Happy New Year!!!

Here we are on New Years Eve and what better time to do an analysis on 2013 and preview my hobbying ambitions for 2014. 

Firstly, hope you all had a great Christmas and Santa brought you all the stuff you wanted. For me, Malifaux Santa looked strangely like the postman, dropping in my Black Friday order on Christmas Eve. It was a birthday present from myself so I had no qualms about opening it as soon as it came through the door, so by about 9pm on Christmas Eve, I has assembled the two boxes I had ordered, Nicodem and Marcus. Both kits are very dynamic, even the ones that are meant to look static like Marcus have a sort of commanding aura around him. I did find that when I was putting the models together, most of them had small gaps around the joints, however this was probably due to my poor construction technique. Other than that, I am very impressed with the models, some of the best work Wyrd has done.

So, as for 2013, I had relatively successful one I think. At the end of 2012, I started to buy Gremlins and soon into 2013, I had roughly 50 stones of Gremlins built and painted ready for my first game with them. In this game, the Pigapult was more effective than in any other game I have used it, killing Molly. I then dipped my hands back into Ressurectionists and brought McMourning, who I think is my best painted models to date. I also on a whim brought the Viktorias and some other Outcasts. With the M2E beta I decided that I would use Ophilia for the duration and only printed out her cards. Due to limited play time I never really got to grips with her, but enjoyed it enough to not rage quit! I also attended my first tournament, Joelfaux, and managed not to lose all of my games! 

Now, for 2014, I have noticed a few hobby challenges flying about. One that caught my eye was paint more than you buy. Now I would find this challenge either really hard or really easy depending on your POV. If you count the Black Friday models as purchased 2013, then I would find it easy as I don’t have the money to buy models faster than I paint them. If you count them as 2014 I don’t have any models unpainted from 2013, so would struggle to paint more than I buy! Other things I am looking forward to are plastic releases of Gremlins, and its due! Like Wood Elves in Warhammer, apparently forgotten, though Gremlins are making much more noise about it than the elves! 

Right, I’m off now, enjoy new year and hope you enjoyed Christmas, bye!

The Battle of a Thousand Minions!

Right, Hello! Merry Christmas to all, or not if you don’t celebrate Pagan festivals of midwinter, but I’m not going to get into a theological debate right now because that would take a while. Its been two weeks since my last post, and I’d like to say lots has happened in my malifaux life, and quite a bit has! I have played 2 games of Malifaux down at the club, one against Joel’s Guild and the other against Ben Halfords undead army, and by army, I mean ARMY! So many models. 

 My game against Joel was his first with Guild and my less triumphant return to Ressurectionists, using, for the first time, McMourning. I won’t talk about Joels game plan, as he would do it a lot better, and it’s an unusual technique for Guild so I won’t give away its shock value for Isle of Faux. However, my play was even by my own standards poor. I never used McM in 1.5, so I had no idea of how he played, although I gather he has changed a lot since then. Basically, I assumed he needed a bubble, but I am not used to a bubble, so I sort of split the bubble up, which was not a good idea. I left stuff to get chopped up, and I forgot to bring Bête Noir out multiple times, so my biggest hitter wasn’t on the board until turn 3/4, and my Flesh Construct was trapped in a pinebox from turn 2. It was not a good game from my point of view, but Joel could easily break the trend of Guild not winning any tournaments. 

The most recent game I played was against Ben Halford. As he was using Ressurectionists, I hopped back to the Gremlins to prevent a Resser-off. The did result in an effect that made the game take considerable longer than expected, as I had picked a cheap, summoning Gremlin crew and he was using Nicodem. I spent the first turn advancing and Ben spent it summoning. I then brought up a Bayou Gremlin at the end of the turn, meaning that by the end of turn 1, we both had 15 activations. Ben was quickly burning through his stones to summon up some really nasty models! A Hanged, Punk Zombie, Flesh Construct, a load of Mindless Zombies and 50 stones of Ressers were up against 50 stones of Gremlins and a half dead Bayou Gremlin, it doesn’t sound good for me does it? However, the strategy was Squatters Rights and I was on the centre line at turn 2 while Ben was still on the back line. As his crew had a load more stones worth of models than me, once he had got to me I was screwed, but by the time this had happened, I had enough control of that area to keep near control of the area for the end of turn 5. We didn’t have enough time for a turn 6, which would have won Ben the game, so in the end it finished 7-5 to me. 

In other news, I have seen the new models as Joels Black Friday order arrived last week! Its so pretty! I may have to go and buy the new Nephalim even though I don’t play Neverborn, because the sprew is that good. Also, nice new small rule book, can’t wait for my order to get here, it has been posted so should be here soon.

Anyway, that’s all from me for 2013, have a good new year, don’t get too inebriated, see you on the other side!

