Returning through the breach

 Hey people, it’s been a long time since the old Malifaux blog has been in action but I’m back gaming in the world of Wyrd so I thought it was about time the blog got some action too. (After starting this I realised how rusty I am blogging just to warn you early)

Unlike the old days I’m not playing Malifaux, I dropped out before M3e and never made it back. This time I’m playing Wyrd’s other (better?) game The Other Side. Which is an army scale game instead of skirmish, you take the role of a commander or often two commanders in a full game and several units of soldiers, maybe some artillery, and if you’re doing it right a Titan unit that stomps all over the battlefield.

Before I go into a full rundown of the game it might help to explain how I ended up here. I’ll start by admitting that I was less than appreciative of TOS when it hit Kickstarter, I couldn’t see the need for it and it seemed too bulky, with the full armies and massive models. I was vocal in my dislike and once it funded I promptly forgot all about it.

Fast forward a year or two and we’re in a pandemic I’m at home, between games and out of things to paint, a few old Malifaux friends are talking about TOS, a few models catch my eye and I’m curious so I have a brief look online and order a single model. Just as a painting project obviously, Kassa arrives, not the crispest of models but ideal for what I wanted, something quick to paint. Turns out she’s a joy to paint, simple work but looks good.

Well now it would be rude not to buy the rulebook right? Just to learn what I have, maybe watch a few videos, ask a few questions… then before I knew it I have a full force and lockdown is relaxing and I’m online looking for games. 

Now I’ve had a few games and the game turns out to be great. It’s really fun without being silly, it’s tactical without being confusing. 

So now I’m back where I was with ‘faux all those years ago arranging games, introducing players, asking Arran how all the actual rules work. 

Okay so that’s how I got so now I can give a run down of what the game is and how it works 

First thing you’ll need is to pick a faction, there are currently four main choices for this split into Earth and Malifaux categories.

You have Kings Empire, they’re the British empire army they have lots of guns

The other earth option is Abyssinia, a technology advanced African civilisation, they are your elites.

Next there is the Malifaux options. The cult of the burning man are as the name suggests a cult that worships the burning man in the sky above London. They’re full of movement tricks and magic

The last main faction are the Gibbering Horde, a endless stream of sea monsters that got pulled through a breach and dropped on Earth, they are hungry and they’re a horde. 

A game is played as either single commander for small games or two commanders for full games, each commander brings along a certain amount of scrip (points) usually 25 but stronger commanders bring less and weaker one bring more. This is a really simple way to balance out stronger leaders.

Once you have your commanders and your scrip you can hire a company, when you hire a unit you don’t do it by individual models you hire a full unit, this can be nine models split over three teams to make a single unit or it could be a single model. Having to hire in fixed unit sizes means there's less wasted points also less spam.

So you have an army now, I guess you need a war? At set up you and your opponent both flip a card, these two cards give you your initiative, your deployment, and your operation. Nice and easy, there is only operation going on at a time so there is a lot less to focus on than with Malifaux ( I know I keep comparing against 'faux but I assume if you are here you know 'faux). I'm not going to go into detail about the operations as that seems like a separate post.

Playing the game is nice and fast paced, unless you're both playing very cagey you can start fighting and mostly start scoring VP straight away. And despite the size of the armies on the tables things move quickly, when you activate a unit the first thing you do is give them an order. Either Advance (move and action) Focused effort (move and gain a token) Rush (move and move). Each team in a unit gets the same order but can move independently (within 8inchs) and take separate actions.

Because of the size of the units and the ability to reinforce (if you have a reinforcement token then during clear up each turn you can add up to two models back to a unit) when you need to this isn't really a game of wiping armies off the table (but you can if you really try) the focus is more of giving tough options and scoring VP.

There are more things involved like upgrades, envoys, stratagems, etc but this gives you a rough idea of
the game and how I ended up back here. I'm going to try and make this a regular thing again whether you read it or not. The next post will be a run down of how my Abyssinia force has come together and what I plan to do next with them.

We've had a couple of local meet ups to play which have been going well and a few of us are chatting about the idea of setting up a tournament in the near future which should be fun.  

