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!

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!

Game Night 4.29.15

Hello all, 

Happy to be here again with another set of ramblings concerning how my Mali-Wednesday went.  Managed to (barely) get two games in yesterday at Wasteland games in Duluth, GA.  It was a hopping night for Malifaux, with 8 players showing up getting games in.  Our local group has a very diverse group of players:

-          (2) Arcanist only players

-          Ressers and Ten Thunders player

-          Neverborn and Ten Thunders player

-          (2) Gremlin only players

-          Guild player

-          Outcasts player

-          And myself with Neverborn and Outcasts.

I know that adds up to 9, but one of our players is on vacation and couldn’t be with us doing nerd stuff.

So, first game comes up.  I pair off with the gentleman who plays Ressers and 10T.  We are in the midst of doing a league where you try and complete all of the strategies and schemes from both the rulebook and GG2015.  We ended up playing Recon, with distract and breakthrough for both of us.  I had a lovely crew with Props and Strum Collodi, (4) Marionettes, beckoner, Vasilisa, Widow Weaver, brutal effigy, stitched together.  I was up against Molly, Phillip, Nurse, Chaiki, Rogue Necro, Madame Sybelle, and a rotten bell.  Game was a blood fest.  Highlight was probably when Collodi went apeshit on Phillip and the Rogue Necromancy (after pinging the rogue for a few the previous turns), nuking both of them with 4(!) Pull the strings.  In the end, Widow Weaver ended up being the star of the show, distracting Sybelle, the Belle, and a summoned Punk Zombie and locking them all in combat over two turns.  Turn 5 ended, and the game ended 9-8 in favor of Molly. 

Some thoughts on the crew – Vasilisa is entirely situational.  She spend the entire game getting stuck between 2 Punk zombies and then getting cut to ribbons.  For her same points cost (11 with her upgrade) I can take a Teddy or Ama No Zako and have something that is really terrifying for the enemy to face down against.  I am becoming less and less excited to take Vasilisa as a result.  I can do everything Vasilisa does with a beckoner and Collodi, for 2SS cheaper.  She just seems like she would do better in larger games.  In a 75SS game, she would probably fill an excellent niche.  But for 50SS games, she seems like too much of a point drain.  I will have to try her in other roles on the field.

Molly was a lot of fun to play against, especially with all of the craziness that she can dole out in the form of summoning and the models that she synergizes with.  Rogue was really cool, but not a crazy.  I would have a blast painting Phillip and the Nanny, and he was a pretty decent support piece during the game.  Nurses are the craziest things in the universe of Malifaux.  Being able to heal something completely for paralyzed, and then being able to pull paralyzed off with condition removal is what kept the Rogue Necromancy alive past turn 2 – Collodi had him down to one single wound before the bastard managed to heal up all the way.

All in all, I would gladly play against Molly again.  It was a blast of a game to play, and very close all the way to the end. 

Next up, I paired up against out resident outcast player to take on his Tara list in a game of speed-faux.  We had an hour to play Stake a Claim, Murder Protégé, and Vendetta.  He had Tara, Karina, Nothing Beast, Rusty Alyce, (4) void wretches, and a guild autopsy.  I had Props and Strum Collodi, Teddy, (2) stitched together, (3) Marionettes, Brutal Effigy, Lucky Effigy, and a Silurid.  It was meant to be an extremely fast game of Malifaux, and it was indeed.  Stitched were the absolute heroes of the game, and murdered Nothing Beast in one shot after shields, and butchered Rusty in a single turn as well.  Managed to grab 6 points off of those two kills alone, and then snag 2 points from Stake a Claim – my new absolute least favorite strategy to play.  Tara managed to grab two points after the heavy hitters in the crew were dropped.

Tara was an awesome master to play against, even though it was one sided.  My opponent had only played Tara once or twice before, and we only had an hour and a half to get a game in, so we played like absolute shit on both ends of the game.  Like I said previously, Tara is an awesome master.  Playing against her made me extremely excited to build my crew – which is still sitting on the back burner.  She has way too many tricks to try and launch into on a whim – I would really have to prepare before I play Tara.

