Welcome (back) to Malifaux

Well after too long an absence, I've finally had a game of Malifaux. I thought I might jot down some reflections on how it felt after a 6 month break. Luckily my good friend Francois stepped in to give me a game. He ran:

Shenlong

Sensai Yu

The Shadow Emissary

The Lone Swordsman

Wandering River Monk

A peasant

A TT Brother.

The strategy was extraction.

The first thing that struck me was how rusty I was at crew selection. I went with Pandora as my go to Master. She is just so good and super fun to play. Plus people get nervous when you activate her because he actually has an impact on the game. Just the threat of know she can activate is worrying for an opponent. 

I took 

Pandora (The Box Opens, Wings of Darkness, and Fears Given Form). I like my girl to be up and hurting people.

Widow Weaver

Waldgeist

Doppleganger

Primordial Magic

Nekima

Terror Tot.

Who's in the box?

It feels like forever since I've written a blog post or played Malifaux. Now I'm back to blogging or at least trying to be. This isn't a "I burned out of Malifaux and I'm trying to recapture the love" post. I stopped playing Malifaux because I decided to put my house on the market and move out of London to Basingstoke. Various disasters have happened along the way and most of my collection remains in boxes in storage. I do have a crew packed in a KR multicase so hopefully I can actually get some games at a new club once I'm settled. This article is actually about why I chose  the only master I did to keep out of storage to play with. A "if you could only choose one master, who would it be and why?"

Pandora Bites Back; Tournament report of Bitefaux April 2016

Wow, another tournament. I can hardly believe I've had two tournaments so close together. I got lucky as my wife decided to go to Spain. Sadly she hates Malifaux, Wargaming, Comic books, Sci Fi, and tournaments so play time can be seriously restricted. 

I went to Bitefaux in Chessington, London (UK. It was held in a stunningly nice church hall. Not an old shed but a genuinely big, modern and spacious Church activity centre. We were in two lovely big rooms with big windows on a gloriously sunny spring day. It helped make the atmosphere light and pleasant. I was really pleased about that as I'd had an anxiety attack the night before the tournament, so I was feeling rough on the way to the venue. Luckily I'd bumped into Insidious Madness as we got out of the same train carriage and a walk in the sunshine cheered me up no end. 

I took Pandora. The strategies/schemes were prepublished and they were great for the Mistress of Mental Hate. If only she had a decent player controlling her. 

Pandora cries at Boarfaux

Ok tournament write up time. 

This was one of those rare times when my wife gave me permission to go to a tournament. What a tournament. Boarfaux, held in the fabulous Paradise cafe Warboar in Bromley, London (UK). A 50ss fixed faction event in 2016 using Gaining Grounds and the new schemes. 

Now I was very nervous going into this tournament. Not only am I one of the worst Malifaux players in the UK, but I'm also very inexperienced with Neverborn. I'd had 4 games with Pandora in the run up (2 wins, 2 losses). I also have trouble knowing what the strategies are and I have never scored more than 1 to 2 points of a strat. If I get 5 points overall I have had a high scoring game by my standards. I was therefore worried I'd be a boring and disappointing opponent. Still it was a chance to play 4 games in a row, see my friends and some of the wider community in a great location. 

Battle report: Pandora v Kirai

So here is a short battle report for my first outing with Pandora

I had 26ss to play with. The Strategy was Turf War. I took Take Prisoner and Distract as my schemes. Dr Walnut took Breakthrough and A Line in the Sand! 

I was really nervous when it came time to deploy. He had Kirai, Izamu, Lost Love and Philip & the Nanny. I had 

Pandora The Box Opens, Aether Connection and Wings of Darkness (I think)

Candy Best Behaviour

Doppleganger

Primordial Magic. 

I was really, really sure I was going to be wiped out easily. My crew was built to buff and debuff but I didn't actually have any hitters. On the upside I was drawing 7 cards a turn and able to prevent 2 damage on my prevention flips for Pandora. She also had Terrifying 13(All). That at least made me confident she would be ok in the centre for a bit. 

As we went into turns 1-2, the Kirai crew just grew, adding Gaki, Onryo and a Hanged. I think he must have added a good 30ss to his crew over the game. Filthy, filthy ressers, especially in a 26ss game and he was basically running a 50s crew. 

Badluck & Blood in 2016

Well the last of the mince pies have been eaten (before I could even get my paws on them) and the decorations are away. A warm December has turning into a nasty January and I've done my 2015 Year in Review post already. 

Now on to 2016. New Year means New Faction, especially as the Abnormalifaux crew are running a slow grow. Very excited. One of the rules was that it had to be a completely new master, and fully painted. As I've done a year with TT I thought I could use Misaki. I haven't tried her yet. She is just sitting on the shelf painted and ready. Still, that felt a bit like I would be playing new comers with lots of models I knew well, just with a different master. That didn't seem fair. I thought about Lynch perhaps as Neverborn. I already have Mr Graves, Mr Tannen and 3 Terror Tots painted for him when I want to run him as Neverborn. This was tempting but there was a big problem. I hate the Hungering Darkness so I threw the model away and started converting a new one. There was no way it was going to be ready in time. 

List Building at Dark Faux

As my full-sized report on Dark Faux is dragging along and still not ready to be published I thought I would post some more specific musings that wouldn't be covered in the main tournament report. Namely, I want to talk about list building. List building in a very short period of time is one of the most underrated skills in Malifaux. You have to have some idea of what all your models do, when to take them, and when not to. Also you have to be able to consider the strategy, schemes, terrain and scenario. Obviously knowing the strategy in advance you can think of some combinations that would be useful but until you have all the need information you can't make any final decision (or at least you shouldn't). This is also why pre-releasing schemes and pre choosing lists is problematic as you are still lacking in intel, not knowing your opponent or the board itself.

Due to the importance of list building and the fact that I have been talking about it a lot recently with other Abnormalifaux members, I thought I would go through my thought process on the lists I built for a couple of the games at Dark Faux. This will not be completely in-depth but will touch upon the main considerations I made. Also keep in mind that Dark Faux was a fixed master event so it is slightly different from games where you won't know the opponents master when building your crew.

Game 1: Squatters Rights (Corner) vs Maria

LITS
Assassinate
Distract

Plant Explosives

Vendetta

Summer Showdown Tournament Report

Well after almost 3 months since my last event (name it) I finally was back in a tournament. This was also the first tournament I had done since finishing painting Zoraida and Pandora so for the first time I was going into the event with more than just one master (Dreamer) to choose from. Was really looking forward to the added tactical choices this entailed. Also since the strategies weren’t pre-announced I would have to be making quick choices. My goal for the day was to use at least two different masters and get four good games in. After not being in a proper event in a while I was too rusty to worried about placing (although obviously I was hoping to do well)

Game 1: Reckoning (Standard) vs Lee Walstow

LITS
Bodyguard

Breakthrough

Plant Evidence

Deliver the Message

Deployment

My List:

Pandora with On Wings of Darkness, Fugue State, Box Opens

Primordial Magic

Nekima with Fears Given Form

Coppelius with On Dreaming Wings

Doppelganger

Silurid

7 Stones