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.

Updates and a Battle Report

Hey All!

Sorry for the long drought between posts, but I assure you I am still tabletop gaming.  In fact, over the past two days, I have gotten in a rather large game of Firestorm Armada and a game of Power Grid.

First things first, I have to apologize for no pictures.  Both games happened to be pick up games that we not arranged prior, so I didn't take any pictures.  If you are allergic to long blocks of text, I will give a short and sweet replay, with a narrative battle report following.

RSN Forces (Inferno Fleet):
commanded by myself (sinscaptain)

Spectre Battleship (Battlecruiser really)
- x4 Interceptors flying CAP
x3 Spook Cruisers
x2 Phoenix Destroyers
x2 Phoenix Destroyers
x3 Bulwark Frigates
x3 Bulwark Frigates

Terran Alliance (Strike Fleet Templar)
commanded by my friend The CEO

Razorthorn Battleship
Ares MkII Carrier
- x6 Bombers
- x6 Assaulters
x3 Sentinel Cruisers
x4 Pilgrim Frigates
x2 Pilgrim Frigates

Battlefield was open except for 4 gun platforms ringing 3 torpedo satellites.  We made a simple rule where if you got within 4" of a satellite you controlled it.  This was to level the playing field a little bit because of any points difference.  We hadn't calculated points wanting to just throw down and get playing, so we used these platforms to offer an advantage.  They proved helpful, but not obnoxiously so.

Deployment - The RSN left to right: Spooks, Spectre, Destroyers, Frigates, Destroyers, Frigates.
The Terrans right to left:  Frigates, Cruisers, Frigates, Battleship, Carrier.

Game:

The game went surprisingly smooth at first.  The Spooks managed to ping some damage on the Carrier, and then the frigates all sped forward to try and get some of the satellites.  My Destroyers opened up on frigates and whipped them off the map.  Then his battleship moved up and scored a few points on my Spooks, but was cautious because of how badly they had hurt him in the past.  Then I moved up more destroyers and pegged him for a few points, and started to really hurt his Carrier.  I threw my battleship at it, and for the rest of the game I shot as much as I could spare at the carrier with one hull point on it.  I couldn't manage to kill it all game.  I focused so much on it that he got off a full salvo from his broadsides on his own cruisers against my frigates - crushing a squadron - and then AGAIN against my destroyers.  The highlight of the game was probably right about here, where a rolling broadside completely blew up a destroyer.  That was bad enough, but the explosion from her sister ship gutted the other destroyer with double crits - both of them decompressions in a fit of bad luck.  The game pretty much went down hill from there.  I ended up taking him down to 85-90% of his original fleet strength while he crushed most of my fleet, save the battleship once again, and a single destroyer.

Another Gem of the Internet

Hey all!

Found another tabletop on my nightly scour of the internet.  A little game called Urban War, created by Urban Mammoth.  Apparently it is very popular with European gamers, although not so much here in the states, which is a crying shame!  I'm here to try and tell you about it...

Looks pretty menacing huh?

Now, I know with games like Infinity, Warhammer 40k, Dark Potential, and a slew of other Sci-fi Skirmish games, something would really have to stand out about this one to make you buy into it right?

Game Play

Urban War is very fast paced.  Using small bands of soldiers, most games will be over between 30-90 minutes.  The game uses D10, and a system of alternating activations to portray combat in the ruined city of Iskandria.  The rules are made for small and fast games, so complexity is dropped in order to achieve something that is easy to learn but hard to master.

Models

 As you can see from a selection of the models, they have a slightly silly appearance, but all in the name of the game.  There are currently 8 factions:

Junkers - Space Romans
Gladiators - uh...
Koralon - Space snake people
Syntha - Robot Cyborg people
Triads - Japanese gangsters... in space!
VASA - Norse police and angels
Viridians - *see Death Korps of Krieg
Neo-Iskandrians - Original Cylon look

Overall, the models arent going to contend with Infinity, but they do have a lot of character, and they are excellent looking when painted up, so they aren't to be scoffed at.