So give me a shout if you're playing TOS too, share your painting models with me, and hopefully I'll be back soon with another post.

Spring Showdown (insert clever pun here)

It was time for the second showdown of 2017, Spring Showdown. You know it's spring because the clouds are a slightly brighter shade of grey and there's a younger looking range of road kill lining the countryside.

Truth be told I wasn't exactly in a social mood on the Sunday morning and it did cross my mind to drive straight past Hockley, head down to Southend and spend the day eating fish and chips on the "beach". But decided against it and parked up in the usual spot at Wayland instead.

The traditional pre event routine of handshakes, hugs, and insults took place while we were setting up and registering. There was a great turnout for the event, the showdown series has consistently grown in popularity and there was a good mix of players of different abilities.

Once registered and a quick intro from TO Mike "The Bunny" Marshall we were off. Thanks to bag o' tools we could just check our phones to see what tables we were at which really speeds things up.

Game one

I faced fellow Dark Sphere local Tim, who was running Molly versus my Raspi. The strat was collect the bounty.
Now this will be a fairly short run down as I didn't actually do anything much all game. I should have known better having played Molly for so long but I got punk zombied to bits by turn three after that it was just a case of him mopping up. The game finished with me having zero models left on the table and a massive 10-1 for Tim. It was a fun game but not a great start to the day.

Next up was lunch and the painting competition. Lunch was the Wayland usual of meat in bread with drink and snacks. The painting entries put out were amazing and I have to say that in the few years I've been playing Malifaux the level of painting has consistently improved. Where as before you had one or two stand out crews now there's always plenty of real contenders.

Game two

This round I faced the brute squad, Mr Harris. It was a Arc off with me sticking to Raspi and Ben taking Colette. As we attempted to fight over squatters rights.

The game was slightly less of a pummelling than game one, Raspi was holding back from killing too much as frame for murder was in the pool. So without the worry of friendly blast damage we ended up in a bit of a melee fest in the middle of the board while various ice dancers ran around doing stuff.

Ben consistently scored his VP while I lucked into a few points here and there. Closest I got to a plan coming off was when Colette to a pot shot at the Emissary, killing it and scoring me frame for murder. Finished up 9-5 to Ben, which is about 5 more points than I scored last time I played him.

Going into the last round I was on for the spoon, which although familiar territory for me it was something I'd rather avoid. So a large tea and a breath of fresh air and it was onto game three

Game three

Time for the second arcanist off of the day (so many Arc players now). This time it was versus a newer player James who was running Ironsides. I was sticking to Raspi again. The Strat was Stake a Claim.

The game started as a bit of a beat down as we all rushed into the centre of the table, Raspi took out Willie and put a fair chunk of hurt on the captain. Then the Captain replied by taking Lola (Cassi) down to two wounds. Then Snowstorm ate what was left of the Cap.

After than I did the smartest thing, I run and hid. The rest of the game became all about dropping markers with the odd fight between scheme runners. 

The game ended 10-6 to me. Meaning no spoon '17 is still a thing.

Well done to all the people who won (including fellow High Fauxdelity host Ritch, who got best Resser) As always I don't remember these things so check the rankings or just guess.

I managed to win a crew box in the raffle (second event in a row) which will go in to my ever growing pile of shame.

Big thanks to Mike for running things and Wayland for hosting. Thanks again to all of my opponents for the fun games. Oh and thanks to Eless for the cookie.

There are still tickets available for the next two Showdowns of this year, and the the Autumn one Falldown has just been bumped up to a two dayer so and ideal time to practice for nationals.

Thanks for reading. 

  

No joke its April Fauxs Day

Don your Croy, for April Fauxs Day

Last week I got my shots, invoked the various rituals of protection, and updated my will before heading of to Croydon for a days gaming.

Car, tube, tube, train, walk saw me arrive at the Croydon conference centre for April Fauxs Day. A four round, 50ss event. First things first the venue was a pleasant surprise. A bar, decent loos, and praise Almighty December air con. There were two events on, Faux in one half of the room and AOS in the other side. Worries I had that it would be hideously loud soon passed as no one seemed in the mood to shout.
Also it was cool to see a few people I used to play fantasy against in my brief pre-Faux era.

