Age of Sigmar? I need a Keg

Hello all, Sinscaptain here to talk about the elephant in the room – Age of Sigmar – as well as some general hobby updates and all the regular jazz.

Hold on to your butts, it’s going to be a long ride.

I’d like to open by saying that this article has been difficult to write.  I am, for the most part, a very opinionated person when it comes to my selection of gaming ventures.  I have toned myself down considerably from the flaming rhetoric that this blog used to be, but every once in a while, that still peaks out from behind the cage it is locked away in.

Today may turn into one of those days.

For those of you that live without regular access to the outside world, Warhammer Fantasy has been replaced rather explosively by Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.  Contrary to what rumors were making the rounds for the past 6+ months, there is no 9th edition coming.  We have our Games Workshop fantasy game, and it is Sigmar.

A little background before we delve fully into the new world that is Age of Sigmar.  I have been a fantasy player for about 5 years total.  Now, I realize that this is not as long as some of you old beards, but I have played through all that was 8th edition - highs and lows, triumph and defeat, etc etc.  It was a damn good time.  I managed to sway about 6-7 people to play WHF during that time, and we all had a blast.  Some of my fondest wargaming memories are of my Skaven going ballistic or turning tail and running for the hills.  My preferences have always been for regimental combat, magic, and my ratmen.  

The End Times were an exciting proposition for me, as I might be able to sway even more people into the Fantasy fold.  However, that didn't come to fruition, but I still got the ride of a lifetime reading those books, or listening to Garagehammer talk through them. Sure there were odd rules that started to pop up in the later books, but people were still enjoying the fluff and reading about the war to end all wars in Fantasy.  What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, right.

They could blow up the entire world.  Which they did.

So, what comes next?  Age of Sigmar!  Sigmar, god-king of the Empire holds onto a shard of reality, baddabing he gets rescued by a giant dragon in spaaaaace!!! And then makes a new set of worlds yo.  Then, Chaos starts to sneak back in, and so Sigmar throws up some deuces and locks himself in the Realm of Azyr and parties hard with his bros for a couple centuries.

Fast forward to the Realm of Fire, where cannibal Khorne bros are enslaving ALL of the people making a huge pyramid when WHAMO!  

Yes, weep mere mortals!  The Stormcast Eternals of Sigmar are here with hammers and thunder, deepstriking in on bolts of magical lightning!

So, these bros are pretty cool, honestly.  They have hammers, swords, shields, BIGGER hammers, dual wielding hammers, BIG swords, crossbolters, pixie elfie bows, and giant cat dragon lizard things.  Overall, every badass thing in the book, with a dash of 40k and entirely too few hammers thrown in.

It's hammertime baby.

Oh, and there's some Khorne guys too yo.

Again, these are some cool models.  All of these, models come in the new Age of Sigmar starter box which features the Khorne Goretide against the Stormcast Eternals of Sigmar in the first installment of the Realmgate wars.  $125 grabs you a nice selection of models to get the game going.

"Game you say?  Tell me about it sinscaptain!"

I will dear friend!

Age of Sigmar has 4 pages of rules, which is nice considering Warhammer Fantasy 8th had something more like a gazzillion pages.  Scientifically proven.

So, 4 pages of FREEEEEEEEEEE rules, heres the skinny:

• No more points or army selection rules - there are some unofficial army comp rules making the rounds, but most people either go by model count or wound count to organize battles.
• Initiative rolls at the start of every turn.
• Models can move, shoot, and charge all in the same turn.  They can shoot into and out of combats without consequences.
• Everyone takes battleshock tests at the end of the turn, which are similar to the old rules for undead moral tests.  However many you fail by is how many models you pull out.  So, D6 + Dead models for the turn - Bravery = # extra models that die.  
• Every game, at the moment, is all about killing all of your enemies models.
• Magic is dumbed down to every wizard knowing 2 spells plus 1 unique spell for flavor, and all tests are done on 2D6 trying to beat a number.  Enemy wizards within 18" may attempt to dispell.
• If you choose to play with 1/3 less models then your opponent, you can pick a sudden death objective to try and beat by 6 turns in order to win.

Thats pretty much all of the main points.  Every army has received "War scrolls" for each unit - for FREEEEEEEEEE - to use until they update "all" of the armies to Age of Sigmar.  They have all the info you need, including the static to hit and to wound rolls that you need - that's right: static TH and TW rolls.  A goblin hits Nagash just as well as he hits a skaven slave.  Kinda weird, but speeds up the game nicely.

