The Bayou's Most Wanted - Francois LaCroix

Welcome back to the Bayou y'all! Last time we stopped by, I gave a quick overview of Burt Jebson and his amazing mullet and at the end of that post I mentioned that he and Francois LaCroix often compete for the same role in Gremlin crews, that of a beatstick. Up until very recently I tended to take Francois over Burt 9 times out of 10 but this ratio has begun to shift as I've seen what Burt is fully capable of as well as realising some of the shortcomings of the tiny green Clint Eastwood look alike that is Francois.

The Gremlin With No Name.....wait.

When you take a look at Francois' card then the first shortcoming is pretty easily seen necause his Df stat is a very lowly 4. This is mitigated a bit by having the Squeel Defence Trigger on a Mask (this is very common on Gremlin models, making them hard to pin down with melee attacks) as well as the ability to use Soulstones, being a Henchman. His Wp is a very respectable 7 (the same as Burt Jebson) and he boasts a fairly healthy 10 wounds.

Francois definitely falls into the beatstick category for the Gremlins. Like Burt Jebson he has both a decent melee and ranged attack, although unlike Burt, his melee attack (a Dueling Sword) has a slightly better damage spread of 2/3/5 as opposed to 2/3/4 on his Rough Rider shooting attack. But his real damage dealing strength (and his built in self-destruct button) is the Dumb Luck trigger. This occurs on a Ram (which comes built in on his Duelling Sword melee attack) and essentially doubles the damage taken by the opponent. The down side of this is that Francois has to take damage equal to half the damage that the opposing model suffers. So what are a few ways to keep him alive to carry on poking things with the pointy end of the sword?

Asami Tanaka: First thoughts & tactics

Why yes I would like a new Master please.

The release of some new masters has got the Abnormalifaux Crew very excited.

I’m currently running Pandora so I’m excited to see Titania coming to the Neverborn. I’m also really excited about Asami Tanaka. It is always great to have new models and new masters. Hats off to Wyrd for giving us some great new stuff.

I didn’t manage to get Titania in my Gen Con order but I did manage to get Asami, the Shadow Emissary and a pack of Wandering River Monks. Good stuff.

This article is supposed to be about Asami though. It is purely my first thoughts on reading the cards and opening the box. I haven’t played her yet.

First up is her card

And the back

So let’s look at what she can do.

Guildball: Choosing my tournament 8

Insidiously Mad

I've got my first proper guildball tournament coming up at Dark Sphere on July 30 and I have been trying to figure out what my tournament 8 is going to look like. Since I was already spending some time thinking about it, I thought I might as well blog my thoughts. I have only played one guildball team at the moment, so will be sticking with my Fishermen for this event. I wrote some of this a few weeks ago, and finished the article a week or so before it posted, so my painting has come further along and I only have Sakana/Siren left unfinished at the moment.

Captain (1):
There are two choices for captains: Shark and Corsair. Both are great captains and both can lead great teams. I've gone with Shark for two reasons.
1) He is already painted, and I have a few other models I need to focus on getting done for the event
2) I've played him 23 times compared to 3 with Corsair so he makes more sense as my captain for my first tournament.

Shark is the main ball retriever in my team and also tends to be the main scorer. He also enables Angel to be a fantastic turn one goal scorer and can speed up other players where needed as well. He tends to get 6 influence almost every single turn and will either try score or turn those 6 influence into 6 momentum. He really is the superstar of the team and the fact that he takes about 1/2 your influence every turn means you have to be very influence conscious while building your team. He is a lock. 

Mascot (1):
Salt is currently the only option for a mascot for fishermen so he is obviously in. I tend  to use him mostly as a defensive buff for Angel. When Angel is not in the team he functions as a quasi goaltender or ball retriever and mostly just tries not to die. I never put influence on him unless there is no way anyone other than him can get to the ball (in which case he is pretty darn fast). He is a lock.

Boarfaux: What? No Neverborn?

