and bear and used the tiger 0 action to attack, cheating and stoning up to a 25. With a positive damage flip, I flipped a 13 and red joker. The plus damage was a weak. Then with the remaining attacks, Marcus killed Collodi, ruining the bodyguard scheme.

Turn 6, the snake killed the stitched and triggered lightning again to avoid the rotten parts, most out of Los and towards the power ritual. Unfortunately, he didn't have the movement to get close enough.

The 1st stitched moved into Los of the rattler and gambled your life again, losing again. The other stitched moved into Marcus' deployment zone with Marcus moving back to his deployment zone, well away from the stitched, ruining breakthrough.

Final score was Marcus 6 (4 for distract, 2 for sabotage), Collodi 4 (destroy evidence)

The real final score, however, was me winning for having a successful demo, two other people winning, for finding the joy of malifaux, and the game store winning for selling a Perdita's box set, a Collodi box set and blister of stitched togethers, and a rule book to the dad of my original opponent.

The game did bring up a few questions, but I'll post those in the rules forum.

---------- Post added at 11:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:15 AM ----------

Ooh and it looks like my henchman application was approved!

[BC3]

Awesome work.

[Gremlin guy]

Thanks!

[Jonasty]

Excellent demo write up! One suggestion I'd have is to try and acquire one of the "simple" crew starters like Justice, Lillith, etc. Glad to hear the dad got sucked in as thoroughly as he did but one of the things that might have turned off Jr. was the complexity of the Puppetmaster. Obviously he's no Pandora or Levi but Collodi could still be a bit of a deep end toss for a new player just learning whether he likes the game or not. Especially for a 40K vet who is used to just throwing minis at each other.

Otherwise this was an awesome writeup and a good demo.

[Gremlin guy]

I think my girlfriend will kill me if I buy another box set in the near future. I started in February and ring now I have Ophelia, Som'er, Leveticus, Nicodim, Molly, Lucious, Collodi, Zoraida, Pandora, and Marcus (plus extra models). Maybe after I finish painting the ones I have though.

[Jonasty]

Yeah I understand that one! My wife rolls her eyes now every time I get a package in the mail. They're not as expensive as other games (looking at you, 40K) or PS3 games so I manage to skate by under that reasoning lol.

My first crews were similar in their complexity when I first became a Henchman, started with Dreamer and Colette. Those were some rough demos to run. Actually looking at your list, Ophelia isn't too bad a crew to start someone off with. Pretty straight forward gunline approach, not too many crazy if/then situations they'd have to worry about.