We're all going on a summer showdown...

So yesterday (all my troubles seemed so...) I headed down the Southend arterial road to Wayland games to take part in the warmest of the showdown series. For those that are unaware the showdown series of events are a run of four seasonally named 50ss tournaments hosted by Wayland and run by Mike "Lord of Malifools" Marshal. The events always draw a nice crowd and are a great mix of new and old players.

The morning routine for showdown is fairly set now; wake up, tea, breakfast, wash, dress, drive, more tea, second breakfast, one more tea... And we're in time to register "Ressers please Mike" and say hello to people.
The saying hello to people seems to be part of the day that gets longer every time, loads of new faces, either people completely new to the game or just new to showdowns which is great to see. Then the regulars who it's always good to see. Some of the regular faces were missing this time whether this was due to the wave 4 ruling, other commitments or alien abduction we may never know (my money is on aliens)

Hey boy, Hey girl, superstar Nico here we go...

A couple more games with Nciodem done and a couple more learning experiences (losses). So out of six games with the one legged wonder I'm up to two win and four losses. I'm getting the hang of Nico's various different abilities and upgrades but not quite there for how to convert that into VP. I'll get to that and where I'm head after I give a brief run down of the most recent games.

This was a rare bit of non event day faux when a few of us decided to bunk off being adults and head to town to play toy soldiers. There ended up being eight Malifaux players on a random Wednesday afternoon at Dark Sphere, which was great fun having loads of 'faux chat going on.

He's the re-animator, twisted re-animator.

So as most people know I'm a Resser player, but I've always steered clear of Nicodem. This was mainly because of how slow he looks to play and also the amount of models needed.

But no more, I'm now diving into the gentleman of the undead. Nicodem is my new master. Generally when I start a new master I just play them on repeat until something clicks. This time I'm going to try and share that process with everyone else.

I tend to do everything on a trial and error basis (emphasis on the error). The plan was to play a few games with the framework of what is my standard crew build and then adapt it to fit Nico as I progressed.

My first game looked like this.

Extraction: Take Prisoner, Leave Your Mark, Set Up, Mark For Death and Convict labour.
I chose to take Leave your mark and Mark for death. The thinking being that MFD would be simple to put on while around the Extraction marker and LYM would be good for when he pulled forward to reach the marker I could slip into the back lines.

I was up against Arcanists. More precisely Marcus.

I'm now going to run through my list and give a rough idea of why I took what.

And the dead shall walk

Well I’ve been playing Nicodem for the slow grow league and a tournament which means I’ve had about 20 or so games with him so far. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with him at the moment. I have won 1 game with him. The rest have been epic disasters with some 10-0 losses in the mix. I’ve learned lots and will certainly admit that I am not a very good player (I have an epic loss record across every system I play and if it is a 1^st person shooter I struggle on easy settings unless the enemy stand still and I’m behind them!)

I struggled with Nicodem in the early game, then push hard in the mid game (often making my opponent mutter things about being doomed, and how broken Nicodem is) then things fall apart in the end game again. 

Things I’ve learned that Nicodem does well

"Switching up"

Well this is my first article and I feel all excited about our shiny new blog.

Malifaux seems to be on the up at the moment. The awesome 2^nd edition has become well established, the tournament scene is buzzing, there are new models and the fabulous Crossroads book. In the spirit of shiny newness, I thought I’d write a few words about starting new crews. Not a new crew in particular, but starting new crews in general. With the new models, strategy and scheme decks what better time to start a new crew?

Now let’s be honest, most of us will end up collecting a ton more models from various factions than we could even use. Malifaux is a fairly cheap game so building up a collection is easy and my bank a/c doesn’t seem to bleed in the way that it used to when I played 40k or fantasy. In those large games, jumping between armies could require a major investment.

There are a lot of articles out there for people getting into the basics of Malifaux, but once you’ve learned the rules the possibilities for expansion are endless. If you are a beginner, I’d recommend getting a crew that looks good and that you like the back ground for, then play as many games as you can without changing up the list too much. Learn the basics and the schemes.