Insidiously Mad

Well this weekend I will have done my first ever malifaux event using the Gaining Grounds 2016 schemes (having only played 3 games with them prior to the event) and, more importantly, played in my first event without my beloved Neverborn. As anyone who reads the blog probably knows, I am attempting to claim the rainbow badge this year by taking all the 7 factions to a ranked event. First on the lists is Outcasts as they are the only faction I actually have a fully painted master for with enough models to use them fairly effectively.

Rather than a straightforward battle report, I thought it would be cool to look at the (very limited) model selection I will be taking to the event, my hopes/plans in bringing them, and how they actually did. The parts in black were written prior to the event and everything in purple was written after the event had concluded. I've only got 18 models to choose from (including duplicates) so it should be easy to see how they all do in the event. We do not know the schemes in advance but the stratagies were announced as follows (schemes added in after event):
Game One: Guard the Stash (Standard)
Convict labour
Show of force
Search the ruins
A quick murder
Leave your Mark

Game Two: Squatters Rights (Flank)
Convict labour
Hunting party
Exhaust their forces
Undercover entourage
Set Up

Game Three: Headhunter (Standard)
Convict labour
Neutralise the leader
Take prisoner
Public Demonstration
Leave your Mark

Game Four: Recon (Flank)

Convict labour
Exhaust their forces
Hunting party
Covert breakthrough
?

Masters:

Viktoria of Ashes (and Viktoria of Blood of course..)
This will be the first time I've taken one master to an event since attending a couple fixed master events in October of 2015. The last few events I've attended I've had (at least) Dreamer, Lilith and Pandora in the bag to choose between. As I only have 1 master it will at least make it easy to crew build. The real decision will come down to upgrades. Currently I've only used the slingshot build on ashes (Sisters in Spirit, Sync Slaying, Sisters in Fury) but would like to try out the more independent style as well (Sisters in Fury, Survivalist, Oathkeeper). Unsurprisingly with the Viks the main goal is target removal and area control. One thing I have to be careful with is not being too aggressive and losing them early, or not being aggressive enough with them and playing defensively, as it doesn't really suit their capabilities.

Well as the masters kind of define the games a lot of the time, I guess I better give a quick summary of how the event went. In a word: Poorly. I had a great time and my opponents were great fun, I really enjoyed my games. But I played like crap. I won my first game and was fairly happy with that result as I ran the independent viks upgrade for this first time to very good effect. Blood held the center of the board (helping me score public demonstration and GTS) and killed things (Think she killed a depleted, illuminated, wastrel and Lynch) that came near it while I flung Ashes aggressively down the board to kill off a wastrel and Toshiro, scoring A Quick Murder for me. Game 2 I lost 8-7 but the Viks (slingshot build this time) performed very well, my opponent just outplayed me and losing my Entourage target (Taelor) on turn 1 put me on the back foot. Vik of Blood ended up killing 2 dogs, Sensei Yu and a katanaka sniper, pretty good for a days work. She even survived the game. Was still an iniative flip away from winning the game as Ashes was in charge range of Mccabe (on foot) and killing him or even taking him below half wounds wouldve done it. Oh well, my opponent was great and I lost a close one. That's where the day fell apart though. Faced my most common opponent (James Reeves) in game 3 and got decimated by the pigapult and Ophelia, losing both Viks by early turn 2. In that game I took survivalist as well to keep Ashes alive, but it didn't really matter. His iniative control and long range damage output wrecked me. I did manage to pull a draw with some turn 5 shenanigans but was not impressed with my use of the Viks (they didn't kill a single model!). Needed to either be more aggressive or more conservative, i got stuck in the middle and paid the price... A good game four could have salvaged the day but I got absolutely smashed by Ramos (I hate him in recon) as my opponent had massive activation control and did a great job leveraging a reactivating Joss, making it difficult for me to get the Viks into his summoning center (despite again taking Slingshot build). This made Boarfaux the worst I have ever done in a Malifaux event at 1-2-1.