Things that went well for Collodi this time?  Flips for Gamble your life – they were amazing.  Killing Nothing Beast and Rusty Alyce with stitched togethers was insane.  Other than that, being able to out activate and whoop on Tara’s crew in the time limit was about all that happened.  Good game, wish that we had time to play it all the way out to the end.

Aside from that, I got nothing.  So – hope you enjoyed the quick read.  No pictures as we were strapped for time.  Next week we will slow down and take some pictures.  Take it easy everyone.

Painting and Plugs - the Shameless kind

Hello all,

We’re on a roll with this posting once a day thing now, aren’t we?  Glad that I finally have a bit of a rhythm going now.  I’ve also had a bit of a rhythm going on my painting side of the hobby.  I have a lovely chart full of things that looks like chaos personified, but really it is a catalog of all the Malifaux models I own, want to own, have to build, WIP painting, and completed painting.

As you can see, I have quite a few projects in the works, as well as more than enough on my wish list to give me hobby euphoria.  I would like to share with you a few pictures of some of the models I have managed to get through in the month of April – seeing as the month is just about up, and that I will not have any painting time for the remainder of the month.  Tonight is Malifaux night at the FLGS, and I have to get ready for faces to be smashed (whether it is mine or my opponents is TBD). 

Some scheme markers all painted up

Scrap markers for Collodi Crew 

Zoraida finally painted in full

This video shows off Teddy after I completed him in the wee hours of the morning last night.

Aside from painting a load of models and getting a few games in tonight, I have to shamelessly plug some good podcasts to listen to while you paint, drive, or whatever else normal sane people do.

First up, we have Before We Begin.  This is a great podcast that seems to deal mostly with Vassal games of Malifaux (which is a great way to test out new lists, play games when you can’t get to the store, or play against friends that you no longer live near – I highly recommend giving it a shot, although you might want to have two monitors to run it easiest).  What the fine gentlemen at Before We Begin do, is they take two people who are going to play a game and do an entire show for each of them individually in how they select a crew to play with before they play a game – going through all of the information and the thought process that went into how they play with those models.  It is an interesting way to really analyze how people think about the game from a strategic point of view, and is something that everyone should strive to copy – or at least tweak to their personal preferences.  I find that I am thinking about the game in a new way after listening to the players go through their lists in a detailed way.  If you are new to the game, it might be a little overwhelming, but if you have an idea about how to play the game, then you should definitely give it a listen!

Malifaux’s Most Wanted.  This is a podcast that is geared more towards beginngers – at the moment anyway.  They take two plastic starter boxes, fill them out to 50SS, and then have a game with them.  Then they rate the masters and the boxes based on several categories that they have come up with, giving the listeners a general idea on how they might like to play these crews.  They are an explicit channel, but my god they are some funny bastards.  You should absolutely give these guys a listen – a warning though:  it will make you want to go out and buy a dozen more crews that you don’t already own (Lucius is a prime example of this for me, ever since listening to their show he is on the short list of masters to pick up).  Two thumbs way up.

Some products that you might want to go ahead and check out as well:

-          Mats by Mars:  3’x3’ playing mats with the deployment zones and centerlines for Malifaux clearly marked with faded lines, for dirt cheap.

-          Widget Wizards:  a good selection of wrap around effect and status markers, by faction.  Very neat little gubbins to add to your collection, as you can never have too many bits and bobs for Malifaux it seems.

Those are just some general little places that I am liking right now.  If you have anymore that you would like me to feature, put them in the comments below and I can make a page for it.

For game night tonight, it is in the cards that I am going to try and bring Teddy in at least one game.  Hopefully I will have time to get two games in, so that I can try out some other combinations of toys to play with for Collodi.  I will of course post tomorrow and let all of my readers know the results of the games.  Until then, happy gaming everyone!

The Voices in my Head

Hello all,

Hope that you are doing well.  Today’s post is going to be slightly scatter brained, as I feel like I just need to get some thoughts out of my head regarding some of the Malifaux purchases I would like to make.  I’d like to hear how you all collect miniatures, or the thought process that you go through when it comes to selecting what you will enjoy playing in your games.