I've linked the page to all of the rules and war scrolls everytime you see FREEEEEEE.

WHAT DO I THINK?

So, now to the *brief* editorial on what I think this all means.

I am split.  Part of me, the huge fan of Warhammer 8th Edition and regiments, movement trays, ridiculous magic phases, etc etc?  That part of me hates this game.  It is NOT Warhammer Fantasy.  It is some cruel joke by Games Workshop.  It's a dumbed down version of Warhammer 40k take what you want, unbalanced, polarizing, "spread a single line of guys in a line and march em across the table" BS, where everyone wants to be Tau with a bigger gun.  The rumors swirling about Slaanesh being abducted or forced off of his throne makes me livid.  Grrrrr.

The other, more rational and understanding part of me thinks that this game is great.  It does everything that we wanted for Warhammer Fantasy - reduces time constraints, barrier for entry money wise, reduces complexity, moves the story forward, lets everyone get what they want from the game, and overall makes for an enjoyable gaming experience.  This will be absolutely fantastic for getting new players into the game and having a blast with beer n' pretzels.  

We've already gained 3 new fantasy players because of Age of Sigmar, including Matte himself.  Life is good, man.  

Overall, I would give Age of Sigmar a solid 6.5 out of 10 on the wargaming scale.  It's better than your average game, but it doesn't quite feel like a solid replacement for Warhammer 8th.  Of course, I reserve the right to change my opinion as we get more games in and more books/models are released.  But overall, make an informed decision for yourself.  Don't be that asshole who burnt his entire collection.  People like that make us ALL look like Neanderthals.  We don't need to be nerd ragers.  We need to be united in the hobby, even though we have differing views of how the game should have come out.

Basically, it boils down to this:  be adults, make a decision, and don't be an ass about your choice on the internet.  Otherwise, Papa Nurgle will come to get you!

"Neeeeeeeerd rage feeds meeeeeee, hur hur hur"

 So, the title reads that I need a Keg....

I'VE GOT ONE!

Meet my converted Soju Golem for Malifaux.  The regular model didn't much catch my fancy, but I didn't want to shell out for the Nightmare Whiskey Golem, so I gave him a staff and a little bit of character to the face with some eyebrows, and boom.  Done.  Just need to throw some paint on him and Brewie will have an angry robot kegger to throw.

In addition to the Soju Golem, I built Yin for 10T Brewmaster, and for my incoming Yan Lo crew.  Toshiro will be painted up to go with the Yan Lo crew as well.  I also built a Tuco from the male TTB kit, just because I figured that he would be fun to have.  

Well folks, hope that this little article will hold you over until I can get some pictures of my Brewmaster crew up - painted by Matte for me.  They look absolutely fantastic, so I cannot wait to show them off.  I will attempt to get some pictures of the swamp board in progress, as well as any games of Age of Sigmar or Malifaux that are played this week.

So, my minions, go forth and game!  Until next time, this is Sinscaptain signing off.

Bayou, Banjaxing, and Bloody Sigmar

Ahhh, welcome younglings - 'tis I, Sinscaptain!  Back with another Malifaux Thursday battle report update, a Brewmaster spotlight (or atleast initial impressions), a project my gaming group is getting ready to work on, and some rumblings and thoughts on the Age of Sigmar for Warhammer Fantasy!  Lots to get through today, so lets get started.

So yesterday I was able to snag our regular weekly match of Malifaux.  Unfortunately, I have already broken the streak for taking lots of pictures, and the other members of our gaming group were occupied giving demos or playing, so there is a lack of pictures this time that is unfortunate as we had an absolutely lovely table provided by Matte to play on.

50SS Standard/Gaining Grounds Encounter

Strategy:  Headhunter

Schemes:  ALitS, Plant Explosives, Vendetta, Assassinate, Breakthrough

Flank Deployment

Sinscaptain's Drunken Company

Brewmaster [3SS Cache]

+ Binge

+ Hold Their Hair Back

+ Running Tab

Fingers

+ Drinking "Problem"

+ Dirty Cheater

Moon Shinobi

Moon Shinobi

Moon Shinobi

Apprentice Wesley

Merris LaCroix

Wild Boar

Sinscaptain's Schemes:  ALitS (Revealed) and Breakthrough (Revealed)

<AUsome Friend>

Pandora [~ Cache]

+ 2-3 upgrades

Candy

+ upgrade

Baby Kade

+ upgrade

Teddy 

Sorrow

Sorrow

Poltergeist

<AUsome Friend> Schemes:  Assassinate and Plant Explosives

My thoughts on taking this crew for these schemes was that Fingers and a Shinobi would be able to run off and throw down some markers wherever the enemy wasn't headed, while the other Shinobi, Brewmaster, Merris, and the Boar were meant to stop any kind of schemes from my opponent, as well as go after any heads they can get.  