In the end I learned that I much prefer the slingshot Viks unless you are absolutely convinced you don't need them to get that far into the opponent's backfield. I also think they probably won't see competitive play for me again. I really enjoy playing them as a changeup to my normal style, but the hyper aggression you need to run them with just doesn't suit how I like to play the game and I think I just got a bit tired/bored of it by the end of the event. The Viks did kill a lot, which was fun, but I think I made a lot of incorrect decisions of what to go after with them. Target priority is key with them and I think I failed at that. Was still a really fun day, but don't think Viks will be threatening to become one of my go-to masters in events. They will probably stay as the occasional changeup game for fun.  On to the rest of the models!

Taking Molly out for a spin

Here is the summary of my first few games with Molly. This is a follow up from my Gorgon's Tear post.

Highlights:

• The Madame Sybelle delivery service is amazing for Molly. It allows her to skip spending AP on needless walking and also gives her an incredible threat range for summoning even in turn 1.
• Izamu and unnerving aura just create a massive threat range. If you can tag the grave spirit in there too Izamu won't be giving up space soon. Molly's zero action can be great to make Izamu use his heal out of turn.
• Onryos are great little summons. They are dangerous enough in combat that they need to be dealt with. Plus on their way out they give even more WP tests for slow AND hand out Adversary. This is fantastic.
• Shikome and Hanged are terrifying summons and can have a huge impact on the game, particularly if the Onryos have done their Adversary duties.
• I think I have mastered Molly's summoning actions, but I need to not forget her other actions. Whispered Secret can ruin a model's life.
• Molly is so card hungry. I was running out of cards so quickly. As a result I found that I was not really able to take advantage of her reactivate (0) action. This really calls into question my original thoughts on Tear of the Gorgon...for the turns you can do this it is fantastic, but they turn out to be loss common that I'd like. I will try dropping this in future.
• If your opponent bunches up you can really punish them. 

Detailed game analyses:

Jacob Lynch After Five: Part Two

Disclaimer: Any master can do any strategy/scheme if you play well. But if, like me, you want to play a multitude of Neverborn masters competitively (I aim to have all 7 masters playable in tournaments) it is important to find the strengths/weaknesses of them so you can decide when to use each one. One thing I will not be covering in these articles is things like terrain tactics or which masters are counters for which factions etc, as these are much deeper tactical questions that I am nowhere near experienced enough to answer with these masters yet. I do hope to do a longer article (or several) on my competitive neverborn bag in late 2015/early 2016 after I have had some more events with masters other than Dreamer. If you have not read part one, it can be found here.

Strategies I like him for:

Collect the Bounty: This is the strategy I really see Lynch being a great choice. He tends to take a bunch of tough minion in his crew (specifically illuminated) and his henchman can’t give up points in this strategy as long as Lynch is still on the board. That is the one downside though, Lynch is not that tough to kill and if he goes down you are in trouble as you lose 4 collect points for your master, Huggy is no longer immortal and you’ve lost a ton of your hitting power. But as long as you are careful with Lynch his crew is great at this strategy.

Guard the Stash: Lynch’s crews have a load of models that are fairly independent and can both deal quite a lot of damage and are fairly hardy (with self-healing on Huggy and the illuminated). Graves, Doppelganger, Huggy, and beckoners can also move around the opponent’s crew. Since Lynch’s crew doesn’t rely on a buffing bubble (like Collodi/Pandora) or auras it is a great killing crew for splitting into two factions

Reckoning: Lynch likes to kill stuff dead. Huggy also won’t give up Reckoning points as long as Lynch is alive. Huggy can also obey around your opponents heavy hitters. Furthermore, Illuminated are tough, killy and relatively cheap so make up the core of a good reckoning crew. Would probably leave the beckoners behind in this crew as they are an easy kill, but other than that the crew is changed very little by Reckoning compared to the crews I run with other masters.

