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. 

Masters 2015 (Which takes place in 2016, just so you know)

I wasn't actually planning on writing anything about Masters before I went. Much like Nationals, it is too big an event and there is too much going on to take enough notes to do a proper tournament report. But I did think my experience at Masters is worth writing a few short (for me) words about.

My first proper tournament was the League of Extraordinary Henchmen weekend events in January 2015. Philippa and I were lucky enough to get a ride up there from Joe Wood and it was a great weekend. It was at that point I finally got to start testing myself competitively and see how I matched up. It was also, for the most part, the first time I got to meet people in the Malifaux scene. I'd met a few people, including Mike Marshall, James Reeves, Dave Hill, at earlier small events at Wayland but wasn't really a part of the scene at that point. So LOEH last year was thus both the start of my first year of competitive gaming, and the beginning of building a whole new social group in my life. As fun as the gaming was, going out for drinks and dinner on the Saturday night was probably the highlight.

Fast forward a year. After doing far better than I expected over the last year I managed to qualify for Masters. So Philippa and I were back, a year later, where the whole year of Malifaux started. The best part was, instead of being new and not knowing a ton of people, we were getting together with a bunch of friends from all over the country. We even had a fewer others from the Dark Sphere crowd come up for at least one day. Considering how I work in a non-social environment (there are only two of us here in London) and Philippa and I live on our own, the Malifaux community has become one of my main social circles. And what a great community it is. Nationals was so busy and exhausting that I found it hard to really get much socialising done. This weekend was even more about enjoying hanging out with friends than it was about playing for me. Especially since I wasn't particular confident in my ability to make it to Day Two of Masters. I spent most of the train ride up reading the new schemes for LOEH Sunday. Anyway, I'm rambling again, but I just wanted to thank everyone in the Malifaux community for making me feel so welcome and being such a huge part of why I love living in the UK. Also the dinner Saturday was fantastic and hilarious. Really enjoyed how relaxed and social everything was. Thanks to Maria for organising the dinner.

Every time the conversation about Masters has occurred since I started playing Malifaux, people would say that it was the best event of the year. Often saying that high level of competition was balanced with a relaxed atmosphere due to people having nothing left to prove. I wasn't sure I actually believed it, but it was definitely true. On day one I managed to play 3 great games against top notch players I had either never face or never beaten (you still have a winning record over me Dave :P). Even in the games where I won by a lop-sided score, it was a much closer game than the score would indicate. After (shockingly) getting through day 1 undefeated and (even more shockingly) not taking Dreamer out of the case all day (Pandora is so darn good), I was on to Day Two. Day Two started with my one game of the weekend where I didn't use Pandora (Dreamer finally coming out) and was a 9-9 draw that saw me go through to the next round due to previous day's results. The semi-finals saw me take the first punch as Huggy took out Nekima early, but I managed to recover  to win the game 8-7.

Plenty of Bad Luck in 2015

Well it has been an eventful 2015. The blog has taken off and I've done some tournaments and expanded my Ten Thunders. I thought I'd do a quick year in review post.

2015 Ten Thunders

So much fun. I played games regularly. I switched from Mei Feng to Shenlong when he came out, but I also used Yan Lo quite a lot despite his many, many failings. Shenlong did all that I'd hoped for. Fun and complex, his condition switching was great, and having all those extra positive flips for focus and df really helped. I found him working well with Low River Style and Wandering River Style.  I really got to know Yan Lo almost back to front. I found he is just as bad as the comments say. He is so bad I wrote an article on him. I've had debates with the Abnormalifaux group about him. They say "yeah but Zoraida or Lucius are the worst masters in the game, and he isn't quite that bad." My view is that if a Master is in contention for worst in the game, then he/she has issues that need to be addressed. He is so far down from the mid tier masters it is not even funny. I keep running across the same hopeful posts from people who are convinced it he could just be played a different way with some secret combo, then he'd be great. He isn't. He is fun by the bucket load but he is a bad master.

So what about TT themselves? Well I've enjoyed them. I've played them at competitions and in countless friendly games. They are a solid faction with some real superstars. Sensai Yu and the Ten Thunder Brothers are stonking brilliant. Chiaki has always done well. The Katanaka sniper is well worth those 7ss and with Shenlong he is brilliant. Because he can take Focus as a (0) near Shenlong, he is able to move and shoot or with a peasant he can do 2 focused shots. That is usually too much effort. Him and a peasant are usually enough. Yin is great and I don't take her enough. Kang in the right list, being healed by Sensai Yu using Low River Style makes him into the Hulk. But overall I have been underwhelmed a bit by the TT in terms of flexibility and variety. Shenlong & Mei have impressed me, I've enjoyed Yan Lo tons and I'm looking forward to Lynch. The problem I've found is that the builds tend to end up a bit samey with some really interesting models always left on the shelf

Welcome to Malifaux tournament quick run down.