Usual pre tournament routine of registration, get tea, and talk shit I can't back up on the table went well and soon it was time to kick off.

Round one I was up against Dom and his gremlin horde. It was squatters and I took claim jump and inspection. It didn't take long to realise I was out matched so I decided to just throw everything towards Somer and hope I could do enough damage early on to give me an edge. It didn't quite work, Dom weathered the storm then ran off to score VP while I left my crew stranded in the middle of the table. It was a really fun game despite my lack of points. I lost game one but had high hopes for game two.

The game did have one interruption which was TO Conor coming around taking drinks orders. This went on all day and it's safe to say that anyone who brings me that much tea automatically gets add to my list of favourite people.

Game two was a bit of deja vu I faced off against Jay using Ophelia in extraction I once again run Raspi. Which was the exact set up in round two of my last event when I also faced Jay. It was a great game we both went on the offensive early despite frame being in the pool. Jay won the early smack down taking out a few of my key minions while I only put a few dents in his, but Ophelia did take a few shots a my acolyte killing her to score me frame.
After that it became a bit of a brawl around the extraction marker while a model from each crew tried to score claim jump.
The game ended in a slight win for me but mainly down to a few lucky flips on my side and it could have easily gone to the green skins had the luck turned.

Lunch! I popped my crew out for best painted which was judges choice today. As usual I didn't hope to win but I always enter to see how I stack up against better painters and there were a few great ones on show.
Down stairs from the venue was a slightly hipster burger place, which I highly recommend to any heading that way as the food was great and in truth I ate enough that I probably should have had a nap instead of heading back to the event.

Round three. Interference against Reva. I played Toby who I always bump into but never get to play. Turn one I tried to be clever and take a few pot shots at Reva with an over keen December acolyte, Reva shrugged it off and then squished the acolyte in return and that pretty much sums up the game. The left side of the table was a bundle with Lola and a mannequin not really doing much other than being swamped in models and fluffing hits, the right side of the table was my crew dying while Cooper ran and hid repeatedly. The MVP for me was a raptor dropping to deny claim jump the flying off again next turn... until it got squished too.
Game ended  with a well deserved win for Toby and the Pony rider, another fun game, another crushing defeat.

Game four. I was facing off against the second best member of High Fauxdelity at that table (for those that haven't heard it High Fauxdelity is a podcast which stars Ritch, puts up with me and let's a couple of other fellas on to do the heavy lifting) We were playing reckoning and it was Raspi vs the Viks. Carnage doesn't even begin to cover it. I pushed forward early looking to start throwing ice around, the Viks charged an insanely long way and started whirl winding everything in range. Snowstorm exploded with enough force to kill a vik and end of turn two I had two minions left neither of us had a master and I had run out of tea. It was a dark time. The game continued in this chaotic style until the end when Ritch scored all the points and I gave his snipers dirty looks. Solid win for Ritch and a great game to end the day on.

Cup of tea while things we finished up, people won things as always check the rankings page as I don't remember stuff like that but congratulations to those that left with shiny things.

I then took the long lonely train ride home while trying to work out how to lessen the many mistakes I made. (which, I got a chance to do the following Saturday and I'll write up next)

Big thanks to all my opponents, next time I'll try and give you more of a challenge. Thanks and well done to Conor for running a fun and smooth event.

Welcome to my nightmare... edition crew

Following on from last weeks progress report I have now finished the Dark Carnival This is just a quick post as there wasn't a huge amount left to work on.

First up is the mechanical wonder that is the mannequin. I found this quite tricky to paint as the is so little detail but such character in its plainness that it was hard to know where to stop. I ended up just sticking to three colours and just trying to add some depth to each colour.

The Bayou's Most Wanted - Burt Jebson

 WARNING! THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS IMAGES OF 80s HAIRSTYLES THAT YOU MAY FIND DISTURBING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Who in the world thinks that combining several guns together to create a weapon that's somewhere between a gun and pipe organ is a good idea? The same person that thinks that loading up your giant murder machine of a pig with scrap metal (and a teapot helmet) is a good idea I guess. And by that I mean Burt Jebson, once a lowly rag and bone man Gremlin and now a freedom fighter, waging a one-Gremlin war against the forces of the Ten Thunders. Never far away from his trusty steed Gracie, Burt Jebson trundles through the Bayou with his Lucky Knife, his Backwater Pepperbox and his trusty mullet. Rumours swirl that it's the mullet that is the source of all his power...