Jacob Lynch After Five: Part One

Introduction and Initial thoughts:

I’ve actually played 7 games with Lynch rather than 5 but played several in such close succession that I hadn’t had a chance to write this until now. As this is the first article I’ve posted on this topic I thought I should give a quick blurb on my idea for these posts and what you can expect in the future. Note: This is not a review of the master and his abilities, there are tons of those out there in podcast and/or blog form. Rather, this is my feelings about how I have been/will be using the master and my thoughts about him/her. Due to the length of the article, and the long-windedness of my writing, I am going to split this piece into two parts. Part One will cover the upgrades and models I have used in my 5 games with Lynch. Part Two will cover Strategies and Schemes that I like/dislike him for and where I view his place in my Neverborn collection.

Lynch was one of the Masters that I was most eager to pick up for my Neverborn and was actually the third master I ended up purchasing after Dreamer and the Viktorias, and my first plastic kit. Despite this, I only started playing him relatively recently and have still not fully finished painting his crew (although I have currently banned myself from painting any other miniatures until I finish Lynch, Graves, Tannen and my second beckoner, which would finish off all my Darkened models). Lynch particularly appealed to me because of his cool fluff and his card/hand control. I found Dreamer so card hungry that the idea of playing a master than has so much control over his hand very appealing. Also despite the model being very silly, Hungering Darkness looked like a ton of fun to play. Finally, Lynch’s crew has incredible killing power and as the killing strategies and schemes are not the ones that I tend to dominate with Dreamer, I thought he had a potential role in my competitive case as an option in killing scenarios.

Willpower in Malifaux (Wave 1 and Wave 2)

Willpower in Malifaux (Wave 1 and Wave 2)

The follow-up to my previous article, Defence in Malifaux (Wave 1 and Wave 2).

Defence in Malifaux (Wave 1 and Wave 2)

Defence in Malifaux (Wave 1 and Wave 2)

In response to my recent article, a couple of people wanted to see my findings in a chart.  Of course, I was going to oblige!

Please note: these figures are taken from the DF numbers printed on the Malifaux model cards from wave 1 and wave 2; abilities and upgrades are not included; there are crossovers due to dual-faction models such as the Guild Pathfinder; models you cannot hire on their own like the Ashen Core and totems that are tied to their masters are included.

Broken Thunder (pt2)

This is part two of my Yan Lo review. Please have a read of part one if you haven't already.

So what is the best case Yan Lo

Well I have assumed you’ve taken his three specific upgrades (although Wings of Wind or Misdirection or Recalled Training can all be swapped in with some use). At full power you get Yan Lo with Chi +3, with Ash, Spirit and Bone Ascendant attached. This gives you a casting 8 master with a Df/wp (Tome Trigger) to get his Df/Wp from 5 to 8. He will be impossible to Wound, Incorporeal. He will be able to summon back dead ancestors and able to lunch a Hung Po Assault with Brutal Kharakhara (and make a Melee attack against each model in range with a positive attack and damage flip). You will be able to heal, hand out armour +2 and position assaults with Lightening Dance. You can drop Terracotta Curse to cause enemies damage when they walk/charge.

Wow Bad Luck and Blood, that sounds great. I can’t believe you are moaning. He’s awesome and you suck. Hear the internet scream with rage.

Defence and Willpower in Malifaux

I like averages; generally not minute details, but overarching themes that are easy to remember.  I decided to do some research into the defence (DF) and willpower (WP) of models in Malifaux and the attack actions that are resisted by them.   These statistics are for the wave one and wave two models across all the factions.  There are crossovers, however, due to dual-faction models.  Please be beware I haven't taken abilities or upgrades into account, as this is only a brief glance at defence and willpower.  Hopefully you can use these somehow when building your crews or facing another player.