Down in sunny Hockley at the magic land that is Wayland games I recently took part in a small very fun event called welcome to malifaux.

The idea is to run a beginner friendly event for some of the new converts to our fine game.

The rules were three round of forty soulstones with fixed master and a hiring and summoning pool of sixty soulstones. First round is beginners versus beginners and veterans versus veterans.

First up after a spot of breakfast and a tea was round I took Seamus and some other ressers against lilith with a nephilim based list in recon.

I got taken apart by a charming fella called Paul, great start to the day lots of fun moments which mainly involved me missing every attacks. (it shouldn't take 3 rounds for Seamus to kill a terror tot). The game ended with me losing nine to two.

Lunch and two more teas it was time for game two.

This was turf war against the famous girl or many names Claire (Eless, cookie bringer etc) this time Mah Tucket was against the hatter. The rogue necro and gremlin wrestler had a smack down in the middle of the table which was soon joined by sybelle and Mah and leaving just Mah and her massive spoon standing. Seamus jumped about the edges picking off lone gremlins.
Ended seven to five to me but could of swung either way.

2016 Gaming Resolutions

Another year another set of goals. Unlike my real-life resolutions (which were a definitive failure last year) I actually did quite well on my 2015 hobby resolutions. Hopefully the same will be true this year (though not the failing at real life part...).

Last year was heavily malifaux focused and the first year ever that I attended more than 2-3 gaming tournaments in a year. Having attended 13 events in 2015 and qualified for Masters, it was by far the most competitive year I've had in gaming. This year I am going to take a bit of a step back competitively after Masters. Attending fewer events and spending more of my gaming time on other systems (especially Guildball, but also Saga, OGAM, Bloodbowl etc). Malifaux will continue to be my main game but rather than taking up 95% of my time it will prob be closer to 60-70%. Last year I also focused heavily on a few specific masters. This year I plan on being less focused on any one master and spending more time just experimenting with different things. That being said, if I am as taken by a new master as I once was with Dreamer then I will not force myself to play other masters. But it's hard to predict when/if that will happen. Anyway, let's get to those resolutions: Which I've split into gaming and hobby resolutions.

Gaming Resolutions: 
1) Get the Rainbow Badge
Last year my major goals were all about improving competitively and doing well. I also blew away my own expectations and did far better than I ever expected I would. That being said, I don't see myself as having the skill or drive to push any higher. At this point I'm ranked 7th in the UK and the only goals I can think of are aiming to win Masters (not gonna happen) or aiming for UK number 1 (not gonna happen). I just don't think those are goals that appeal to me as I don't think I am good enough player or a committed/competitive enough player to aim for those.

So taking a page from Ben Crowe (King of the South) I've decided to go for the rainbow badge. The rainbow badge is given to players who use all 7 factions at ranked events within a 12-month period. For someone who has only played 1 faction at events, and honestly only 1 master outside of neverborn in total (Viks) this will be quite a change. Heck I've only got one painted crew outside of neverborn at the moment.

That being said I do have my choices for my first three factions down. One will be neverborn (obviously) where I hope to use some of the masters I have painted but haven't taken in an event yet (Zoraida, Collodi, Lynch). Next will be the Viktorias as I have almost everything I need for them finished (just gotta finish a couple Freikorps models and the effigy). Third will be weird as I will taking Gremlin Zoraida. Currently I have never played her and have no Gremlin stuff painted (except McTavish) but between my swampfiends, some unpainted gremlins I will get painted (Burt, Gracie, War Wabbit, Francois) and some borrowed models (thanks Ross!) I should be able to get a decent crew together.

After those 3 I'm not really sure what direction to go on. I will eventually have ten thunder and arcanist crews ready to go as I own Dark Carnival already and am planning on picking up Shenlong at some point this year (and already have Lynch). So those two factions will get covered later in the year. The last two factions are going to be trickier as I have no ressurs masters (nor much of likelihood of picking up one any time soon) and no guild other than Lucius (who is just awful in guild). Anyway, I've got a while before I need to worry about that, and I know I will be able to borrow some models here and there if I need them. But this is kind of my main competitive focus this year as I think it will expand my experience and skills and maybe even make me want to play a faction other than neverborn as my main faction (but probably not ;) )

Its not you, its me.

For those of you that don't know I am the Henchman at Dark Sphere in London. I've been the henchman there for about a year and a half and in that time I've run two leagues, three tournaments, a handful of hardcore games and a shed load of demos and intros.

I along with the Dark Sphere regulars have built up a huge player base at the club and I'm really proud of everything we have done so far.

So whats the next step, the plan going into 2016 and beyond?

The truth is for me not much as I've decided this is the end of my time as a Henchman. I still enjoy the game just as much as ever and I enjoyed everything I did to get the club to the point its at now but I don't think I'm the person to take Malifaux at Dark Sphere onto the next step.

Please excuse the rambling nature of this post I have mixed feelings about this post.

