Screwing Up and Branching Out (6 games in)

Hello again! So, either you passed the terrifying check required to click on my highly photoshopped mug or I've replaced the link photo with something more palatable (probably Killjoy). Thanks for coming back to read more of my blathering in what I hope will be either a weekly or bi-weekly update of my gaming progress (although I have the schedule keeping skills of a squirrel, so no promises).

Today I want to talk about fucking up and how to learn from it, the first displays of my short attention span in Malifaux and becoming braver.

Let's get the painful bit out of the way and talk about my second game against my long term gaming buddy Borja and his Perdita crew...

Now, I don't want to diminish my opponent's play at all, Borja played a really tight game as always and scored almost all of his scheme points. That being said, I'm basically going to talk from this point on about just how many things I screwed up and the ultimate result that had on my game (namely, scoring 0 VP). Starting with the strategy, we were playing guard the stash, and to put it as simply as possible, I misheard the description of how to win, thinking I needed two models within 2" of either objective rather than one model within 2" of both... Suffice to say my deployment with this in mind was more than a little silly, and it was only on turn 3 that I realised my mistake. Oops.

Second, make them suffer, I'd listened to a Before We Begin podcast recently in which they discussed the scheme and the lists they'd chosen around it. Because of this, I skim read it just to remind myself of the rules, and completely missed the bit that stated 'Master or Henchman'. For those who don't know, make them suffer scores you a VP at the end of the turn if a master or henchman kills a minion or peon, or an automatic VP if your opponent has no minions or peons.

So let's take a look at the list I brought (the last scheme was protect territory, which at least I did get right)

Von Schill - I Pay Better, Survivalist, The Shirt Comes Off
Student of Conflict

Lazarus - Oathkeeper
Librarian
Hans - Scout the Field

Trapper
Trapper

...

And just like that it was as if a thousand pro-players cried out at once and were silenced.

So yes, this is frankly a terrible list for Make Them Suffer, with only one model that can actually score it (which I failed to note until turn 3). I then ran half my force - the little tank pocket of Lazarus, Von Schill and the librarian - over to one objective, on the premise that I'd never be shifted off it. We'll come to how I managed to screw that up as well, but  as you can see, even the premise was flawed.

So let's fast forward a few turns into the game; I'd plinked a few damage off a few things, namely Francisco, and had lost a trapper in return. Poor deployment left the second trapper and Hans with little to shoot at after the first couple of turns, and I was down 2/0 - this was when I realised the horrible mistake I'd made scenario wise. In a desperate attempt to rectify it, my badly wounded Von Schill who was down to a single wound charged over to Francisco, knocking him down to hard to kill (yes, I had failed to remember to shoot off that upgrade with Hans) and then using FINISH THE CUR! to kill him, he turned his last attack on the peacekeeper and then attempted to rip his shirt off, completely forgetting that I'd used my (0) action already and thus being unable to heal! This led to Von Schill dying to a fecking Austringer (*sniff*) and thus turning off the bonus willpower and psuedo hard to kill for the rest of the posse... Oops.

From that point onwards it was a simple matter of cleanup for Perdita, I did bring the peacekeeper down, but too late, and the final score was 0/7 with me being almost completely tabled bar the librarian.

So, what did I learn from this fiasco?

Well, there really is nothing like fucking something up to make sure you never fuck it up again, in my next game I read each scheme two or three times, just to be absolutely sure I knew how to score them. I also had my first experience of managing multiple (0) actions - Von Schill could have forgone his attack on the peacekeeper to kill Francisco, and then ripped his shirt off, likely surviving (the peacekeeper had already gone) - and potentially paralyzing a model or two in the process. Even better given I hadn't activated the librarian yet. Finally, it's gotten through to me that I need to be less afraid of just attacking Perdita, def 7 or even def 9 isn't impossible to get through, and she lacks wounds, she's just too dangerous to simply be left alive.

So, where did that leave me heading into my next game? Well, I got a taste of Von Schill and didn't care for him much - I know I screwed up a lot, but it felt like I had to put a lot of effort into making him actually do stuff bar being tanky, I'm a big fan of specialists over all-rounders, and so he didn't quite fit with me in that manner. I also made a decision to be more proactive next time; I'd been trying to purely play objectives and rely on just 'not dying' for a few games, which really isn't a healthy way to play in my opinion, as it shoves all of the control into the opponent's court, rather than forcing them to cope with situations I'd generated.