Game went great!  Since I was just learning Brewmaster and my opponent was playing his 4th game of Malifaux, we only got to turn 5 before we called it.  He did manage to kill both Wesley and Brewmaster so that he earned his full assassinate points before turn 4, but not before Brewmaster threw down 6 poison on Pandora and brought her down to a single health so that she'd die to poison.  I only managed to snag 2 heads the whole game, but that was about the same as Pandora and Co.  Plant Explosives ended up being difficult for Pandora to get since I spread my crew out quite a bit, while I managed to sling both a Shinobi and Fingers through the middle - while laying scheme markers for LitS - and get to the deployment zone for some Breakthrough goodness on the last turn. With all of that, I managed to snag 8 points in the game to his 6 - he had 2 heads, full assassinate points, and a single explosive marker go off. 

Like many headhunter games, it was more cat and mouse than anything this game, which means there usually isn't much killing.  Had I been playing Collodi or Zoraida, there would have been more pulling and luring to get heads.  However, Matte has been painting Brewie up to look beautiful on the table, so I had to give him a try - and I love him.  Probably the most cinematic point in the game was Brewmaster and Pandora going at it, which I imagine would have been Brewmaster smacking Pandora around with his bamboo pole while she tried to summon up sorrows to defend her and attack Brewie. Overall, a great learning game for both of us.  I am really looking forward to getting some more games in with Brewmaster to get the hang of him completely.

Brewmaster.

A Gremlin from beyond the misty mountains, Brewmaster has risen in prominence among the denizens of the Bayou for his many variety of Moonshine that he brings with him.  His loyal band of Drunken Kung Fu masters follow him out of sheer alcohol dependence and loyalty.  Many of the other Bosses know that to stand against the Brewmaster would be foolish, as their own boys might turn against him in order to get some of the Brewmaster's glorious 'shine.

This guy is dual faction Gremlins and Ten Thunders with key words "Gremlin" and "Tri-Chi", which is what all of the models from the Closing Time box set are at this point.  Brewmaster is an amalgamation of control master and condition distribution master.  His main condition is of course poison, which he can dish out a kegger of to everyone at arms length.  He also has means to reduce the enemies effectiveness with abilities to make negative flips to all duels for an enemy.  His upgrades give him a slew of other options for dishing out conditions and ending the effectiveness of enemy models through paralyzed.  

I really think that the main focus of a Brewmaster crew is to shut down an enemy and make sure that your models can get where they need to go so that they can complete schemes and strats while the enemy deals with negative flips, poison, and paralyzed.  This makes him a master that, from now on, probably wont see action in many of the killing strats (reckoning, headhunter, or collect the bounty) just because his crew really isn't as good at dealing strait damage to people.  They are great for running around and having schemes, but for the most part I think that killing still belongs firmly in the camp of Ophelia for my Gremlins.  

For what to take with Brewmaster, I will probably always take Fingers and Apprentice Wesley - being able to come back from death makes Wesley invaluable, while Fingers is a premier scheme runner and can hold his own against those that would take him down.  He is a little steep in the SS department, weighing in at two and a half piglets in cost, but I think that he is well worth the cost.  Other than that, I really do enjoy the Moon Shinobi, who can deal a respectable amount of damage with the right modifiers since they make all negative flips positive flips and vice versa.  Merris was a great addition to the crew for her Flaming Bottle attack and the fact that she can discard a card to drop a scheme marker.  However, I may drop her and definitely the Wild Boar in favor of taking Sammy LaCroix with Brewmaster's fourth upgrade and then having left over SS in the cache.  I will have to give that a try the next time the schemes look like they would favor something like that.

Like I said at the beginning, this is a very cursory first play through thoughts on Brewmaster.  As I play him more, these thoughts will become more refined.  I have to master the path of Brewmaster after all.

As we wrapped up our game yesterday on Matte's gorgeous Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes with Angry Mojo Games Graveyard MDF Terrain my girlfriend expressed an interest in building her own table, and had been for a few days.  At this point, we began to map out everything that we needed to make for this table - which was decided would be a detailed Bayou board (as it could be home to my Gremlins and most of my Neverborn models, but that is just a happy coincidence)

So, we set about making plans.  It will be a 3x3 board, perfect for Malifaux or getting skirmish games of Warhammer Fantasy in.  It will have about 1/3 of the surface covered in water (and thus severe terrain for Malifaux).  We will build tree bases, stilt buildings, huts, a broken down airboat, alligator nests, and other such swampy things.  We are all extremely excited to get to work on it, and I am sure that both Matte and myself will be posting many updates concerning our table in the near future.  Below are some images that we really liked and will use as inspiration.