For me, I like to focus on one or two groups of models at a time.  As it corresponds to Malifaux: Neverborn and Outcasts on a general level, but on a realistic level I am focusing on Collodi and Zoraida.  I have nearly all of the models that I want to collect for Collodi at this point – until plastic Coryphee come out I have settled on proxies based on mannequin conversions tacked to 40mm bases.  For Zoraida, she has such a large selection of models at her disposal that it makes it hard to pick a direction to head. 

I have her crew box, which includes 3 Silurid, Bad Juju, and the voodoo doll totem that she summons.  I have the bases to make 3 Gupps bases.  I like to use Mr. Tannen and Mr. Graves with her at points, but they aren’t the most synergetic choices.  Which leads me to my issue.  I want to collect Spawn Mother, McTavish, some of the LaCroix, pigs, and possibly Lenny.  I would like to have all of these so that I can use her with Neverborn – which I have decided would be best to have Iggy and Pere Ravage lighting things up while Juju (or Spawn Mother) go up the board with Gupps accompanied by Raphael LaCroix.  Or something along those lines.  This makes it sound like I should go ahead and grab The Kin box plus Spawn Mother to make this list happen. 

However, the other option I have is to grab some of the mercenary Gremlins – Burt and Gracie come to mind – with Spawn Mother, and throw them into a list together with Zoraida. 

The other idea I have swirling around my head is that I should grab the Jacob Lynch crew.  I am a completest and a collector of things, and while Lynch is not the most exciting crew to me Illuminated are awesome, and I already own every single other model that deals with Brilliance.  Why not go ahead and make the dive to pick up another master that I can throw in people’s faces from Neverborn while completing all of the Brilliance models?  Seems like a reasonable thing to me. 

This is the enigma that I run into – grab a Gremlin box plus Spawn Mother, voyage out and grab Spawn Mother, Burt, and Gracie (who I will get anyway at some point to go with Wong), or get down and dirty snorting all of the Brilliance and throwing down with Lynch?  All of the models are fantastic, so there is not a wrong way to go.  I know what the correct answer for this whole post is:  Buy all of it.  To hell with restraint and clear thinking, and literally buy all of The Kin, Dark Debts, Spawn Mother, Gracie, and Burt.  That way all of my bases are covered and I have all of the toys, right?

Wrong.  I have been so good about painting my models before greedily rushing to grab new ones that I really don’t want to wreck all of my chances at not having a huge pile of models to work on all the time.  I have Teddy, Ama No Zako, Lazarus, (2) Beckoners, Iggy, (3) Depleted, Brutal Effigy, and a Doppelganger on the painting plate right now.  When I finish painting all of these, it will be extremely likely that I want to paint something that doesn’t have the color purple anywhere on it – which would most likely lead me away from the Dark Debts box, but if I pick that up there are only 5 models that need painting, and they will be the final pieces to the Brilliant collection.

Anywho, short post today.  Just needed to get all of this out of my head.  I’ll post updates as painting comes along – until then, happy gaming everyone!

Game Night 4.22.15 and an Editorial

Warning - explicit language

Hello all,

Hope all of you are doing well, and have had plenty of time to hobby away in your various games and projects.  I certainly have had a good influx of hobby time come in as of late.  I have had plenty of time to work on all things Malifaux, and think about all things Malifaux it seems.  In my case, that means that I have ordered entirely too much to put together and paint – and I have had way too much time to come up with fun lists and lists of thing that I want to buy.  Never a good combination, but it is the desire we all have for a new shiny to play with. 

With this continuing wave of Malifaux excitement, I have really started to get into the nitty gritty of the game.  While games will always be beer and pretzel games to me, I have decided that I would really like to get into the competitive scene of Malifaux.  Even if it is just to experiment with playing a good amount of games within a very short time frame.   To these ends, I have really buckled down and decided that I want to get good with my chosen masters:  Fated Collodi, Propped Collodi, and Zoraida.  So far all I have play tested is Collodi with this new mindset.  My preliminary thoughts on Collodi were to always use fated, no matter what was in the scheme pool or what the strategy was.  However, bag of props is now my go to for most games.  The practical stacking of the deck with the amount of focus Collodi can pull from his puppets and minions is a no brainer.  Plus, it allows me to spread out my crew a little more and make it less of a target rich environment for blast masters like Criid and Raspy.  Plus, Collodi can beat the shit out of some people with his triggers if you get everything you need to go off.