So, game 2.

This was Reckoning against Ressers: I took murder protege and power ritual, revealing both. My opponent took power ritual and line in the sand, also revealing both. I chose the Viks for the first time this game, and my opponent selected Nicodem (also his first time with the master).

My list was as follows:

Vik of the Ashes - Sisters in Spirit, Synchronised Slaying, Sisters in Fury
Vik of the Blood - Mark of Shezuul, Oathkeeper

Vanessa - Howling Wolf Tattoo
Trapper
Ronin
Ronin
Strongarm Suit - Oathkeeper

And my opponent's:

Nicodem - Love Thy Master, Undertaker, Maniacal Laugh
Vulture
Mortimer - Corpse Bloat
Toshiro, the Daimyo
Ashigaru
Crooligan
Crooligan

We were on Flank deployment with a great big Ht5 climeable structure in the centre of the board that made a lovely nest for the trapper. I split my crew into two teams, both Viks and a ronin on one side, the strongarm, Vanessa and a ronin on the other. My opponent deployed in more of a clump, with two crooligans hunkering behind terrain in either corner.

I was really happy with how I played this game; I managed to carry out my plan of being proactive quite well (helped by the absurd offensive potential of the Viks) - long story short, I killed my murder protege target (the hanged) on turn 2 and also took down Toshiro with a sex changed strongarm suit. I managed to score reckoning from every turn thereafter, as well as plant ritual, but props to my opponent, despite all the efforts on my part, he managed to score max points for both power ritual and Line in the Sand with a hilarious cycle of summoning crooked men, killing them and dropping scheme markers.

The end result was 10/6 to me, reckoning being the deciding factor (any other scenario and I think I would have had a much harder time). I made a handful of errors (deployed my ronin too far forward so had to spend an AP wandering back to plant ritual, and kept forgetting to do important (0) actions before charging), but a couple of noticeably good plays as well, such as dropping oathkeeper for fast on vik of the blood, just to get an extra AP to walk back behind terrain after scoring murder protege. Perhaps my favourite was using a ronin to cut a crooligan open, push into the corner, drop a scheme marker, and then happily die to poison, denying the reckoning point.

This was my highest point score so far, and for the first time I felt like my list was well chosen for the strat and scheme setup (although I do regret not taking Taelor vs Resurrectionists). It also felt nice to be in the driving seat for the first time since game 1, helped massively by the functionality of the Viks, I think my next task will be finding that happy medium between action and reaction. Big thanks to my opponent for making the game so much fun, never getting salty, and generally being a good guy.

So where do we go from here? Well, I'm 6 games in now and my record looks like this:

Hamelin: 1 win to Arcanists, 2 losses to Guild and 1 loss to Neverborn
Von Schill: 2 losses to Guild
Viks: 1 win to Ressers

I have a tournie to attend in November, which I'll be plugging practice for over the next few weeks. I'll be playing the Viks (because having two walking blenders is hilarious) and Hamelin, they seem to cover each other's strat/scheme weaknesses well, and don't require a massive extra investment in other models to play competitively (I'm looking at you Leviticus). I seriously need to improve my game against Guild, and get some practice vs the other three factions.

So, hope you enjoyed that brief(ish) redux of my last two games, I'll check in again next week (probably).

See ya soon,

Seb.

It Begins... (4 games in)

Introductions and Salutations

Hello! If you're reading this the chances are you're one of the poor souls I've roped into giving me your 'honest opinion' on this (that means nod, smile, tell me it's amazing and you'll be sitting on the main page clicking the refresh button, waiting with baited breath until the next post comes up). If not, welcome! My name's Seb, I'm an actor, voice-actor and generalist nerd with an all-consuming addiction to pushing small men/women around a board and fake-murdering other people's small men/women.

At this particular moment, my current vice is Malifaux, which is like as not what has drawn any of you non-emotional conscripts to this dusty corner of the blogosphere today. And boy, has it hit me hard, I'm currently four games in, a rather large sum of money down, and have spent the last few days with my face buried in books, forums and pullmyfinger articles. I'm hooked, utterly hooked, so hooked that I'm actually physically compelled to splurge my feelings about the game into the web in the form of this blog; so here we are. This will be a blog about my not-so-tentative first forays into the world of Malifaux; replete with battle-reports, musings, over-zealous analysis of the game and just about anything else my extremely short attention span drives me to write about at any given moment. I hope you enjoy your time here, or at the very least learn how to turn the word 'hello' into two paragraphs.

