You know nothin' Jon Snowdown...

As I did last year this year I'm planning on attending all the showdown events. They're a really fun series of events that have four events spread out through the year. They're run by the mastermind behind the UK nationals and are hosted at Wayland games (you'll notices a lot of my tournament write ups are based at Wayland this is partly due to them hosting plenty of events and partly due to it being easy for me to get to).

The Showdowns follow a set template of a 50ss, three round, relaxed event with plenty of piss taking and swag to keep people happy.

I drove down with the charming beanpole that is Francois "the Guild" Langton who took the risk of being in the car with me driving (spoiler nothing exploded but the was a slight overheating issue again).

As always first up was meet and greet, which involved a bit of hand shaking, hugging, and swearing, followed by registration using the very flash Bag O' Tools tournament system but we still queued up because we're British and it's what we do best.

Sorry, totally Zoned Out there...

While my intrepid teammate Dr Walnut had headed off to Wayland to take part in Lost Love, I was braving the perils of the Midlands to help TO the second event at the brand new Warzone Workshop. Normally this would require the special kind of hell that is the British train system but luckily for me the very beardy Stuart "Snezzley" Snares had offered to give me a lift. Huzzah!

We ended up with 26 players in the end out of an estimated 28 - sadly Mr Battrick had been unable to make it due to bad weather in his area but hopefully he'll be able to get to the next one! It was lovely to see people who had travelled from a few different places, as well as some of the Warzone locals we also had a large contingent of Squigs (including THE Joel Henry), 2 of the Tractor Massive (Mike "Lord of Malifaux" Marshall and Spooner) and then Snezzley who in a move that was either brave or foolish had made the drive from Kent to Northampton. Loon!

We had a very easy and fun journey up to Northampton, managing to get there a little before the stated start time of 10am. As the Warzone shop is on the small side, Karl & Ben had annexed the cafe across the way which had the added benefit of being able to serve hot drinks to any players who wanted them. A bonus when you're playing at an event in February I feel.

We got underway with our 2 unfortunate drop outs and Ben used the very cool Bag O Tools software to get the first round draw done. In possible the most malevolent display of artificial intelligence since Skynet, the software decided to pair Matt Spooner with Joel Henry. I'm not ENTIRELY sure but I think Matt was a bit annoyed. In fact, I think he might have said a bad word or 50. Of course everybody else found this incredibly funny was very sympathetic to Matt.

And so it begins...

   

Its finally time for my tournament season to kick off again, and also time to start the now legendary Arc'17 (legendary might be pushing it but its big trust me)

Once again I was heading down to Wayland games, this time it was Lost Love 5 run by the unstoppable Mr David Brown. This is my third lost love and it's always an event I look forward too. It was touch and go a few days before the event if I would make it at all as I had slight car issues but I was rescued when the heroic Mr Paul Butler offered to pick me up on his way down. (once again proving how amazing the Malifaux community is).

So when got down to Wayland in chilly Hockley and after giving a hand to set up the tables it was time to register. Lost Love is slightly different than a standard GG event in a few ways, firstly it's fixed Master, second it's 45ss games which changes things slightly, and third you have a 70ss pool to hire you're models from. All these aspects are there to make it a bit more beginner friendly while still keeping the veterans entertained. 

My Master and pool for the event was

Which was quite simple to choose as that's most of what I had painted in Arcanists. I've only had a few games with Rapsi before the event so I wasn't hugely confident (no change there) but I knew enough that I hopefully didn't completely embarrass myself.

Quick stop for tea and a run around saying hi to some of the 44 other players that had shown up despite knowing I would be there.

Game one was against Lucas (spoiler he also went on the finish very well this event), he was running Som'er with a fleet of gremlins and we were playing head hunter.

First few rounds were surprisingly close with me managing to kill a few waves of gremlins but Lucas kept up the pressure and steadily kept scoring VP while I took pot shots at his crew.

The game ended 9-3 to Lucas. It was a fun game and the fact that it wasn't a white wash boosted my confidence with 'tina.

Lunch time was a Wayland special and another tea. The tea was even more vital than normal as standing in a warehouse in mid February is a bit nippy.