A blast master in action against Collodi and Widow Weaver - circa 2 weeks ago

SIDE TANGENT – I hear on podcasts and in stores people mispronouncing my master of choice’s name – it is kuh – lOH – dee.  Not Key – lAh – dee or kuh – lAh – dee.  Listen for yourself if you prefer.  This has been an informational session.

Collodi is a great master.  I am comfortable running him in most schemes and strategies – with a few exceptions being missions where he really has to put the beat down on enemies.  It could be my play style, but I am just not comfortable really throwing myself into the fray with my puppets that are low WD but high defense and armor.  Sure they can be awesome, but man – if I can avoid throwing them into a meat grinder, that would be the best option for me.  With one exception. 

Collodi the Blender Master

I had an excellent game against Von Schill.  I had the following list:

Collodi

-          Bag of props

-          Strum the Threads

Teddy

Ama No Zako

(4) Marionettes

(2) Beckoners

Brutal Effigy

This list might seem like a little bit of a hodgepodge, but it ended up being an excellent list for the schemes and the crew that my opponent brought to the table.  He had Von Schill, Hans, Trapper, Student, Lazarus, Hannah, and a Librarian on the table.  We were playing reckoning – one that I am not the biggest fan of – LitS, Breakthrough, Assassinate, Take Prisoner, and Spring the Trap.  I took Spring the Trap and Breakthrough revealed.  My opponent took Assassinate and Breakthrough revealed.  The terrain ended up being set up perfectly where, if I set up second, I could minimalize the amount of pain Hans and the Trapper would bring to the party.  We flip, and Von Schill has to set up first.  I manage to make a very nice hard cover choke point near the left side of my deployment and force him to come to me – perfect set up to our game for Collodi.

Game progresses in what feels like an unstoppable wave for Collodi.  I manage to pull Lazarus completely across the table with the Beckoners and then slap him for slow with Collodi and put a good amount of damage on him.  However, I positioned Teddy poorly, and he didn’t have a line to get through to really put the hurt on Lazarus.  Hannah marched into the grinder as well, and Ama No Zako darted around a building with her flying, trying to cause as much pain as she could.  Eventually, Teddy got into it and demolished Lazarus, and then got into a tickle fight with Hannah for the next 3 turns.  I managed to lure Von Schill into the gap filled with rotten entrails and cotton balls from Teddy, and spring the trap on him.  I had less models on the table at that point, so I managed to snag 2 points.  A few turns later, Hannah stood unopposed in the gap, Ama No Zako was slain, and Collodi was facing down the might of a very angry Von Schill.  The madness started here.  Collodi turned around, took over the Trapper, one shot the student of conflict, tore the Trapper to pieces with a second Pull the Strings and then pushed a Beckoner around the corner of the building to protect it.  At this point, Von Schill eviscerated Collodi in a shower of splinters and torn string.  However, all was not lost – even after assassinate was scored on turn 5.  A Beckoner made a break for it, launching herself across the table and making it to within Breakthrough distance, throwing a marker down.  My opponent had only killed one model this turn, so he turned Hannah and Hans on the lone beckoner out in the open by the scheme marker.  All attacked whiffed and the game was called.  Tie 6-6.  An excellent hand and amazing top decking managed to save the day from loss with the monsterous destruction of the Trapper and Student of Conflict, and then the failure to kill the Beckoner tied me the game.  Absolutely one of the best games I have played in a long time.

Collodi and friends get destroyed in an earlier game against Lady J

What would I Change?