For those young people reading - this is a mullet. Pure sex no?

Burt is something of a rarity among Gremlins as he has very high WP, at a very decent 7. His Df is 5 which isn't awful but he does have a nifty Df trigger to supplement his Df stat. If Burt succeeds on a Df duel with a Ram, he hits his All in the Reflexes trigger which allows Burt to make a 2/3/4 damage flip which cannot be cheated. This is particularly hilarious when he gets this trigger against a Sh attack from a model that is otherwise out of his range - it gives him a much larger threat range than his attack would suggest. I find this quite potent when combined with Lenny for the free Rams, it makes people think twice about attack Burt, even from range!

Burt's other 2 defensive tricks are Hard to Kill, which is standard in a lot of models, but nice to see on him because being an Enforcer he can't use Soulstones to prevent any damage, so the Hard to Kill gives him that little bit more survivability. His last ability is a bit dependent on your crew selection and placing. It's called Slippery and it allows Burt, when targeted by an Attack action, to select a friendly model within 2 inches to become the target instead, as long as the chosen model is also a legal target of the Attack action. This is a great example of how well Burt and Gracie work as a team as Burt can pass the Attack onto Gracie who has the ability to heal herself up with her Attacks and Triggers.

Best. Gun. Ever.

A lodda work for cheriddy mate.....

Lo, it is I! I have returned from another trip to an event although this time instead of heading into the wild lands north of the M25 car park, I went south. Into the wretched hive of scum and villainy known as Kent.

The very awesome Dave Hill had decided to take the plunge and run his own Malifaux event with the aim of raising money for Ronald McDonald House Charities, an excellent organisation that provides accommodation for families with a child in hospital care. A very worthy cause indeed and Dave had come up with some excellent stretch goals to help raise as much money as possible. The event was held at Grumpy Goblin in Ramsgate which is a lovely store over 3 floors with a shop, cafe and gaming area. Jake, who owns the business, had very kindly donated the use of the large gaming area for free. Awesome stuff.

Not only did we have the obligatory raffle (which had a ton of prizes donated by people in the community) but there were baked goods for sale and the ability to pay a £5 fee to grudge the person of your choice in the first round, as long as they agreed of course! The charity shenanigans didn't stop there however; Dave had pledged to TO the whole event dressed in costume (Radioactive Man from The Simpsons) but the brave soul had also agreed to take a cream pie to the face at the end of the event. Joe Wood had promised to dress as a Rotten Belle for the event as well as playing a joke crew made up of Leviticus and 9 Belles, which has been a long running joke in the UK scene as a "broken" crew. Ben "Joffrey" Crowe had also joined in with the fund raising by allowing his opponents to pick his Master for each game. As he was playing Guild I suspect Lucius came out to play at least once.....

UP AND AT DEM!

I had travelled down the night before with THE Joel Henry and we'd had a lovely evening with Lee Battrick and the Lord of Malifaux himself Mike Marshall. Truly we were humbled. Dinner was acquired at the hotel and then Joel and I took ourselves off for the very serious business of studying crews for the next day Pokemon hunting in Ramsgate. So many electric Pokemon on the seafront.......

First round is underway and I had been grudged by Lee Battrick as we'd never had the opportunity to play. Lee has currently left the Bayou for the Guild and had chosen Sonnia for this game of Collect the Bounty. It was a fantastic game, Lee was very patient and helpful as I am not at all familiar with Sonnia so there might have been a bit of coaching going on. A super fun game that ended 5-4 to me with huge thanks to Lee reminding me Ophelia can shoot in melee. Doh!