And finally, to wrap up this post, something that I hold near and dear to my heart:

WARHAMMER FANTASY

WHF is near and dear to my heart.  When everyone else wanted to play with Bolters and Chainswords, my imagination was captivated by the ideals of wizards literally pulling comets down from the heavens, ratmen swarming over the Old World, giant lizard people riding atop dinosaurs, desperate men firing round after round out of their muskets at advancing undead legions, all while mighty heroes ride their massive beasts of war and hurl eldritch blasts at each other as they close in to strangle each other with their bare hands if need be.

Desperate struggles of average men in the face of terrifying odds armed with nothing more than a shred of armor, cloth, and maybe a half rusted sword against foul daemons of the warp and massive tidal waves of greenskins always seemed more moving then armies of super humans with nuclear warhead bullet machines mowing down X, Y, or Z.  That game was always about the lighting fast mobility of tanks and bikes clashing with each other in huge explosive collisions and titans blasting each other from across continents - but this is about Warhammer Fantasy.

I have 2 Skaven armies - a themed Asian Skaven army that is WIP and an almost entirely Plague Skaven army.  They were the first models of any that I willingly and excitedly painted.  I had named characters in my army that I had come up with.  I scoured around to find old metal models in FLGS to complete my army, or converted up models to match my mental image of what they should look like.  Long story short?  I love Skaven and I love fantasy.

And then End Times came out.  Nagash, Glottkin, Khaine, Thanquol (woo!), and Archaon. All in a line.  Gorgeous models and ridiculous rules abound.  Exciting times for all, and an apparent revival of Fantasy.

And then Boom.  All gone.  CNTR+ALT+DLT.

You can imagine how this made me feel.  Then rumors swirling about huge simplification of the rules, removal of whole factions, armies maxed out at 50 models, ROUND BASES, and other things.

This is not what I signed up for.  I signed up to push units of 60 puss riddled rats down my opponents throat while cackling gleefully and shooting my own models with guns that were just as likely to blow up in my face.

I have been salty to say the least.

However, I have been swayed, mostly due to Matte talking me off the ledge repeatedly, to maintain cautious optimism for the future of my gaming love.  Malifaux is my main game - I would be lying if I said otherwise.  But Fantasy was my first car.  It didn't run all that well, it smelt kind of stale, and it's been used and abused for 30 years before my time, but it made you happier than anything else.  It is all warm fuzzy memories and good friends and simpler times.  So, here are the rumors that I have read that actually sound like they could be slightly true - gathered from various sources around the interwebs.

++SALT SHOULD BE USED++

1. Age of Sigmar wont be 9th edition, it will be a set of Skirmish rules that are meant to get people into the game.
2. The box is supposed to be Empire/Holy Knights/"Good Guys" vs some amalgamation of Chaos - some say there will be daemons, some beastmen, others say just Chaos Warriors.
3. There are rumors that this will feature round base fantasy models that can go in skirmish formation, loose formation, or blocked up like we currently know with all sorts of benefits/set backs for each of these formations.
4. Rules - or atleast 4 page starter rules - will be available for free online as a download when Age of Sigmar releases.  Personally, I think this is the most BS.  I saw the pictures of GW's website, but I am still not going to believe it.
5. All factions will still be playable to some extent.
6. There will be an ungodly amount of releases for something along the lines of 6 weeks - supposedly - with the Big Rule Book coming out at the very end after everyone has spent all of their money on Age of Sigmar stuff.
7. Alternate Rumor states that Age of Sigmar IS 9th edition, and we will see this game scalable up to army level games.
8. A lot of people are saying that this will be similar to an upscaled Lord of the Rings game that GW made/makes.

As of this morning, new models have been spotted for the Age of Sigmar starter box

And with that bombshell, I hope you all have a great day.

Peace,

Sinscaptain

Momma Z and P.Diddy - Malifaux Game Night 6.11.15

Hello again my flailing and gesticulating readers!

Hope this post finds you all well, or as well as you can be given all of the craziness that is going around right now, with GenCon hype starting to heat up, E3 going strong (anyone else pumped for Sword Coast Legends?), and of course all of the Malifaux that anyone can take!