Price

So, you're probably thinking "this is a pretty average looking game"  Well, let me introduce you to the price.  $40 buys you a starter kit.  Quick Rules are free, $10 gets you a pdf of the full rulebook.  OR, $80 gets you a full 300 point force, and another $10 gets you the pdf rulebook.  A tabletop army and rules to play with them for under $100.  Crazy!

Other Info

So, if skirmish games aren't your style, you can always buy into Metropolis: Battle-force, the big brother of Urban War.  Same factions, just more units and squads on the table.  How is that for value?  2 games in one practically!

Arrow and Plague

This is an account of the first battle against the Wood Elves, and a narrative battle report of the mighty Skaven of Clan Frost Tail!  Enjoy....

The Skaven at War...

Malkk looked through the snow fall coming down and shivered.  The war with the lizards had cost him dearly, and he had to promise half of his next warpstone haul for the slaves and clanrats he hired from other Warlord clans.  They began their march north through the frozen wastes around the secret caves into the Underempire, towards the Chaos wastes in an attempt to gain some of the promised warpstone to pay off the incredible debt that he had created.  Malkk spotted a large tower to the north, along a frozen river surrounded by dark snow covered forest.  He could feel something radiating from he tower, and he could only hope that it would be something to help him crawl and scratch his way out of debt, or at least hire an assassin to kill off his debtors.  

Within the hour, his entire army had assembled along the road to the tower, and were within a few miles of the structure.  Malkk was beginning to feel a nagging sense of being watched.  He did not like the feeling.....

........ The ratmen were moving into the trap with perfect predictability.  They had moved along the path towards the great Tower of Gru’masha like so many before them, drawn in by greed and lust for power.  They advanced with complete enthusiasm, and did not even attempt to cover their approach in any way.  The Spellsingers nodded to their warriors silently, sending in the first wave of warriors.  The rats would pay for their incursion into the forest....

.... Malkk knew that something was wrong, but it wasn’t until the sound of galloping hooves reached his ear that he knew he’d been right.  The plague priest looked across the battlefield and saw the cavalry charging.  Two columns of cavalry advanced along the left flank of his army, spears glittering in the snow fall and sunlight.  Movement across the river caught Malkk’s eye, and he caught a flash of what looked like hooded figures rushing through the forest.  Malkk knew that there was no fleeing from this fight, no matter how much he wanted to, and squeaked out a command for his warriors to attack.  

The Wood Elves of Ariel Lorthen were fast on the attack, with units of Glade Riders advancing at max speed towards the exposed flank of the ratmen.  A quick order and some much needed whipping saw a pack of giant rats shoved in the direction of the incoming cavalry.  They launched a vicious charge against the agile horsemen, and through luck managed to down a few of the riders in a horrible wave of puss covered teeth.  The riders struck back, killing the packmaster outright, which only succeeded in stirring the rats into a great frenzy.  They launched themselves again at the Glade Riders, and managed to envelope the tiny unit of warriors in a clash of rat on horse and teeth on steel.  This diversion gave a regiment of Clanrats time to reform and prepare themselves for an attack that would never come from a second unit of Glade Riders, as the warpfire thrower spat green flaming death at the unit that prepared to charge them.  Volley upon volley of arrows rained down upon the slaves and plague monks, but Malkk’s threats of doom and destruction kept them in line.  

Malkk looked at the trees as they picked themselves up and slowly move forward towards the ratmen.  brought into lurching life by the wizards of the Wood Elves.  Malkk was not amused by this parlor trick of a spell, and launched himself into an incantation of plague.  The power of the Great Horned Rat was coursing through him, but in a freak occurrence, Malkk lost his concentration as an arrow whizzed into a plague monk on his left, and he mispronounced a single word.  His eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen.  A great tear in reality opened up with a great crash and devoured plague monk after plague monk.  Malkk threw himself to the ground and pleaded with the Great Horned Rat for forgiveness, and - feeling the energy of his dented and rusty foul pendant drain - breathed a sigh of relief as he stood up and dusted himself off.  The battle was going in the favor of the Wood Elves now, as they held fast across the bridge in the face of catapult fire, mortar fire, and slings from the slaves as they rushed forward.  Malkk knew that something needed to change and quickly......