Joelfaux Review

Hello again! Sorry for the impossible to read first paragraph in the last post, but it was fun to write! So, last weekend was Joelfaux, and it was great fun. First of all, thanks to Joel for running the event, it was an outstanding first event and I will be making an effort to get to more. Also thanks to Henchman Lee for helping out, I don’t think the event would have ran anywhere near as smoothly if he hadn’t given up his place in the tournament to do so, so big thank you to him. I was pleasantly surprised with the venue; the hall was about twice the size I remembered it. The space was well used and didn’t feel cramped at all. As for position in the country, I thought it was great, 20 minute walk from my house! 

So onto the games! My first game at the event was against James, and I thought my game against Hutch was good! The game itself was tactical and closely fought, coming down to the last activation, and James is a great opponent. I randomly flipped for my master and Zoraida was the first to be used, whereas James was using his Lady J crew. The first strategy was Squatters Rights, so I took 3 Silurids, 3 Bayou Gremlins and Bad Juju. My schemes were Frame for Murder on Bad Juju, which was unannounced and Line in the Sand, which was announced. So, in the first two turns I ran Bad Juju up towards Lady J and boom, 3 VP in the bag! By turn 2, I had flipped 3 of the squatters rights markers and managed to protect 2 of them for the rest of the game, gaining another 4 VP. At the end of turn 2, James was looking like his battle plan was kill all of my stuff, which I was perfectly fine with, until he decided that he wanted VP as well. He’d been picking up VP by killing my minions with Justice, but then he got flipped 2 of the squatters markers and had killed enough of my stuff to stop me flipping them back. So the entire game came down to both of us taking Line in the Sand. By turn 3, I had 5 markers across the centre line, but hardly any models left to protect them, so James managed to destroy 3 of them and place his own in their place. This left him with 5 scheme markers on the centre line, me with 2. Mine were safe, he couldn’t get to them and remove them in the same turn. His, I knew exactly how I was going to get rid of them. To take swampfiends in a Gremlin Zoraida crew, you have to take Tarrot Reading, which 90% of the time does nothing in the game other than allow hiring of Bad Juju for no extra cost. However, there is a 2 action on there which allows you to move scheme markers. So with Zoraida, I walked in between two of his markers and pushed them off the centre line. I thought this had won me the game, he would have 7 VP to my 8, but then something happened I could not stop. James activated Judge and shot his own Death Marshal. With the first shot, he flipped red joker for defence, so could not kill the Marshal. As 2 Marshals needed to be killed to replace the 2 markers I moved, I thought this had me safe. So the Judge shot at the other Marshal and killed it. Then he activated one of the Death Marshals and shot at the third, which was engaged with the Voodoo doll. So he then flipped to hit the Marshal but failed to kill it. This meant the final action of the game was the Marshals second shot. He hit the Marshal instead of the voodoo doll and killed it, dropping a scheme marker on the centre line. This swung the game. James got 9 VP to my 8 and won the game with the final action. It was a fantastic game and got me all psyched for the rest of the tournament, giving me hope I could win my other 2, but that did not go quite to plan…

Game 2 was against Bruno, who’s Perdita crew is perdy (get it!). This was a great game for Bruno…  Again, I flipped for my master, and once again, Zoraida came up. The strategy was Turf war, and my schemes were Entourage and Breakthrough. My thought processes behind these was that I could launch Silurids up the flanks of the board and drop markers for Breakthrough, drop Bad Juju and a Warpig into the middle for Turf War and have Zoraida turn into a crow and jump across the board near the end to score my Entourage points. Well, this didn’t exactly go to plan. The first reason this didn’t work was a tactical error, I ran the warpig up the flank of the board to avoid getting shot by Perdita and Fransico. This meant I had to jump Zoraida into the middle of the board to try and gain points for Turf War. Now I thought that as she is difficult to hit I wouldn’t have much trouble keeping her alive for 1 turn until I could move her to somewhere safer, as the middle of the board was completely open. I underestimated the power of Perdita. She charged and used soulstones to avoid the negative flips to hit the shanany grannie (not a thing). Then with negative flips to wound, a moderate was flipped. Then with the second attack, she got red joker-ed. This kind of ruined things for me, and the cards were being particularly bad for me. Bruno to his credit was being very apologetic at my misfortune and was another great opponent, in a one sided game. So by the end of turn 2, I had no way of stopping Bruno, with him gaining all 10VP and me only getting 2 from Turf War. 

