Pole to Pole

Dr Walnut 

I almost want to start this post saying that there are "two types of players" but in this context that is incredibly naive so I'll say instead that there are two poles of playing and people are drawn to each with varying strengths.

To explain if we say pole one (the northern one if you want a map) is all things fun; rule of cool, shits and giggles, beer and pretzels. Pole two (the southern one if you're taking notes) is all things competitive; perfect game, game face, never surrender!!!

Now there is nothing wrong with being more towards one pole than the other or even hopping between the two but I think that it's important to try and find a balance where you can.Okay so firstly how do you know which pole you are being drawn towards? A quick shorthand. If you find yourself looking at your possible actions and you utter the words "fuck it, I'll see what happens" then you'reswinging towards the north (and you will likely die of dysentery one day).

Fun with barrels

One of my favourite types of terrain on the gaming table are small pieces of scatter terrain. They are flexible and can be placed anywhere, they alter the movement of models by offering hiding places and they do all this without taking up too much space.

For my upcoming Victorian streets table I wanted to have a large number of barrels and crates ready for use on the table. However, I did not want to have to constantly make new ones. So the plan was to build a few masters and then mould them to reproduce as needed.

I started with a dowel stick and sawed it into a few pieces.


I rounded the edges with some sand paper. At this stage I was not happy with the shape, so I pulled out my Dremel and shaped it some more.

Guildball Battle Report: Fishermen vs Alchemists

Insidiously Mad

So this is a first for the blog, but after much discussion we have decided to include game systems other than Malifaux on the blog. The blog will still be heavily malifaux focussed, but since all of us are playing all sorts of different games at the moment, it seemed like the right decision to do some writeups on these. As a group I think the most common game we've been playing (outside malifaux) has been Guildball. Man do I love Guildball. Has so much that I love about Malifaux in the game but is also a lot less complicated and it is much easier to play 2 games in one evening.

Not the best photo... and not the exact team I used. But thought I needed at least one photo of my team..

On Monday I had two great games of Guildball last night vs Mechanical Dove.

Game 1 was my first time using Corsair vs his first time with Smoke.
I took Corsair, Salt, Siren, Angel, Sakana, Gutter
Brad took Smoke, Flask, Vitriol, Mist, Calculus, Mercury

Turn 1 started with vitriol kicking off and me grabbing the ball with sakana and passing it to Salt. Brad decided to go aggressive and charged Salt with vitriol, getting some momentum and stealing the ball (but not having enough inf to shoot). Corsair then started beating down Vitriol (and taking the ball back). Passed the ball around a bit but thanks to all the burning I was unable to get a first turn goal so I passed it back to Corsair since close control could help keep it safe. Meanwhile team Smoke was just throwing conditions around everywhere. At the end of the turn my 4 of my 6 players were burning and poisoned and salt died to conditions :(. But I was way up on momentum and won initiative.

Turn 2: Corsair activated and took out vitriol and decided to keep a hold of the ball. Mist then charged in and took the tackle but I pushed him out of combat with the counter attack. He didn't have the momentum to score so he kicked the ball back towards his own team. Smoke came up aggressively to throw some templates around. Sakana/Angel repositioned to give assists and Gutter charged into Smoke and got off a scything blow on Smoke/Mist. Don't touch the hair came out to keep Smoke safe but I still got a few more momentous damage on Mist (thanks to all the assists). Siren tried to tie up Mercury/Calculus to stop him from scoring but Tac 3 and a tackle on 3 meant mercury just walked away with the ball and scored to put Brad up 6-2.

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. 

Fun with casting - proof of concept

In my last post I discussed some of my plans for my Victorian streets table. In particular I showed off my carved building masters. Well since then I have moulded and cast the first wall and the steps as my proof of concept.


I prepared the mould walls with some of my daughter's Duplo blocks. This actually not the one I moulded...it is on the left, but for some reason I only photographed this one.

The Bayou's Most Wanted - Trixiebelle

Some things in life are better left unseen. Like the Black Joker on a damage flip. Or me before I've had my morning tea. And the one thing that's definitely best left unseen is a Gremlin in Daisy Duke shorts and a crop top. At least it's not Lenny in that get up I guess.....

So take a bow Trixibelle who has the dubious honour in a game full of undead hookers, abominations made of metal & flesh and a bunch of other unspeakable horrors, has often been referred to as the most disturbing model in the game. I don't see the problem with green boobs personally.....

Hello boys.....

Trixiebelle is the Henchman for Mah Tucket's crew - The Bushwackers. She has fairly decent Df 6 and Wp 5 which is pretty good. She's reasonably speedy with a Wk of 5 and a Cg of 6 so nothing immediately seems to single her out as a key model in your crew. So then, what's the big deal about Trixiebelle? The main reason can be found on the front of her card with the ability Ill Omens. This is the same ability the the Doppleganger has in the Neverborn faction which allows you to cheat the initiative flip. This can be very useful in any crew but it works really well with Mah, allowing you to alter the suit to get the desired bonus from Chores.

Trixiebelle also has Reckless, which is very common across the Gremlin faction, allowing you to take a wound in exchange for another AP. The other ability on the front of her card is quite interesting and has some nice applications. "Don't Fight Over Me Boys" means that when this model is targeted by an Attack Action - a friendly Gremlin within 3" and LOS, as long as it is a legal target, may suffer 1 damage to become to target instead. This is particularly handy if you want to send Trixie off scheme running or if there's something in the scheme pool that rewards killing models.

Home comforts

In my last post I discussed some of my ideas for my gaming table and potential scenery. I also mentioned that the theme I am aiming for is a Victorian streets table. So I want cobbled streets and in particular I want some Tudor daub and wattle buildings as the staple building type.

My plan is to have each of these as multiple story buildings, with a stone ground floor of roughly uniform size and shape. With the second and higher floors in the daub and wattle style. These can overhang and just out as if they were added by their tenants on an ad-hoc basis as their families and businesses grew.

My plan started out with building a master for the stone works. I could see the town planners quickly throwing these down in a uniform pattern as they would be the expensive, but sturdy part of the build. With the rest going up as needed. Now carving stone and bricks into foam is a laborious and thankless task. So I built a foam master that I plan to mould and cast. The upper floors can then be assembled with foamboard as needed.

Here are some pics:
In this pic you can see the first wall being carved. The plan is to have each door on a step. This is a little trick to help confuse the eye with scale. Some of the Malifaux minis are quite tall. By raising the door on a step it is easier to have the doors taller than models without making the doors take up too much room.

Plus in older buildings the doors were actually pretty small.

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. 

Back to the construction table

One of my favourite things in this hobby is terrain making. It has been a while since I have actually gotten around to get my plans back in order. With Easter coming up (potentially in the past when this goes live) I was hoping to get some time with my saw.

So here is my next project:

A gaming table


My meager Sketchup skills threw together this plan a while back. I even have all the materials. The plan is to have a central gaming table, it is raised in this pic, but I am not sure it will be it depends on if I put in a foam base or work straight on the wood.








It might be easier to see my plans in the next pic.