Second game and I'd decided I was going to take a different Master in each game as I am trying to practice with Wong and Mah so as not to become too reliant on Ophelia. The second strategy was Extraction and after taking one look at the amount of cover and severe terrain on the board, I decided to go with Mah, hoping that being able to ignore severe terrain with chores and being a more melee focused Master would help me in the match up with Paul Dean's Ten Thunders Misaki. Misaki is another Master I don't know too well and Paul had taken some other unfamiliar models such as Ten Thunders Archers, Fuhatsu and The Lone Swordsman. Ultimately the Archers being able to take a free shot at the end of every turn thanks to Blot the Sky and having the ability to ignore cover and not randomise was more than my crew could handle. Paul played really well and came out the 10-5 winner of another fun game. Note to self. Kill the damn archers next time!

Last round and yet another new player - Grant Dickinson. This time however it was a more familiar Master, the mad undertake himself, Nicodem. This was the first time I'd seen the Carrion Emissary on the table against me so I was keen to find out what it could do in the game of Guard the Stash. Turns out, it's really bloody annoying! For the last game I was using Wong as I've been having fun with him and want to try and use him to his full potential. Given the Emissary's ability Shards of Kythera, which places big LoS blocking pillars all over the shop, it's more than a little frustrating!

Another really good game of Guard the Stash that resulted in a 10-6 loss for me. Lots of horribleness ensued from Nicodem which involved summoning over the course of the game, 3 Hanged, 2 Flesh Constructs, a horde of Mindless Zombies, a Punk Zombie, a Crooligan and a couple of Shikome. Bloody Ressers. I simply didn't have the firepower to take them down and some clever use of Shards of Kythera helped keep Grant's key models safe from Wong's blasty magic. Lots of fun but my Gremlins were simply overwhelmed!

End of the event and there were a couple of things to attend to before getting down to the business of results. First the raffle, which had so many prizes that I think most people went home with something. I was lucky enough to come away with a Miss Step, which my Arcanist playing partner was very pleased with. Then we had the very important matter of Dave bravely taking a cream pie to the face, which was duly applied by Ben Crowe who I think enjoyed it far too much....

Pie time!

As for the results the Best Painted award went to Mike Hutchinson (author of the very cool Gaslands game, go check it out!) for his lovely Miaski crew. The wooden spoon went to Al and then we had 3rd place of THE Joel Henry, 2nd place for John Burgess (moving onto Outcast filth instead of Neverborn filth!) and our 1st place prize went to George Hollingdale from the Flippin' Wyrd team. But the real winner of the day was Ronald McDonald House Charity who will be receiving a total amount raised by this event of over £1000 which is amazing. Huge congratulations to Dave for running such a fun event and to everyone who donated and everyone who did daft things in the name of charity. And I still think Joe enjoyed the tights way too much......

Next years Miss model perhaps.....?

Beg, borrow and deal. The art of buying Malifaux.

Once again I'm going to have a bit of a rant. Buying Mali-crack is something we all do. (I'm assuming you do other wise you're just reading this for my charm and wit). So if you buy it then you've at some point had a decision to make as to where to buy you're faux.

Now I'll say again this isn't a guide it is a sad angry man having a rant so don't base any major life decisions on what I say.

The choices for buying new toys is greater than ever. You have the official store, various online stores, eBay, Facebook groups, friends who aren't as big of mini hoarders as you and of course if you are lucky you have a friendly neighbourhood game store.

So how do you decide where to buy and why are you wrong?

Having A Blast: The aftermath

Having A Blast

The aftermath

After it taking up two months of my life and a large amount of my twitter feed, Having a Blast is now over. 

Despite a few hiccups it was a success. Out of twenty six tickets sold we had seventeen players (plus a ringer, big thank you to Arran). One pulled out the week before two that morning and six vanished.

I'll work through from the end of the day and review backwards from there.

So the winners first

1st place - Ben Crowe

2nd place - Andreas Frisch

3rd Place - Conor Rooney (Insidiously Mad)

Best Painted - Andreas Frisch

Best Sport - David Brown

Everyone played well and there were some close matches, I'm sure a few people will do a write up of the gaming from the players view but from what I saw people had fun and played 'faux what more could you ask.

The winners all got a certificate, a voucher and 1st place got a trophy as well to take home. Other than that all the players also got a 50mm marker made for the event by CounterAttack bases.