Well, for starters I think I would drop one of the Beckoners.  Two are great – but they are expensive and a one trick pony is all you get for 7SS.  That could be spent, along with the one SS left over, to grab Widow Weaver, or drop Strum the Threads (which is good about half of the time), and get Vasilisa – who is just Collodi’s mean half with nasty triggers.  I have a few ideas involving Depleted in the list as tar pits for the enemy as well.  That list would feature the Marionettes and Ama No Zako being the primary scheme runners, and possibly a stitched or two.  The list is as follows:

Collodi

-          Bag of Props

-          Strum the Threads

(3) Marionettes

Ama No Zako

Brutal Effigy

(2) Stitched Together

(3) Depleted

Now, the main issue in this is that I don’t have nearly the same amount of quality beaters, or the best access to models that can be used to prop Collodi.  Depleted would like to run up and keep someone stuck in, unable to do anything significant.  Collodi could run up with them and then use them to leech off focus, but that does get him close to the front of the action.  I could drop a Depleted and a Stitched Together to have enough points to take Vasilia as another scheme runner/beat stick ish model.  Or, drop a Depleted, a Stitched, and Strum the Threads, and take a Teddy to walk with Collodi up into the face of the action.  There is nothing more terrifying than Teddy and Collodi waltzing up the board to the sound of Collodi’s music.

Plans Moving Forward

I mentioned that I have purchased things of late, and I am happy to say that my Neverborn continue to gain momentum and bodies.  As listed above, I have (finally) acquired a Teddy, which I am very proud to say has managed to mangle a good amount of meat in the resulting games already played with him.  I have also picked up Ama No Zako, Beckoners, Iggy, and Depleted.  I have some 40mm bases inbound as well to help me proxy a pair of Coryphee and sculpt 3 bases of Gupps.  My main idea for all of this is to make as many options open to Collodi for Fated or Props, and then to have a good amount of alternate options available for taking Zoraida to throw my opponents into disarray as I throw down Bad Juju, Silurids, Gupps, and Iggy to stoke the fires on the Voodoo doll.  Everything burns with Iggy and Zoraida plucking on the Voodoo doll.  I breakdown my personal preference on hiring pools as follows:

Collodi’s Pool	Both	Zoraida’s Pool
Vasilisa	Widow Weaver	Bad Juju
Marionettes	Wicked Dolls	Silurids
Teddy	Mr. Tannen	Gupps
Effigies	Mr. Graves	Iggy
Beckoners	Depleted	Spawn Mother
Coryphee	Stitched Together	McTavish
Lazarus		Waldgeists

Need to Purchase*

It is actually pretty humorous how well I stick to these personal limitations – I really like the themed crews of Masters, and therefore I tend to stick with what I can play in the crew with the themed lists.  The only weirdness that I can take in both lists are Beckoners and Teddy for Collodi, as he has less synergy with them than other choices – Iggy is an obvious choice for Zoraida most of the time I think, but from a fluff sense of the game it makes little sense.  However, the idea of Iggy lighting a doll on fire and causing someone else to spontaneously combust is too good not to pass up.  Graves and Tannen are two very hard miniatures to use in game from my limited playing with them.  It is very likely that this is player error on how to use them, but I just don’t seem to get how they are used.  I want them to really work with Zoraida for some reason, but I don’t think the synergy is there to use. 

My next plans moving forward – after getting all of my remaining models that I use often painted up and ready to go – is to try and play catch up with the models that don’t get a lot of play time – Bishop, Sue, and several other mercenary models come to mind.  Then?  I have a Viktorias crew that needs to be painted, Tara that needs to be built and painted, and several other projects for Malifaux that I would like to start – terrain mostly.  However, I may have to cave and pick up one of the following (most likely both at some point):  Jacob Lynch’s crew box or Lucius’ crew box.  I really like the idea of the Lucius box and all of the unique synergies I could pull off with some of his abilities.  However, I seem to have accidentally collected almost all of the models from the theme of Jacob Lynch, so it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to make the jump and collect him so that I can whip him out with all of the addicts and gals that he likes to hang out with.