I'm your dedicated and desiccated host - sinscaptain!  I'd just like to take a moment here to welcome a very good friend of mine to the blog, who will be posting from time to time regarding some other games, painting, terrain, etc.  We haven't really figured that out yet, but I am sure we will get an intro post out of the way eventually!  Without further ado, please welcome my good friend Matte Varnish to the Captain's Log!  Trust me, this guy knows what he's talking about - minus the whole "Guild are the best faction in Malifaux" thing - but hey, we all can't see the light can we?

Anywho, most of you signed up here to look at some battle talk.  Well, have I got a treat for you today - PICTURES.  Thanks to having another set of fine hands in Matte Varnish, I managed to get a whole games worth of pictures from my most recent game against <AUsome Friend> who will eventually get an actual name on here.

We will actually go through all of those lovely steps that we as players are supposed to go through when we game.

1) Determine and place terrain

As you can see, we played with two large structures flanking the centerline, a good number of trees for LoS, and a good amount of scatter terrain.  As a side note, all of that lovely MDF terrain is from Angry Mojo Games.  They specialize in Big Box terrain for $50, which is usually enough to fill a 3x3 table.  Check em out!

2) Define encounter size:  50SS.  This is the size we generally play.  It also preps us for tournaments

3) Announce Factions:  

sinscaptain - Neverborn

<AUsome Friend> - Neverborn

Oh Boy

4) Deployment - Standard

5) Generate Strategy and schemes:

Strategy - Recconoiter

Schemes - ALiTS, Breakthrough, Protect Territory, Murder Protege, and Spring the Trap

6) Hire and Reveal Crews:

Sinscaptain - So, I have - for the most part - learned up some Collodi for myself.  I feel extremely comfortable putting him on the table for just about any game, and now it is time to learn some other masters.  I have recently dropped both my Tara crew and the Viktorias in favor of going green with Gremlins.  I was considering taking Ophelia, but I decided in the end to go with Neverborn Zoraida to try and learn her again.  With the scheme pool, I knew I needed to make my most expensive model Bad Juju with Eternal fiend.  Obey from Zoraida can pretty much complete the rest.  I knew that I wasn't going to go with Spring the Trap against my opponent, who was getting his first game in with Pandora.  So I went into the game debating between Breakthrough, ALiTS, and Protect Territory.

For that, I ended up with the following:

Zoraida [4 SS]

+Animal Shape

+Hex Bag

+Hexed Among You

Bad Juju

+Eternal Fiend

+Fears Given Form

Beckoner

Gupps

Gupps

Iggy

+Depression

Pere Ravage

Wild Boar

My thoughts were that the Wild Boar could tie up atleast a few models at the beginning of the game with its "From the Shadows" ability.  Gupps could go around and find a nice place to hide and drop markers all game with leap.  Juju would run up and smash face, and then come back.  Zoraida could go and claim a corner or a breakthrough point on the last turn with Animal Shape, because nobody kills Zoraida.  Iggy would help burn things.  And Pere Ravage would help Iggy burn more things.

<AUsome Friend> and the Box of Tricks

Pandora
+upgrades
Candy
+upgrades
Baby Kade
+upgrade
Teddy
Poltergeist
Sorrow
Sorrow
Sorrow

My buddy was just trying to figure out how Pandora ran with things, and so he took the base box, with upgrades, and had enough to throw in my Teddy for fun and shenanigans.

7) Choose and Reveal Schemes

Sinscaptain - Breakthrough (unrevealed) and Protect Territory (revealed)
<AUsome Friend> - Murder Protege and Breakthrough (unrevealed)

Had we been paying more attention, we would have realized that my friend had taken Murder Protege with Eternal Fiend Bad Juju on the table, making it extremely difficult to get off and not let me still get points from my Gupps and Boar.  However, the schemes were what they were, and we got ready to hit the game.

8) Deploy Crews

View from Zoraida's table edge

For Zoraida, going left to right:  Pere Ravage and Iggy are behind the building, Gupps are behind the Masoleum at mid field to the left, and Wild Boar is behind the tallest tree in the upper left hand corner.  Behind the smaller Masoleum in my deployment: Zoraida, Juju, and the Beckoner chill.  Next to the burnt out church is the second Gupps base.  

For Pandora, going left to right across the top of the image:  Baby Kade, Sorrow, and Teddy hang out together behind the thicket of trees.  In the opposite corner, Pandora, Candy, Poltergeist, and two more sorrows hang out by the ruins.