Round two and I was up against one of my locals and also someone who I faced round two at Nationals Rich who was running Tara (shiny new fixed Tara). This time we had Stake a Claim, which with the notoriously slow December gang wasn't looking to easy.

For the first few turns this was a really cagey game with nothing dieing but both of us putting down a wave of scheme markers. Then one activation after the other we both killed our frame for murder targets and then we settled it to a game of him trying to bury me and me trying to kill him.

schemes were a draw so it all came down to claim markers and unfortunatly for me no matter how much I kill that doesn't get rid of markers. 

The game ended 7-5 to Rich which I have to say was a well deserved win. The margin of loss was getting lower and combos were stating to click with the crew so I was happy going into game three.

Game three was against Sean running Tatiana in Squatters rights.

I was expecting a barrage of neverborn tricks and speed, which I got with silurids grabing squat marker early and Tati and mature neph flying straight over my ice pillars. however I managed to have an incredibly lucky run of cards meaning the emissary grabbed my some hunting party points early while Raspi blasted away about half of Tati's crew. After that the weight of numbers on my side meant that I could keep the pressure on and keep blasting into the crew. 

The game ended up 8-5 to me and I was really happy with that result. Luck may have paid a large part but now I knew I could win a game with Arcanist.

Tea, Tea, and more Tea... I could almost feel my fingers again by this point.

Game four my final game was against Shaunie running Pandora (I'm not a huge fan of facing box girl so  this wasn't great news. And Shaunie didn't seem too keen on facing Raspi so we were even)

This round was interference and as it had been a long day and Pandora was looking terrifying I decided to go fairly agressive and just ignore the strat while I concentrated on killing everything.

A lot and nothing seemed to happen in this game and honestly I think if the game had been play early in the day not at the end it would have been a bit higher scoring both sides.

I managed to do enough damage to Pandi to get 1 vp for eliminate that may have been the high light of my game. Pandi kept fairly defensive while ticking up points for last stand.

The game ended in a 6-6 draw which wasn't a bad result. I'll also use this point to send people over to check out the events running over in Woking this year where Shaunie is henchman Under the hanging tree . Well worth checking out.

So thats it first event of Arc'17 and I didn't (overly) embarrass myself of the cult of December. I finished 32 out of 45 so no wooded spoon to add to the collection this time.

Big thanks to Dave for running it, it was a huge event that managed to keep the friendly community feel of past Lost Loves as well. Thanks to Wayland for the tea and table. Thanks to all my opponents for not throwing anything at me. And again a huge thanks to Paul for getting me there.

Next up will be Snowdown back at Wayland again for the first of the years showdown series. I should be adding a second master to the case for that one when I decide between Marcus or Cooper and is you wanted to come along and see my looking confused you can find a ticket here - Snowdown!    

  

That's Mr Rodriguez to you

As I slowly tick off models on my Arc 17 list the next one is the mighty Arcane Emissary, or as I call him Rodriguez.

Originally big Rod was going to be painted like a hot rod black with red flames and lots of chrome, but one I had him assembled it became apparent that wouldn't fit. Most of the flat metal sections had a weathered texture or scratches to give him a battle worn appearance.
So instead I decided to go with the idea that he was pull together from the various machines and scrap nearby when he manifested.

A statistical look back at my Malifaux games in 2016

So last year I did a statistical breakdown of my 13 tournaments. This year I only attended 6 events AND I actually decided to track the details of all my games, not just tournaments. In the past I only tracked my W/L record and which master I was using. So here is an article that is gonna look at my factions/masters, which schemes/strats I took, what my opponents ran, etc. I also will make some comparisons to last year (mostly in what I ran). Hopefully this is interesting for someone other than me, but I always quite enjoy the statistical breakdown pieces anyone posts.

First off I'm gonna start with a little comparison between the factions/masters I used in 2016 compared to my first 1 1/2 years of Malifaux (2014-2015). Prior to 2016 I'd only played a handful of games outside of Neverborn (all with Viktorias). 2016 I failed at my goal of getting the rainbow badge, but did branch out of Neverborn more than every before. In 2014-2015 I used Neverborn in 95% of my games. In 2016 that was wayyyy down to 58%. Even I was surprised to see that Gremlins was my 2nd most played faction, but there ya go.