DF5 and WP5 are by far the norm in Malifaux, which are followed by DF6 and WP6 in second and DF4 and WP4 in third.   The Voodoo Doll, Ashen Core and Pigapult all have the lowest DF in Malifaux of 1, while The Nothing Beast and Void Wretches have the highest (artificial) DF of 9 and 8 respectively.   Lenny has the lowest WP of 1 and the Electric Creation, Zoraida and Pigapult all have the highest WP of 10.

The Guild:

DF5 is most common in The Guild.  There are roughly an equal number of models that are DF4 or DF6.  Perdita has the single-highest DF of 7.  Almost all of the models are either WP5 or WP6.  The Guild are typical of the average DF and WP in Malifaux.

Resurrectionists:

There are a higher number of DF4 Resurrectionist models than in any other faction.  As a result, they have fewer models that are DF5, although there are still a reasonable number of DF6 models.  Bete Noire has the single-highest DF of 7.  The majority of models are WP5.  Resurrectionists generally have lower DF and WP than the average in Malifaux.

The Arcanists:

The majority of models are either DF5 or DF6.  The Arcanists have the highest number of DF6 models in Malifaux. Myranda has the single DF of 7.  WP5 and WP6 are common across The Arcanists, but there are still a significant number of models that are WP4.  There are no models with WP7 or above apart from the Electric Creation which is WP10.  The Arcanists have a higher average DF in Malifaux which makes them stand out.

The Neverborn:

DF5 is most common in The Neverborn, followed by DF4 and DF6.  Lilith, Baby Kade, Vasilisa (and effectively Pandora) all have DF7.  WP5 is most common in The Neverborn, but there are a significant number of models that are WP7.  The Neverborn are typical of the average DF and WP in Malifaux, but they also have some models with very high DF or WP.

Outcasts:

Nearly half of the available models are DF5. WP5 and WP6 are most common in Outcasts.  Like The Neverborn, Outcasts have a significant number of WP7 models.

Gremlins:

Most Gremlin models are either DF5 or DF6, yet there are a lot that are DF4.  Gremlins have the second-highest number of DF6 models in Malifaux.  Skeeter and Sammy Lacroix both have the highest DF of 7.  Gremlin WP is evenly but roughly split between WP4, WP5 and WP6, although Zoraida and the Pigapult each have a monstrously high WP of 10.

Ten Thunders:

DF5 is the most common, followed by DF4 and DF6.  What makes Ten Thunders stand out is the higher than average WP of 6.

Attacks resisted by DF and WP:

Even though the majority of models in Malifaux are DF5, the most common Ml, Sh or Ca stat across all factions that is resisted by DF in an opposed duel is 6.  This clearly means the attacker has a clear advantage over the defender.  Interestingly, Resurrectionists and The Neverborn have the lowest number of attack actions that are resisted by DF, although they by far have the highest number of attack actions in Malifaux that are resisted by WP.  For example, Resurrectionists and The Neverborn have 31 and 28 attack actions respectively that target WP, while The Guild and The Arcanists only have 11 and 8.  Like attack actions that are resisted by DF, those resisted by WP are most-commonly Ml, Sh or Ca 6.

Defence and willpower in Malifaux – some thoughts:

Take these stats with a pinch of salt; it’s not possible to look at them so crudely in Malifaux due to good/bad luck, the ability to cheat fate, buff or debuff models and so on.   Nevertheless, it’s still worth considering when building your crew or facing a particular faction.  Some thoughts: expect more DF4 models in Resurrectionists and more DF6 in The Arcanists; take models or upgrades that can buff your models’ WP if you’re facing Resurrectionists or The Neverborn; is it worth attacking with a Ml4, Sh4 or Ca4 model in an opposed duel? And watch out for those Ml7, Sh7 and Ca7 models!

Broken Thunder

I thought it might be time to do a detailed review of Yan Lo now that I’ve been playing him for a good 6 months. I picked him up because I loved the model and fluff. I’ve run him in a ton of causal games and also at a couple of tournaments. I feel I’ve got enough of a handle on him to give him a review.