...... The Spellsingers communed silently through the forest, observing the battle as it progressed.  They had struck several blows on the rats, but not nearly enough to break them.  The Glade Riders had retreated in the face of the warpfire, and they had only struck minimal casualties on the rats for the loss of life they had just suffered.  The trees were coming alive and aiding the warriors of the glade with whatever they could muster, but it did not seem to be enough.  Something had to be done to press the advantage they had over the bewildered army of rats after the explosion of their wizard.....

....... Malkk goaded the Slaves on and demanded that they make it into the battle.  Little did Malkk know that there was an extra warrior amongst the ranks of his slaves.  Vassk Squeal-Stab was an assassin of Clan Eshin, but he had trained in the far west, in secret enclaves under the Dark Elves cities and realms.  He had returned to Skavenblight and been ordered to hunt down the fugitive Malkk by his debtors.  He had witnessed the Plague Priests defeat at the hands of the Lizardmen, but watched in astonishment as he crawled out of a creator the size of a watchtower.  He had stayed his blade at that time in sheer respect for the survival instinct of the Priest.  Now he would continue to stay his blade until the Priest proved that he was incapable of producing results.  He marched in the ranks of the Skavenslaves in an attempt to remain as far away from the plague priest as possible, but still in the realm of observing him.  He was amazed by this plague priest, and his uncanny ability to survive the worst of disasters and still continue to keep his head about him where other lesser rats would have fled.  It was interesting to see a brave rat, but sooner or later Vassk would have to kill him.  However, it might be later if he kept this string of bravery up.  But all of that would have to wait as the Slaves finally got the courage up to run across the bridge in a wave of mutilated flesh and matted fur.  They charged right into the ranks of a unit of massive forest spirits - known as Dryads.  They clashed into each other with an explosion of sound.  Vassk launched himself into the fray, spinning and flourishing with a flurry of movements, hacking and slashing, parrying, poisoning, cutting, ripping, tearing, and gouging his way through the Dryads.  Before he could blink twice, he was alone in the midst of the Dryad regiments - the Skaven Slaves having all died in the first few moments of the combat.  Vassk could here the sounds of a pack of giant rats entering the fray, but he couldn’t tell where they were, so he simply kept on the attack against the seemingly endless horde of Dryads......

...... Malkk shook his head at the Slaves valiant effort to do something useful.  They had bought him time to bring the rest of the army back into formation and prepare to take them across the bridge into the fray.  However, Malkk was determined to soften up some of the opposition before he launched himself into an attack.  Malkk closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.  He began the incantations.  He opened his eyes, green witch fire pouring out.  With rage pouring through him and the energies of the Great Horned Rat coursing through his veins, Malkk let loose a mighty blast from his staff......

...... The Spellsingers both collapsed for a moment under the amount of magical discharge emanating from the Skaven Sorcerer.  Then they saw what the spell was capable of.  All throughout the ranks of the Wood Elves, there were casualties, as soldiers and Dryad alike fell to the ground with puss oozing from every opening, and black sores appearing almost instantaneously from the plague that the wizard had unleashed.  The Spellsinger looked at her sister, and with horror realized that she had fallen to her knees, blood dripping from both ears, and her eyes turning a dark yellow.  “Sister...” she gasped as she slumped over, her life giving out under the sorcerous magics of the Skaven wizard.  The remaining Spellsinger turned in anger, but quickly regained her composure.  She was in a better place now, we must save what we can, she thought.........

........ Malkk cackled with glee as he glutted on the magical powers he had just unleashed.  With great pleasure he watched as the remaining Wood Elves slunk back into the dark forest from whence they came, and rallied his remaining rats to push on towards the wizard’s tower and claim his prize.  Many rats had died today, but many more could be bought with the spoils of his adventures.  Malkk allowed himself a rare snaggle-toothed smile under his puss and dirt encrusted robes......

....... Vasst wiped the blood from his twin blades and sheathed them, observing the carnage around him.  Nothing but dying green lights and broken branches surrounded him, but he felt no pride or pleasure, he simply nodded, and moved into one of the regiments of Clanrats marching past him.  He had work to do still..........