2017 Resolutions

Alright, finally had time to write up my New Years Resolutions for this year. Since we started the blog a couple years back this will be my third Resolutions post. 2015 was a smashing success and 2016 a rousing failure. So let's see how we do this time..

Gaming Resolutions: 
1) 4 more masters in 10+ game club
For anyone who knows me, it is not a surprise to know that I love nice round statistics. As I track all the games I play (at least which Master and if I won/lost) I noticed that in 2014-2015 I played 4 Masters 10+ times (Dreamer, Pandora, Lilith, Lynch). In 2016 4 more Masters jumped into the 10+ game club (Viktorias, Collodi, Zoraida, Lucius). Now this does not mean I played those 4 masters 10 times in 2016 (the only master I played 10+ times in 2016 alone was Collodi), rather it is referring to the fact that those were Masters I had played fewer than 10 games total with prior to 2016 who after 2016 I had played a total of 10+ games with. ... I think I made that sound more complicated than it needed to be... Anyway, this year I want to get another 4 masters past the 10+ game number. My current Masters under 10 games are Ophelia (7 games played), Shenlong (5), Marcus (2), Mr Cooper (2), Titania (1) and Misaki (0). So the likelihood is the 4 masters come from there but it could always be a new Master I add and fall in love with. Shenlong is very likely to be next to hit 10 games as I am painting him atm and can't wait to get him on the table.

2) Try 8 new Masters (inc Wrath)

I've currently played 13 Masters so this would be a pretty massive jump. Also the only "Masters" I own that I haven't played are Misaki and Wrath. So those will definitely be two of the 8. I really want to try out some Masters that I doubt I will pick up just to give them a game or two. Would especially like to borrow some Ressurs as they are the only faction I don't own any Masters of. Also I will prob try Philippa's 3 Masters since they are at home and thus accessible (Plus Raspy, Ironsides and Nellie are all quite different). This leaves me with a few others I'll need to borrow off someone else or proxy, but that shouldn't be a huge problem. This is a goal I will have to focus on but should definitely be doable.

3) Attend 10 ranked Malifaux eventsNow we start on a goal that I am not at all confident in. In 2015 I attended 13 ranked events... last year it was down to 6. This is partially due to qualifying for Masters from 2015 (so no LOEH in 2016), playing more Guildball, and also just personal life getting in the way (doing a musical in the spring took up a lot of my usual tournament weekends. This year I am aiming to get a bit closer to the number I attended in 2015.. Although 13 seems unlikely when you come to the next goal..

4) Attend 4 ranked guildball eventsI attended 4 guildball events last year, but one of them didn't end up ranked so I am still fairly low down in GB rankings (which like Malifaux are based on top 4 events). This year I'd really like to get to at least 4 ranked events to see how I could do. I've also really enjoyed all the GB events I've attended and am hoping to play in more. The main downside is the tournament scene around here (London, Essex, Woking) seems far busier for Malifaux than Guildball so Guildball requires more of a commitment to travel atm.. which means earlier mornings :P But hopefully there will be a few more local events popping up and I can get to a few events a bit further away. Currently have first event of year booked in late Feb.

Gaming Goals 2017.

I thought I'd take a minute to share my gaming goals for 2017, (GG17 for short. Nothing uses that already right?)

Analysis Paralysis and Tournament Fatigue

Not really any point to this article, just wanted to share my thoughts and talk about one of the reasons I haven't been blogging as much in the last few months (though personal reasons have contributed to that as well).

When I first started playing Malifaux 2 1/2 years ago (give or take) I only had a very small selection of models. Basically all the Nightmare models and a Hooded Rider conversion I made. This made deciding what to play very easy as I just didn't have many models to debate between. I later added silurids, waldgeists, terror tots, illuminated etc, but was still sticking to one Master (Dreamer). I liked to mix up his limited upgrades rather than solely playing Summoning Dreamer. When I started playing competitively in earnest in 2015 I began to expand my collection more to the point where I had a pretty solid setup of models, which I felt covered all the schemes/strats pretty well. However, I was still only playing Dreamer so there was only so much to think about. This was also probably the peak of how much I was thinking about and playing Malifaux as it was the only game I was playing at the time and I was getting a game a week in pretty consistently.

However as I started doing better at events I noticed that one major weakness was holding me back, my inability to win in Reckoning. Therefore I decided it was time to bring on a second Master to compliment Dreamer. By this point I'd played a few games with Viks (who were actually the my second masters) but obviously I couldn't take them in an event with Dreamer. I decided on Pandora as I always thought she was cool and as a damage oriented brawler she proved a perfect counterweight to Dreamer. By the time I got her into an event I had been playing her locally for a month or two (and had been playing Malifaux for over a year) and felt pretty confident with her. I did so-so in my first event running both masters, but did think it was a good combo and I focussed on those two for a while. At a point though I got tired of smashing everyone locally, so I decided to try some new masters in casual play (while sticking with Pandora and Dreamer in events). However none of the Masters I played really called to me the way Dreamer, or Pandora to a lesser extent, did. I gave Lynch, Zoraida and Lilith a good run but only really felt that Lilith was worth taking to an event. I did take Lilith to a fixed master event and used her Nationals but she still felt a distant third to the other two.

Get back in your box

Last hurrah of the Ressers!

A little while ago I decided that next year I was going to make the switch from Resurrectionists to the rebellious bookworms that are the Arcanists.

The reasons for the switch are wide and varied and clever and ... Okay really I just want to paint some monsters and robots and they have both plus I'm tired of painting dead things.

As I'm full of imagination I'm going to start on book one when it comes to Masters, Rasputina, Marcus, and Ramos. Unlike when I play Ressers I'm going to try and be a bit more specialist and try to match the Master to the game (you know play it like it's supposed to be played). I'll probably do a post in the new year about where I see each Master and my flailing attempts at list building. Also expect plenty of "I painted a thing" posts as I will need to paint all the things. With painting the stuff if anyone has painting based targets or challenges to throw at me feel free. Always keen to push the painting up a notch, This year I attempted to learn NMM. Last year was painting patterns.