Now this is my own view, other opinions will vary! As a start point, I’ll put my cards on the table and say I am not a very good player. I have won a few games, even at tournaments with Yan Lo but I will never crack the top half of a tournament. I usually push my opponents quite hard to win, but it rarely troubles their scores. Having said that, I think I’ve picked up enough and played enough to evaluate Yan Lo. As with nearly every model made by Wyrd, Yan Lo is perfectly usable. With a few very rare exceptions (like Oiran) there aren’t really any completely non-viable models in the game. However, just because a model can be used and even win, it doesn’t make it good. 

Also, I’m not going to settle for “but you could add this model and then he is fine because of the great synergy” If a model has synergy great, but it shouldn’t have to be used to simply make a Master more viable. If it is specifically designed that way, that's different (e.g. Nicodem and Mortimer). I do know that Masters don’t exist in a vacuum but other models are only considered where the Masters skill is making them better, not where they have to make up for the short comings of the Master. I’ll bend that rule slightly for the Viktorias as they are a package as is Dreamer. I think you get where I’m coming from. 

In part 1 I’ll give a run down of the various things he can do. In part 2 I’ll lay out the various roles I think Masters can fulfil. Finally I’ll look at Yan Lo against those roles and see how he fits and his overall effectiveness. 

List Building at Dark Faux

As my full-sized report on Dark Faux is dragging along and still not ready to be published I thought I would post some more specific musings that wouldn't be covered in the main tournament report. Namely, I want to talk about list building. List building in a very short period of time is one of the most underrated skills in Malifaux. You have to have some idea of what all your models do, when to take them, and when not to. Also you have to be able to consider the strategy, schemes, terrain and scenario. Obviously knowing the strategy in advance you can think of some combinations that would be useful but until you have all the need information you can't make any final decision (or at least you shouldn't). This is also why pre-releasing schemes and pre choosing lists is problematic as you are still lacking in intel, not knowing your opponent or the board itself.

Due to the importance of list building and the fact that I have been talking about it a lot recently with other Abnormalifaux members, I thought I would go through my thought process on the lists I built for a couple of the games at Dark Faux. This will not be completely in-depth but will touch upon the main considerations I made. Also keep in mind that Dark Faux was a fixed master event so it is slightly different from games where you won't know the opponents master when building your crew.

Game 1: Squatters Rights (Corner) vs Maria

LITS
Assassinate
Distract

Plant Explosives

Vendetta

Cards or Dice & Chancing to win (not lose)

One of the key differences for Malifaux that every player notices is, of course, no dice and a deck of cards in its place. There must be endless articles on this fact but I thought I would muse on a few things over the matter and a brief take on playing the odds.

While many of the other elements of the game of Malifaux, Schemes & Strategies or building your crew 'on the fly' are also quite unique and go a long way to make Malifaux the amazing game that it is the use of cards, for me, is the real big separator from other systems.

Using the Latigos part 3 - Francisco Ortega

Stats

Df	Wp	Wd	Wk	Cg	Ht
5	6	8	5	7	2

Francisco's generous 5SS cache makes him a viable leader up to the 40SS mark, though doesn't make up for the lack of extra activation a master gets. He's one of the only Family members that can handle themselves in melee and has various ways of making sure he can get there. A cost of 8SS means he's not cheap and while he can do a lot of damage he's not a glass cannon and can take care of himself in a variety of ways.

Abilities

Again, like most Family members, Francisco has the COMPANION ability, allowing you to 'chain' activations for this model, if another model finishes its activation within 6". The same decisions for using the ability apply, in terms of activating later in a turn and not always using it but Francisco makes things trickier in that his EL MAYOR ability is best used early to protect more vulnerable models.

Recapping Tara - what did not work

So the league has come to a close and my Tara crew fared pretty well. What stuck out very prominently was that in the first six games I only won a single game. However, in the last six games I only lost a single game.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to review and contrast these two halves. Welcome to the first half.