That poor result catapulted me down the tables and it was no surprise when my name was called out on the bottom table in the wooden spoon off! Now at this point, my only chance of getting a prize was to go for the wooden spoon, but I don’t like losing… This means that I was in a win win situation. If I lost, I’d get the wooden spoon, if I won, woohoo! So onto the game, playing the only ten thunders player at the event, Aron. Somehow, even on the bottom table, I couldn’t avoid Lynch filth! Well, Ten Thunders Lynch, so it was a very different experience to the dirty dirty Neverborn Lynch. For my master, I flipped again, but not wanting to use Zoraida again, I limited it to odd flip for Som’er, even for Ophilia, and a 6 was flipped, so out the Kin came! Now both me and Aron had never played the Stake A Claim strategy before, so we we’re learning on the job. Firstly, we both ran our crews forward into each other, well, past each other. I got 1 VP for dropping a claim marker at the end of turn 2, but that was the end of those points! Aron dropped loads them in the following turns so I didn’t get any more VPs for that! So I had to gain VPs from my strategies. I had 2 Bayou gremlins standing on markers for protect territory, and had distracted models for 1VP. So it came down to turn 5, Aron had 3VP for Stake a Claim, I had 1. Aron had 2VP for a strategy which I can’t remember what it was. I had 3 secure in protect territory due to the way the board was set out, and 1 for distract. This set us as even, so I had to get a VP for distract on the last turn. Going into the turn I had 2 models distracted, Lynch and an Illuminated. I had the illuminated pinned down by a bayou gremlin so it couldn’t un-distract itself. Lynch was another matter completely, with 3 VP he could escape Ophilia’s melee range and then un-distract himself. So I was waiting for as long as possible before activating Ophillia. To try and stop Ophilia pinning down Lynch, he through Yamaziko and a Torakage into her. Now both of us had forgotten 1 key point about distract, in that you can distract as many models as you like. So to win the game, all I had to do was activate Ophilia and distract Yamaziko to get the win. Aron took this very well, and the game could have gone either way, exactly like my first one, except this time it swung in my favour. It was another great game.

So in conclusion, it was a brilliant first event! Thanks to Joel for running it, all of my opponents for 3 great games and everyone who showed up for a friendly and all round brilliant atmosphere!

Joelfaux Preview

Howdy yall, bin good week for all us down in t’ Bayou. If yer wonderin’ whats wit t’ querly acc’nt I be puttin’ on, I star’ed talkin’ like t’is durin’ recen’ stroll though Bayou, an findin’ it rather tricksy to be stoppin’. 

Just a taste of what was going on in my last game v Hutch, Som’er vs Collette. This was the first time I had played any models from Wave 2, and it caught me really off guard, not that I would have been on guard had I known exactly what I was facing. I just couldn’t deal with the scheme markers! I even took lots of gremlins and pigs to get rid of them but it didn’t work! Anyway, the game was Reckoning, against Collettes Maniquins, I didn’t stand much chance there! The schemes I took were Distract and Bodyguard on Lenny, with Hutch taking Distract and Bodyguard on Casandra. Distract was easy points for both of us, as neither of us could be bothered to remove them. Bodyguard was looking achievable on Lenny until he was targeted by the will power pin. Lenny has a brilliant will power, and when it is combined with a high total of Black Joker was a mighty 1 to try and protect itself, which kind of did him in. The final result was something like 7-3 to Hutch, but we spent the entire game talking in stupid accents and it has to have been one of the most enjoyable games of Malifaux I have ever played.

With Joelfaux coming up this weekend, I’m looking forward to my first Malifaux tournament. Not that I’ve not been to other events, but none of them have been a tournament. So, this should be interesting and fun! First of all, the venue. Newbridge is my old high school, so I think I can safely say, the stock of malifaux there is poor. Do not expect to be getting the new crews there! Secondly, yes this does mean I am unfortunate enough to come from Coalville, but I’ll grow out of it. Normally, I’m quite nervous about meeting new people, but I’ve only heard good things about the wider Malifaux community, so am not at all nervous about meeting you all! 

Now, my aims for the event. The main thing I want to get out of this event is a good time with good people, but that goes without saying. So, what do I want to achieve gaming wise? Well, lets start with the obvious, the only way I will win any prizes from this is the wooden spoon. But no one really goes to an event with the aim to lose all of their games! A successful event in terms of winning games would be winning 2 and losing 1, if I pick my crew well and don’t make mistakes that I haven’t been avoiding in warm up games. Realistically, I can think I can get 1 win, I think I can get the crew right once every 3! I would quite like to use all 3 of the Gremlin masters that have models out at some point. If it looks like I need to use say Zoriada or Som’er twice, I will do! Notice lack of Orphila in there as the one to use twice, I’ve just not been using her as much as the others, plus I think she’s rather 1 dimensional. 

Well, this one has been a rather short post, but its been mainly a preview rather than a review. I’ll do a long one next week! See some of you on Sunday!

A Post to Pass the Time

Right, 3^rd blog post, here we go! At time of writing, I haven’t played a game this week so all quiet on the Bayou front. So to keep up make up the time, this week I’m going to go through the factions, give my opinions on them, explain why I will/wont play them. So without more mucking about, lets get stuck in!