View of Pandora and her Friends 

View of Zoraida and the crew

And with that, the game began in ernest.  Typical of most Malifaux games, we all started out with the glorious "lets all move together" first turn.

Pere, Gupps, Iggy, and Hookers oh my!

Wild Boar (Graves) comes out to get on after the sorrow

Movin' on up *whistles* Movin' on up!

Turn two is when things started to get fairly interesting.  Boar managed to sneak into a sorrow and tie it up, along with Kade.  Now, I realize that Boar against Kade is NOT a good idea.  But the point was to use the Boar, which can do work, to really tie up that flank.  It succeeded marvelously.  Until Kade ran off to Teddy, who was barreling down on my enclave of Iggy, Momma Z, and the Beckoner.

And then?  Mistakes were Made.  I thought to myself "Oh dayum!  I could pull Teddy closer so that I can hem it, and then put like burning 12 on it so that it dies!"  Only one of those things happened.  Word to the wise.  NEVER PULL A TEDDY CLOSER.

All he wants are HUGZ

So that happened.  Teddy was on my end of the world by the end of turn 2.  I had managed to block him up with the voodoo doll, or so I thought.  I really needed initiative turn 3 to get myself out of this mess.

Pandora's enclave marching up the side of the board

Wild Boar gettin' turnt

End of turn 2

Turn 3 initiative - a tale of sorrow, desperation, elation, and utter devastation.

My initiative flip, plus stoning for a card after he flipped a 9!  I WILL SURVIVE!

ARE YOU SHITTING ME.  AN 11?!

Look at him.  Look at the face of pure evil

"This is bullshit" face

Needless to say, my opponent then - with great care and cunning - moved Teddy just so through all of the bases and staying in engagement area, to have Iggy, the Beckoner, and Zoraida all exactly where they absolutely did not want to be. 

Shit

So, with Teddy down my throat, it was up to me to movement shenanigans my way out of that mess.  Zoraida animal shaped away to go grab some points, beckoner "not that kind of girl" out of dodge, and Iggy flipped like a boss ass bitch against the one attack Teddy got to make.  All in all, not so bad - but a lost turn for me where I had to spend flying every which way to get out of the situation, allowing Pandora to grow her points.  AND he killed Juju (buried him rather).  At this point, the score was tied up at 3(?) with just Strategy points going off.  This was also the turn that the voodoo doll hemmed an open and exposed Baby Kade to have Pere Ravage light him up with his breath fire attack.  Both died in flames, as the pig had already put some damage on the butcher baby.

Speaking of the pig, it died this turn... and let Bad Juju out in the corner.  Who then proceeded to smash the sorrow with a Red Joker damage flip.

After escaping Teddy

Pandora and crew spread out scoring - what I deduce - Breakthrough points

Juju smash!

Turn 4, its all down to start scoring points.  A couple of Gupps run around dropping markers as best they can.  Pere Ravage sneaks back into a corner to establish it for me, and to discourage any sorrows from coming over to get burned.  Candy ran all the way home with her bury ability.  Pandora, cut off from the rest of the table really, slunk back into the corner from where she came from.  The only way for Pandora to pull out a win was to kill Bad Juju to get some Murder Protege points.

Turn 4 was rather uneventful when compared to the craziness of turn 3, but I did manage to NUKE Teddy with Pere.  As a tangent, Pere might make every list with Momma Z from now on.  So good.  So very good.

After that, it was pretty much down to Candy vs. Juju in a prize fight for the ages.  Not really.  I have never played against Pandora and crew, so I won initiative, activated Juju, and targeted Candy with the first activation of the turn.  DOH!  Paralyzed Juju right of the bat.  However, Momma Z was still able to animal shape up into a corner to deny points, letting me grab a few more and ending the game with a 9-7 victory for Momma Z and the swamp kiddies.

Phew!  What a game!  That was an absolute blast, and <AUsome Friend> really enjoyed Pandora as a crew too.  He's really looking forward to getting more into the game.  If I could change anything, I would have gone ahead and played with my schemes revealed.  I don't like scrambling for points at the end of the game because I played unrevealed.  Other than that, and Candy being dumb to Juju, I would do it all again!

GenCon Wyrd-os and Faction Toss Up

So, with a game under my belt for the week, and another minion added to the pool of players - I went home thinking all was well.  Then, I realized that I was never in a million years going to get to Outcasts with Vikis and Tara.  I love the models and the crews, but I just have no interest in really playing the Vikis, or honestly Tara.  However, I had just picked up Brewmaster and have had Ophelia.  So I brokered a trade with Matte Varnish - he can have the Viktorias, Nightmare Tara Crew, and the Death Marshals I bought to go with her for painting my Brewie and Ophelia crews.  Plus Merris and Burt Jebson.  So, a fairly even trade that was a win win for both of us.  He gets more practice and hype as a commission painter, I get some crews that would never get enough love to someone who will gladly play them, and I get two painted crews out of the deal.  