When I started as a Henchman I was very hands on (not in that way) lots of demos and getting to know the new players, bringing people into the group and getting the word out. The way I did things was the right way for the situation. To put it another way I work like a Captain not a General. A Captain leads and a General orders and after a group reaches a certain point it needs orders to keep it moving.

I can see two ways to go forward as a club either stay as we've become now large, irregular group of players or we step up and become something bigger. Now I could stay and do either of those but staying as we are when I know I could push us forward would frustrate me and pushing the group into something bigger while satisfying would require a mind set that I don't want to have to be in in my leisure time.

Story (Event) Time!

One of the things I'd wanted to try since starting to play in Malifaux tournaments was to play in a Story Event. What's a Story Event? Well I'm glad I pretended you asked me that. Ahem.

A Story event is essentially a tournament with an emphasis on either an overarching story or theme that links all of the rounds. It's also less focused on who can score the most tournament points as the winner is often the person who completes the objectives laid out in the narrative. Examples might be that you get points for finding the treasure, killing the monster guarding the entrance to something or successfully rescuing the princess from the castle. Although if she's anything like Princess Peach she'll be in another damn castle entirely.

I had wanted to go along to the Story event that the lovely Dave Brown was running at the Colours Wargaming Show but sadly family commitments had scuppered that idea and there had been something of a dearth of story events that I could get to. So once I heard the mighty Ben Harris was planning something of a bonkers Christmas themed story event just after Boxing Day I was hellbent on getting there - even if it meant I had to persuade the other half to drive. And then play Malifaux in a room full of people he didn't know. My powers of persuasion were about to be tested.....

To cut a long story short (too late) I did manage to convince Rich that he would have a good time - and if he didn't then he never ever had to go to an event again. So on a fairly dull and drizzly Sunday, just after Christmas, we headed into the wilds of the Midlands in search of our venue, Warzone Workshop in Northampton.

The venue itself was very nice - as it's in a shopping centre the amount of space is a bit limited but the stock selection was nicely varied, the upstairs gaming space didn't feel cramped or claustrophobic and there seemed to be plenty of ways to arrange the tables in order to give everyone enough space. The staff were very friendly and kindly provided some free food for lunch as well as having a small fridge with drinks - but as the store is in the town centre then there's no shortage of places to buy food and drink. Would definitely be up for visiting again!

The event itself was a lot of fun and being a story event there were some neat twists thrown in for each round,as well as the scenarios themselves being pretty funny.  

2015 look back and look forward to 2016.

It is now 2016, a golden age of something etc etc.

I'm going to start this year by looking back at last year and seeing where things went right or wrong. The easiest way to do this is to look at my plans and goals for 2015 and see how I did.

2015 plans for world domination.

First up I had my henchman plan.

This mainly revolved around building the London community, which I think I'll call a success. There were eight tournaments in London in 2015 compared to maybe one in 2014. Top players made the trip to London repeatedly to compete and we put up a challenge for them.
The various London clubs have also started to mingle and chat more which hopefully will lead to bigger plans in the future.

Now I can't take credit for most of that but I had a goal and it was hit so I'm taking it as a win.

The plan for this year is to take a step back and encourage more people to try their hand at running events, if I can do it anyone can so its time a few more did. I still want to run a few bits but I also what to see what other people can do.

Next up plans as a player.

2015 In Review: New Years Resolution Results

Well it's 2016 now. Time to set some gaming resolutions for the year. But before I do that, it's time to look back at how I did on my 2015 resolutions. You can see the original resolutions here, and how I was doing at the 6 month point here. Now let's see how I finished the year. For ease of viewing I've colour coded my successes in green and failures in red.

1) End the year in the UK top 50 (Malifaux Rankings)... End up in the Neverborn top 10.
This one was locked in pretty early in the year. I wasn't really sure at the start of the year how good a player I was as I had no real tournament experience. I did far better this year than I expected and ended the year as UK #7 (having climbed as high as #5 at one point). Although the new rankings site doesn't have faction rankings any more I was in 3rd for neverborn for pretty much the entire year and would still be there (trailing far superior players Greg Piskosz and Mark Elwood) if is was up. All in all I couldn't be happier about my results this year.

2) Use someone other than Dreamer in a tournament game
At the 6-month point I had completed my first event where I used someone other than Dreamer, taking Pandora for two games. By the end of the year I had used 3 masters in a tournament, having taken both Lilith and Pandora to fixed master events. In the end my breakdown for 2015 tournament games (which will have it's own more in-depth article later this month) was 37 games with Dreamer, 8 games with Pandora and 5 games with Lilith. Still very heavily weighted towards Dreamer but I still completed this goal.

3) Only use painted models in tournaments
Objective achieved! This was much tougher earlier in the year when I had a small selection of models and was missing key pieces like Doppelganger. The last 6 months were pretty much a breeze, though I am looking forward to trying out some new models next year that are currently still unpainted.