My eventual long term goal at this point in time is the following:

Neverborn	Outcasts
Collodi	Viktorias
Zoraida	Tara
Lucius	Misaki
Jacob Lynch	Yan Lo/Wong/Hoffman
These are my one off selections for different factions that would be random plays. Yan Lo would be my one master that I would buy the crew more to paint than to play in all honesty. These are crews that are going to be picked up for sure eventually

This would be the perfect pool for me, and – seeing as this isn’t the whole faction – I would still have room to add on if I really and truly wanted to.  I am not a fan of Lilith or her play style at all.  Pandora is interesting, but not my cup of tea at all, and The Dreamer is one of those masters that I would have played in a heartbeat had I not found Collodi at first – but now I want nothing to do with him.  On the Outcasts side, the same thing happened with Leveticus, one of my favorite masters from a fluff standpoint.  Hamelin needs to turn into something that doesn’t take 30 minutes to play a turn for me to be interested in.  Jack Daw has been described to me as one of, if not the, most difficult master in the game to play.  While I love a good challenge, that sounds brutal to play.  Plus, his plastic isn’t out and his themed models aren’t all that exciting to me personally.  Von Schill goes back and forth between being a model that I really want to have, to a crew that doesn’t seem like he would be that exciting to play.

All in all, Misaki would add a crazy finesse master to my entourage of crews, Tara is a weird support piece, Vikis are my flavor of brutal combat that I prefer over Lilith, Lynch has cool looking models and a neat theme mechanic, Lucius is THE bad guy in all of Malifaux – more so than any of the Tyrants in my opinion, which makes him the cool master to play.  Zoraida has a special place in my heart as the voodoo queen of Malifaux, being that voodoo magic and scary spooky New Orleans witch doctor stuff is fascinating to me.  Collodi is my go to master and my first love.  What is better than a freaky man sized puppet that goes around and steals children TO TURN INTO MORE PUPPETS?! 

The other crews listed – Yan Lo, Wong, and Hoffman – all tickle the places that the other crews don’t quite make it to.  Yan Lo is just a very cool looking and unique crew box.  I am a fan of Japanese art and history, so the models are all really cool in the fact that they combine the best elements of their culture and style with a bunch of gross undead.  Wong is absolutely and positively the most hilarious character in all of Malifaux.  The sole reason I would play him is to be able to giggle with glee as I blow up literally every-fucking-thing.  Finally, Hoffman.  I was not a huge fan of Hoffman at first, but his fluff really turned me into a fan.  His really tragic story of walking the line between Guild and Arcanists is quite compelling I think.  He is reluctant to really commit to anything, but when he does act he acts with such singular purpose that he is almost unstoppable.  Plus, the steampunk vibe is strongest with him, and steampunk does tend to stoke my boilers (see what I did there?  Just lost 95% of my followers with that one). 

Against a different Steampunk crew - Mei Fang - Collodi and Bishop duke it out

Magnificent Malifaux

All in all, if you haven’t guessed by now, Malifaux is one of my favorite games that I have played.  If I could only play one game for the rest of my days, it would probably be Malifaux.  The sheer amount of variety and balance in the game – minus Leveticus and his attacks that literally erase models (and his immunity to death if he has models to take over – no biggie) – makes this game the best I have played.

Which makes me want to get good at this game and go play as many games as I can squish into my free time as possible.  Which leads me to the logical conclusion that I should play in tournaments.  Not really with the end goal of winning the tournament, but with a reasonable goal of winning atleast half of my games and having a good time playing a shit ton of Malifaux over the course of a day or two.  That is the goal for all of this scheming and playing and talk of models.  I want to get as many games in, and the best option that I can see is tournaments, as we only get in 1-2 games on game night once a week.  I want to clock in my Malifaux at atleast 10-12 games a month, which works out to a weekly game night with 2 games, and then a tournament with 3 games.  Or, playing some extra games during the week if there isn’t a tournament this month.