It Begins

Three weeks ago, I was sitting on my sofa, staring at a laptop screen upon which is the pullmyfinger wiki page, the core rules on my lap, mind abuzz with what to do. I'm a faction-hopper by nature (honestly, I'm even classified as one by my Myers-Briggs personality type), I like to experience as much as I possibly can, and that usually involves me finding as many different excuses to swap around as possible. Mentally, by this point, I'd played three different factions, Ressers, Gremlins and Outcasts; and trust me it was a lot of work to boil it down to those three. In another tab is an online wargames shop with the Malifaux page open, I've promised myself I will decide who to play tonight.

The mouse slides up to the Von Schill box.

Then down to the Somer box.

Then to the Mcmourning box.

Finally, it comes to a rest on the Hamelin box.

I click buy.

Fast forward a handful of days and I'm spewing rats out all over a Colette crew on Squatter's Rights, I've managed to dump Killjoy onto my Murder Protege target turn 1 only to flip an untimely black joker and have her pushed away to safety. A solution to my problem, MORE RATS! I manage to out-activate consistently and eventually wander a rat-catcher into a group of enemies, who, telling them not to mind him, plants a stick of dynamite in the middle of them before being soundly beaten to death (netting me 3 VP in the process with plant explosives though). Killjoy, whose been stuck in one spot playing whack-a-mole with damned steam arachnids for the last few turns finally cuts himself free and yanks the Firestarter to him Mortal Kombat style, although it takes him two rounds to finish him off. A timely obey followed by a sound 'thwonk' on the head from Hamelin ends a breakthrough attempt and by the skin of my teeth I manage to pull a victory out of the hat (get it?).

Next game sees me face off against the mighty Perdita and her crew of gunslingers in Turf War; the first turn sees Abuela get a little over-confident, walking into range to be obey'd, and sending the Austringer next to her to the deepest pits of hell with a well-placed slug, only then to follow him on his journey after a brief encounter with Killjoy. Clearly murdering people's grandma is not the best idea in territorial disputes however, as the fury of the Ortega's descended upon Hamelin and his company of undead/diseased children and big, blubbery hellspawn. Killjoy was cut down in short order, Nix followed shortly after, Hamelin held out as Hamelin does but was eventually downed by Perdita herself. I learned the pain of Austringers as a bird carrying dynamite compelled Perdita to drop the explosives in a bunch of rats, and finally, whilst my attempt to bluff breakthrough worked, a random and I quote "I may as well" shot from Perdita ended my hopes of scoring outflank. A rather crushing defeat (but I still killed Grandma).

A week on and I'm staring down The Human Blender aka Lady Justice in Squatter's Rights. Long story short, the Walking Damage Flip rips open a Strongarm Suit scoring murder protege on turn 2, and clockwork traps are dicks. On the plus side, I did get Lady Justice blighted enough that she had to flee from my army of children and I discovered just what kind of horrible things Trappers can do once you start applying them to the right targets.

My final game thus far came against Malifaux's most violent hippy: Lilith. Having decided that all the children really needed adult supervision, Hamelin had brought a number of responsible grownups this time, including two Trappers and a Strongarm. Hamelin decided that this was not the time for more rats, and instead spent most of the game telling the Trappers to shoot more (although of course, he probably should have told them to shoot at Nekima rather than Graves before she walked into combat with everything and made life horrible). Nix lost his life early on after a brief trip to the shadow world, for some reason the Strongarm and the Wretch ended up on scheme duty (note to self; Wk 4 summoning models are not ideal for this job) and Nekima decided to be what is commonly referred to as 'a colossal pain in the arse!'. Funnily enough, I really nearly managed to win this one, the final score being 8-6, as I got overly greedy attempting to kill Iggy and failed to save my Red Joker for defence, allowing me to score a full 3 VP from take prisoner on Lilith, but alas, it was not to be. Perhaps the crowning achievement of the game was a single rat, spawned by the obedient wretch on turn 1, who managed to inflict a grand total of 15 blight tokens to two different models, survive two rounds of combat and flip two red jokers for defence, I have since dubbed him the Rat of Destiny.

And that's it so far! Apologies for the short summaries of the games, from this point on I'll try and record battle-reports in full.

I hope you enjoyed this brief foray with me and you'll stick around to see what happens next.

See ya soon!

Seb.