The Guild: I actually played my first game of Malifaux with the Guild, Lady J. I obviously enjoyed it otherwise I wouldn’t have brought into it and hence wouldn’t be writing this now. However, it felt like the humans in most wargames do. I’m entering a world of Zombies, Nephalim, Swamp creatures, black magic ect. Why in this world would I choose to be human? It’s like going to Alton Towers and spending all the time in the gardens. It’s nice, but it’s not really why I went there, I’ve gone there to go on Nemisis, Thirteen, the Smiler, but I’ll stop talking about that, I could go on for hours. They’re good and solid, but feel a touch middle of the road, dull. I’m sure some of you are avid Guild players and won’t be appreciative of my analysis of them, but it’s how I see it. If I was to play them, I’d have to go with Perdita, just cause she is an Ophillia rip off and I like the feel of her from the fluff. 

The Ressurectionists: Ressers were the first crew to grab my eye when I started looking at Malifaux. To be more specific, Seamus. I just thought that he was infinitely cool, Jack the Ripper meets necromancy. Ok, so I’m not too keen on his belles, dead prostitutes just seemed a bit cheap, and I never really rated them in the game. But the rest of the faction easily makes up for it. Necropunks were my favourite model in the game in 1.5, cheap, get in the way, cause a nuisance and they were 3 of my favourite models to paint. Ressers were also such a cool idea, the slimy underbelly, lurking in the dark and cold ready to strike when the foe least expects it. That’s why they are cool, and up there with the green ones for my favourite faction.

The Arcanists: I’ve never really felt the draw of the arcanists. No particular reason why, they just never appealed to me. However, this all changed when I read the fluff in the M2E rulebook. That story is actually rather cool. I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t read it, but well worth the read. I will speak about the masters individually, seeing as there seems to be minimal connection between the 3 of them. Ramos is the token old genius, the like the teacher in a classroom, holding the rest of the MS&U workers together. However, I don’t like his crew, I mean spiders? He isn’t fighting Ron Weasley. Marcus, on the other hand, is brilliant! Every aspect of him is awesome! He still has the professor aspect, cause he is one! And unlike Ramos, Marcus has a cool crew! Giant beasts, little beasts, beasts, beast, beasts! He may well be the next master I get. I don’t rate Rasputina, although Ice creatures are a cool idea, I feel they need back up that I don’t think Raspy has, despite that I have been thumped by her multiple times.

The Neverborn: Neverborn are rather good aren’t they? Well, not the good guys, there are none, but they are the faction I least like to face. I don’t think I have ever beaten a Neverborn crew, but that may be because the local Neverborn expert is Joel, and he doesn’t lose, at least at the club! So, other than thinking they are over powered, what else do I think of them? They’re actually cool. Zoriada is an awesome idea, a Swamp Mistress with unknowable mental strength, and a soft spot for those top green guys! Pandora and Lilith are also pretty sweet, kick ass ladies who want those humans out of Malifaux, and heck do they know how to do it! Pretty cool strong and tough minions, great enforcers and amazing henchmen. I will get into this faction, I wish I could say otherwise, but they are purty!!!

The Outcasts: Supposedly the group of renegades who have no faction, yet seem to be more unified than the Arcanists. I really like them, their no nonsense, get stuck in and make stuff suffer approach. No fuss, little magic, just good with a blaster, and a sword! Viks are cool and embody this image perfectly, neither have much magic, one has a gun, one has good swords! Plus their crew isn’t half bad, Ronin have to be some of the best minions in the game, and the Viks have tonnes of cool enforcers. The Freikorps also embody this, just less staby staby, more pointy shooty. Would love to say I know about Tara, but no I have no clue! 

The Gremlins: So’eett! Ma Bro’s r da bestests guyses, wiv da biggest hats, kick’n sum butt! That was a fun sentence to write! I mean how can you not love Gremlins? The pure fun of them is obvious, who doesn’t like killing the toughest characters in the game by dropping bacon on their head? Or getting your favourite mozzy to go fart in their face? I mean that is just cool. Its easy to hate on Gremlins, saying they aren’t a real faction, but they have had a master since 1.1, unlike the Ten Thunders, which don’t seem to get any flack at all! Anyway, they’re cool, live with it. And like Neverborn, you will all be drawn into them!

Ten Thunders: *Everybody was Kung Fu fightingggg, HA!* Ninjas? Ok, part of me says that’s cool, very cool! Oriental is nice, but they have never drawn me in. They feel sort of cobbled together at the end of version 1 to give Wyrd something to release, albeit it stopped the game going stale, so actually was needed. I’ve had them on my list of things to buy, but other stuff has always forced its way in front of it. They just seem a bit meh to me. 

Anyway, that’s my post for this week, hope you enjoyed it, give me feedback via the usual channel, twitter, @Moderate_Matt .