What does this have to do with GenCon?  Well, Wyrd always has a big presence at GenCon, and so this year is the same.  They announced a bunch of super sexy boxes and models:  Colette, Jack Daw, Wong, and a Nightmare Edition "Dark Carnival" Crew to use as Colette.  All of them look absolutely gorgeous, so I am very much excited to get my mitts on some of these things.  Mostly some of the effigies, book 3, Wong (ooooooooooh yeahhhhhhhh), and probably some of the Emissaries if they come out too (looking at you Lucky!)  So, this changes my plans a little bit for expansion of my factions.  

Neverborn:  Collodi, Zoraida, Lilith (pre GenCon), Lucius (post GenCon)

Gremlins:  Ophelia, Brewmaster, Wong (GenCon), Mah Tucket (eventually)

Other Strong Possibilities:  Lynch, Ulix

Completist:  Pandora, Somer, and the Dreamer (bleh!) 

Of course, this is before all of the new masters drop for Wave 3, or any of the Avatar models.....

But, until then my pretties, take care!  (Bonus points for you if you've made it this far, dear reader)

Sinscaptain signing off.

Return of the Old Guard

Hey all,

Hope everyone has been doing well in the time since my last post - a little under a month ago.  Today I just have a few updates, as classes are well underway, so I haven't had all that much time to play anything but a few fleeting games of Malifaux.

First up, I did get a pair of demo games in with a friend of mine from my 40k-ing days.  He has been interested in starting Malifaux since we ran a few sessions of Through the Breach with him last fall.  So, he supplied the terrain and I threw some models on the table and we had a couple of go-rounds between the two of us.

First mission was a slightly modified Henchman Hardcore, which was 4 models at 20 SS each, Turf War and assassinate.  No second scheme, as in regular HH, but I decided it would be better to use Standard deployment and still start scoring on turn 2, rather than use close and score on turn 1.  Below are the crews I brought for him to use:

Sinscaptain's Spider Lair:

Widow Weaver
(2) Wicked Dolls
Teddy

<AUsome Friend> House of Gremlins:

Francois LaCroix
- Dirty Cheater
- Team Work
Bayou Gremlin
Burt Jebsen
Raphael LaCroix
- Team Work

Game went swimmingly.  He really got to enjoy using all of the amigos to run rampant over me.  He managed to knock Teddy out with a bang top of the second turn with Raphael.  Generally, it was a pretty standard game.  My dolls ran up, got shot.  Francois got into combat with the WW, and hacked her to bits before turn 5.  Called it a 5-3 win for the Gremlins.

He was hooked at this point, but wanted to try an actual game with a master.  So, I made the following lists for a 35SS game:

Sinscaptain's Traveling Troupe:

Collodi
- Bag of Props
- Strum the Threads
(3) Marionettes
Brutal Effigy
Beckoner
Teddy

<AUsome Friend> and the Kin:

Ophelia LaCroix
- Dirty Cheater
- Jug Rocket
- My Threatenin' Gun
(3) Young LaCroix
Francois LaCroix
- Show Off
- Team Work
Rami LaCroix
- Dirty Cheater
Raphael LaCroix
- Team Work

Strategy: Squatters Rights
Scheme Pool:  LITS, Distract, Murder Protege, Breakthrough, and something else.
Selected:  Because this was his second game, we played Distract and Murder Protege revealed.
Deployment:  Standard

This game was much more intense.  Playing a small point game with Collodi is not something that I don't have much practice with, and so that made for a rather interesting game against a list I designed for this point level in the Gremlins.  Teddy and the beckoner were quick to run up the board towards an exposed Raphael, who was promptly reduced to 1 HP thanks to a couple tugs at his strings.  Collodi and his blob of marionettes slow rolled up the board, sticking to LOS blocking terrain, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.  Collodi managed to get a slow off on Raphael and steal his first AP, forcing him to walk towards my horde of minions - and getting distracted by them.

Francois was about tired of Teddy being scary, and blew him off the board with some dumb luck and a red joker.  The lovely beckoner was quick to follow.  This left the rest of my crew in the hands of Collodi - who can easily handle a few models - and a couple of puppets, who get knocked down to a light breeze in my experience.  I was hanging tough at this point however, keeping the game 2-2, until he managed to nuke off all of my hitting power.  He managed to keep me off of the Squat markers, and then rack up some points for Murder Protege against Teddy.  We ended the game after Collodi was beat down by Francois and a vengeful Raphael.  7-2 win for Ophelia and the Kin.

