5/11/2015

Game Night 5.6.15 and an Update

Hello All,

Hope that everyone is doing well.  I have some good stuff for everyone today I think – since our last talk anyway.  It has been a busy week with gaming and life in general, what with Mother’s Day and all this past weekend.  So, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what happened since last post.

Thursday – 4.30.15

The day after last post’s subject day, I went down to the other local games store like I usually do, armed with nothing more than Twilight Struggle.  My friend and I sat down to play it as he had never been able to play the number one game on BGG for a few years running (at this point in time).  We had an absolute blast, and the fickle hand of fate dealt me my losing hand that game.  We were forced to score both Central and South America in one turn of the game – separate rounds of the turn, but same turn – which caused my opponent to win on turn 6 or 7.  Rough way to end an otherwise very tense game.  I almost had complete control of Europe, I dominated Africa, and had a foothold in Asia, but the control of Asia, scoring almost all of the points for S.E. Asia, and nearly dominating all of the Americas meant that the U.S.S.R would go on to win the day.  An absolutely fantastic game, and one that every collector should have in their library.

At some point in the future, I will run an article in the game play of Twilight Struggle and some of the awesome things that can happen, but that will have to wait for another day.

Down time – 5.1 through 5.5.15

The time between game days always seems to mesh together in an amalgamation of work, painting, working out, and talking to friends and family.  This week, it was much of the same.  However, I did manage to get my (2) Beckoners, Doppelganger, and – FINALLY – finished painting my Brutal Effigy.  I am very excited to have that model done with – probably my least favorite model I have painted for Malifaux out of all of them.  The most important happening for tabletop came in the mail sometime during this period – and a new addiction came with it.  I have really been wanting to get back into playing Zoraida lately, as she is a really cool control master.  I like how she can take various “dumb” models of WP 4 or lower, which lead me to think “hey, aren’t gremlins, like, all WP 3?”  The answer is no, most of them are not.  But Pere Ravage, Raphael LaCroix, and Rami LaCroix are.  And so The Kin and Burt Jebson were ordered with haste.  And now I have Gremlins, just like that.  I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t excited to get my grubby mitts all over those models.  However, I haven’t been able to get them build and primed due to time constraints lately, but I will get to them eventually.  I was hoping to have them done for a tournament this coming weekend, but it seems that I will not be able to attend the tournament, so it went down the list of importance by a few pegs.  I think wrapping up the last few Neverborn models takes the cake as the next order of business for my painting days – which I may not have time for as school is getting ready to start back up again.  Iggy, (3) Depleted, Ama No Zako, and Lazarus are on the short list of things to get done in the next few painting sessions, and then trying to get some paint on all of the models that I can use with Zoraida – Pere, Rami, and Raphael.  After that, the final things to paint will be the Viktorias, Tara, and the remaining Ophelia box set.  I think that it will be time to grab Jacob Lynch after that, and then Brewmaster and Lucius will be on deck at some point.

Game Nights – 5.6.15 and 5.7.15

All of this brings us to game nights.  Wednesday Malifaux day was a huge success as always, featuring something along the lines of 4 or 5 games going on at once.  We recently started a henchman hardcore league, where you must take 4 models – including your henchman – for 20SS, and run through games with nothing but modified turf war and assassinate in the pool.  I ran against my Arcanist playing friend, who brought Cassandra, Angelica, Willie, and a Blessed of December to the game.  I brought Bad Juju with eternal fiend, Mr. Tannen, Mr. Graves, and a base of gupps.  Honestly, it went terrible.  Graves and Tannen got beat down in the first turns of the game, and then Bad Juju put the hurt on until he was killed and buried.  And then we called it because my opponent wasn’t going to kill the gupps to release Juju again, and there was nothing I could do to score points.  6-1 Cassandra over Bad Juju.

The real Malifaux game of the day was what ended up being the highlight of the night.  I played against my buddy again, only this time I brought out Collodi against his Colette.  We were playing a Gaining Grounds 2015 strategy – Informant.  Basically the moving Turf War.  I took cursed object and power ritual to accompany it.  My crew consisted of:

Collodi
-          -  Props
-          -  Strum
Widow Weaver
Teddy
(2) Marionettes
Brutal Effigy
Lucky Effigy
(2) Depleted
Beckoner

The plan with the crew was to run the depleted up the board with the beckoner and take the informant, and then have Teddy and Widow Weaver play bodyguard against whatever came towards them.  Collodi, the effigies, and the marionettes would run around and claim power ritual and cursed objects.  My opponent took:

Colette
Cassandra
Angelica
Mechanical Rider
(3) Doves
(2) Soulstone Miners

Game ended after turn 4 – shop was closing and we had to roll out.  It ended 7-6 Collodi.  Great game that just seemed to fire on all cylinders.  Collodi didn’t even do much aside from chase off some doves.  Mostly the game came down to management of models and not getting carried away.  The depleted and beckoner stood around the center of the table with the informant and dared anyone to come and take it away from them.  Teddy was one attack away from eviscerating Cassandra in one go.  Widow Weaver went around and paralyzed a soulstone miner and handed it a cursed object.  A mechanical dove swooped in and blew up the soulstone miner.  A single marionette survived the mechanical rider and a summoned metal gamin attacking it in one of my opponent’s corners for power ritual to go off.  All in all, we had a great and close game.  It came down to the wire, and we had to count up VP three times to make sure we got the result right, as it looked like Colette had won.  Managing the central objective for the whole game, plus getting a revealed Power ritual off, and a single point for cursed object all game against his full point breakthrough and full point power ritual was all that separated us.  If he had gone for the central objective instead of worrying about dealing with my Teddy, depleted, and beckoner in the center, he would have won the game.  However, he admitted that he didn’t have the tools to effectively deal with that mosh pit.  His only heavy hitter was really Cassy, and she was busy chasing after Widow Weaver, so he avoided the center rather than force his way into the center without the proper tools.  Great game over all, and really looking forward to getting models on the table with my buddies here in Atlanta for the last time until this August. 

Thursday signified board game and chill night.  My buddies ran some people through some X-Wing, and we set up Five Tribes to run through, but didn’t get a chance to.  We did get to play Hanabi with some new folk, Yardmaster – finally after owning it for the better part of half a year – and Bang! The Dice Game.  That was a good time.  All of those are great little pocket games to keep around with you while you are out and about or in the car so that you have something to do if you are ever bored.  All in all it was a good night of board gaming fun. 


Since then, there has been non-stop action in the form of Shaky Knees Music Festival, Frank Turner Concerts, Mother’s Day, and getting ready to hit the dusty trail back to Auburn for summer classes.  This week will mark the last Malifaux Wednesday and Board Game Thursday until this coming August, and so the posts will more than likely slow down here in the next few weeks as school ramps up into speed mode.  So, if this is my last post until August, I hope that you all get some great gaming in and have plenty of hobby time.  Happy Gaming!

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