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. 

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

Cricket or Gladiators in the Arena

A flurry of recent Facebook posts has really struck a cord with me.

The first was a post about how the lack of a competitive scene was harming the Malifaux community and stopping it growing. The second was from a player who was irritated that a tournament had limited summoners to models in a list of a 100ss models for the day in line with other crews.  He felt that he was being punished for being an experienced competitive player.

As always in Malifaux, the posts and discussions were well thought out and the debate remained civil. At one point it was suggested that the 100ss model pool kept things fair for beginners. One poster opinioned that if beginners wanted that kind of thing, perhaps they should go to a beginners tournament. He had paid for his collection, spent time building and painting it, and should therefore be able to actually rock up and use it in a legal crew if he wanted.

I found it a little depressing. I don’t know if community would grow if it was “more” competitive or not, or whether the model limit is a good idea or not. What really struck me was that there is a upcoming challenge for us as Malifaux players. That challenge is the growth of the game and how to steer a course between ultra competitive and too laid back.