Overall, my friend who I was running the demos for was really excited to get into the game, and has since picked up a Pandora crew - with a likely expansion into Lilith not far behind.  Mission accomplished!

A few days later, we decided to host a Malifaux night at one of my friend's place.  He was actually the guy that got me into Malifaux in the first place, but he hadn't had a game in over 6 months, so he was out of practice and asked for a re-introduction game, as I have been able to get many games in since I last saw him.

Sinscaptain's faction/master:  Neverborn - Collodi
Cricketmaster faction/master:  Guild - Perdita
Size:  50SS
Strategy:  Interference - Gaining Grounds 2015
Scheme Pool:  LITS, Bodyguard, Protect Territory, Outflank, Frame for Murder
Sinscaptain's schemes:  Protect Territory (revealed), Frame for Murder (Widow Weaver)
Cricketmaster's schemes:  Outflank (hidden), Frame for Murder (Papa Loco)

Sinscaptain's Carnivale of Pain

Collodi [4 Stone Cache]
- Bag of Props
- Strum the Threads
Widow Weaver
Teddy
(3) Marionettes
Brutal Effigy
Beckoner
(2) Depleted

Cricketmaster's Perdita + Death Marshals

Perdita [3 Stone Cache]
- Trick Shooting
Francisco
Nino
Papa Loco
Judge
- Flames of the Pit
(2) Death Marshals
Enslaved Nephillim

This was a crazy reintroduction to the game for CM.  Right off the bat we were going at it, with Depleted making a run for the informant.  Collodi stayed back with Brutal and a pair of Marionettes - who started putting out markers for Protect territory next to some hard cover, so they could focus up and let Collodi leech it off of them.  Teddy slunk around one edge of the table looking for a vector to get to the center.  Another marionette ran off on his own into a building, hopefully to be forgotten by my opponent so that he could sit there on a marker for the whole game as a back up plan.  Widow Weaver leapt forward into the middle of the table to paralyze Papa Loco, and then get shot to pieces by Nino, Perdita, and Francisco on turn 3, bagging me 3 points.  Perdita and Nino had set up shop in a building with great firing lanes over the center of the table, making the center a meat grinder for my crew.  Fransisco and Judge walked up the center of the board to try and get points off of the informant.  The Death Marshals ran off to go plant outflank markers.  Collodi managed to snipe a Death Marshal running across open space and kill him in a single go.  As the game began to come to a close, my center began to fold, after Papa Loco detonated himself (my opponent didn't realize that would not give him the points for Frame for Murder) and took my depleted down to one health each.  Nino and Perdita cleaned them out.  After trading silly moves back and forth for half a turn, Teddy ended up getting nuked by Francisco in a single activation.

For the rest of the game, a Death Marshal managed to kill the hidden Marionette, I kept summoning a stream of marionettes to defend my last few markers, and then a marionette made a mad dash in the last activation to get away from a load of combat and plant a second protect territory marker.  Game ended with that activation - thank goodness.  8-6 win for Collodi, if only thanks to grabbing all of my points from both schemes.  I managed to drop one of his outflank markers before the game ended, which saved me a point.  If I hadn't have been careful around Papa Loco, CM would have won 9-8.

Looking forward to getting much more Malifaux in over the summer - or as much as the semester will let me have.  If I only get a few more games in this summer, there is always this coming semester where I will have the weekly Malifaux group in Atlanta.

I am, as usual, looking for the next crew to get onto the table.  I am torn between picking up Somer Teeth Jones, Brewmaster, Lynch, or just grabbing some blisters for my existing crews - namely Merris LaCroix, Slop haulers, Waldgeists, and the new Widow Weaver.  More than likely, I will wait until Brewmaster is common to get by the end of the month, and picking up the new Widow Weaver and either Merris or Waldgeists to go with my crews.

Also, more than likely I will be participating in a slow grow 40k league - probably just repainting some CSM and letting them ride.  No way will I be buying any new models to go with them.  I am waiting with much trepidation for the next edition of WHF to come out, as are many people.  My Skaven are too large to have to deal with much change in the new edition, and I don't know if I really want to deal with that much change.  I have a solid system in Malifaux, which manages to scratch all of my current wargaming itches very easily.  We will see.

Until next time, happy gaming!