My first attempt at completing this goal started this Wednesday, with a pair of games – one of which you already read about (see Von Schill game above).  The other was against my typical opponent who was running a new crew – Lady J.  I was running a bunch of new models, and didn’t take advantage of the terrain at all.  We won’t talk about how that game ended, or how quickly it was over.  If I didn’t live in Atlanta, I would attempt to make it over to Giga-Bites on the other side of town on Friday’s, but that would go from a 45 minute drive to a 1 and a half to 2 hour drive in traffic.  There is a tournament coming up soon on May 16^th that I am going to try to make.  If you are in the Atlanta area, shoot me a message in the comments if you are interested in trying to make that tournament, or the following GIGACON MALIFAUX WEEKENDER tournament next month – June 6-7.  Both of those are at Giga-Bites in Marietta, GA.  Comment if you would like the information. 

The rivalry between Collodi and the bitch Colette continues - circa about a month ago

I think with that little information drop, I will go ahead and call this post done.  Sorry for the lack of anything super pretty, but I always try to engage in games to get them done quickly so I can have more games in one day.  

Witless Whining and Willful Wanderlust

Hello all!

Once again we find ourselves on opposite ends of the screen from one another.  I hope that you are excited to have a read through this post - last one was over a month ago.  This one should be fairly straight forward.

Several new items have been added to the board game collection:  Robo Rally, Smash Up, Game of Thrones, and Fantasy Flight's Star Wars Armada.  Very excited to give all of those a go, or continuing to play them in the case of Robo Rally and Smash Up.

Robo Rally is a chaotic racing game where you program your robot from a random deck of movement cards as quickly as you can in order to touch flags - in ascending order - before any other player can.  It is extremely fun, even though it can bog down as players are all spinning in circles.  Random board elements and the fact that everyone can shoot at each other help increase the pace of the game, but there is a sense that some of the turns are a waste as you watch robots aimlessly mill about until someone can take a pot shot or push someone off of the board and into oblivion.  Overall, I think that this game deserves a solid B, as it has plenty of replay-ability, but can bog down mid game.

Smash Up is an excellent game of complete ridiculousness.  It is a great way to unwind and throw some cards around with your buddies.  It uses the concept of taking two decks of common creatures from movies or books, and shuffling them together to get a deck.  Then you use your deck to destroy bases and earn points.  Sounds simple, but when you have wizards and zombies playing against martians and dinosaurs with lasers, things tend to get complicated.  Throw in some of the expansions and before you know it you have kittens and vampires taking over the world from goblins and pirates allied with robots and unicorns.  This is my go to when it comes to filler games now - and it works great as a conversation starter for those that aren't entirely inclined to play board games usually.  I give this an A, and the only reason it doesn't get an A+ is the fact that some of the combos of decks are so outrageously good that if someone gets them they are pretty much a guaranteed step ahead of everyone else.

On the actual tabletop front, what have I managed to complete?  Mostly just some games of Malifaux and painting some Malifaux figures.  Nothing too fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but fun nonetheless.  I painted up a pair of Stitched Together and 3 more wicked dolls for my Collodi Crew, as well as primed and started to block out colors on Sue, the Viktorias Hired Swords crew box, 3 more Ronin, and Vanesa.  

Stitched Together number 1

Stitched Together number 2

Wicked Dolls for scheme running and poison dropping

Sue, Walking the Line between painted and non 

Vikis in early stages of painting

I have yet to finish painting Bishop, Zoraida, Hodgepodge effigy, or Brutal Effigy.  After those models have all been completed, it will be time to build and paint my Tara crew with Death Marshals.  Which means that it is almost time to start looking at some new crews to add to the mix.  I am really enjoying my Neverborn, and my Collodi in particular.  I plan on playing him until I am really good with Collodi, so that I can be ready for the plastic release - which I may or may not get.  The options for the next crews to get purchased are Jacob Lynch - the illuminated and the card mechanics are just awesome, Pandora for her awesome looking models, Von Schill as an Outcast with the mustache and lots of stuff that I can use in multiple crews, or waiting until some of the Gremlins come out that I am really interested in - Wong or Mah Tucket.  It will most likely be either Jacob Lynch and some Beckoners or waiting for Wong/Mah.  I cannot wait to get my grubby mitts on a Wong crew box.  He is an amazing looking model that I want to have some amazing games with.

Anyway, thats about all I have this time.  I will update after I get some photo evidence of games being played.  Until next time.