	Opponent	Size	Strategies and schemes (as recalled)	Result
1	Gremlins – Rafael?	20	Squatters rights Assassinate Protect territory	-2 loss
2	Arcanists – Rasputina	26	Covered in detail in my previous post	-2 loss
3	Guild – Lucius	26	Reckoning Cursed Object	3 victory
4	Guild – Lady J (non-league)	35	Reckoning	Loss
5	Gremlins – Zoraida	30	Story Bodyguard Breakthrough	5 all draw
6	Neverborn – Lilith	35	Reconnoitre Plant explosives Distract	-2 loss
7	Ten Thunders – Misaki	35	Turf War Breakthrough A line in the sand	-9 loss

Table confidence.

Table confidence.

As with many things your mind set plays a big part of any competitive game and Malifaux is no exception.

Now in Malifaux you have simple bluffing about what schemes you’re doing and how good you control hand is but before any of that you have how confident you are about the game and it shows from the moment you sit at the table.

Sweet Dreams Part Two: Dreamer Base Card

Welcome to part two of the Sweet Dreams Tactica where we start delving deep into the rules and tactics of Dreamer. You can find Part 1 here. This article will cover everything on the Dreamer’s base card, so prepare for a long read. Let’s start with his stat line. Dreamer’s statline is all over the map. He’s got a fantastic Wp of 7 and an amazingly fast Wk 7. However he has no Cg value, a terrible Df of 4 and the lowest wound count of any Master in the game with 6. He is also height 1, which is both a blessing, in that he is easy to hide from enemies, and a curse, in that it is very easy to block his healing aura and defensive trigger targets with things that normally wouldn’t affect a height 2 model (such as low fences). I have since been informed by more knowledgeable players that I have interpreted the rules incorrectly. Apparently as long as the model in question has line of sight and is in range the aura still works. Thanks Joel Henry for the correction. Makes dreamer even better than I thought. Mwahahaha. What this leaves us with is a Master who is incredibly fast but very delicate (at least until we look at his abilities).

The Waking Condition and Pleasant Dreams

Before I go over Dreamer’s abilities and actions individually, it is important to cover the Waking Condition, the ways it can be increased/decreased, and what it means for Dreamer. The most important ability on Dreamer’s basecard is Release Nightmares which explains how the Dreamer/Chompy mechanic works. Note that Chompy and Dreamer can never be in play at the same time. Whenever Dreamer reaches Waking 4, Chompy is summoned anywhere within 6” and LOS; Dreamer is immediately buried and removes all conditions from the model (including Waking). The Waking condition may not be removed through the actions of other friendly models (Note that enemy models can remove Waking; watch out for Johan if you are trying to bring Chompy out). Dreamer increases his Waking by 1 every time he summons a model (either through Daydreaming on the base card or with Manifest Nightmares from the Dreams of Pain upgrade summoning). If he has the Restless Dreams upgrade Waking also increases any time Dreamer damages an enemy with a SH attack. The only way you can actively manipulate Dreamer’s Waking condition, outside of summoning Chompy when you hit Waking 4, is with is with the (0) tactical action: Tucked In, which reduces the Waking condition by one. Knowing when to lower this condition and when not to is important; Waking is a balance between summoning models, including Chompy, and having a stronger healing aura through Pleasant Dreams.

Scheming in Malifaux

Hello to all, just a quick article here from me regarding scheme, strategies and the change in mind set Malifaux requires for someone new to the game.

As a new player coming from the traditional army v army style games I was blown away by the fact that every single one of my models could die horribly and I could still win. Now clearly having models on the table is going to preferable but it was a viable situation and something that required a massive mindset change for me, it took a while for me to fully realise the potential of this.

After 20 years of trying to keep my models alive, that unit or so of fodder aside, it was a real switch in thinking that I could, and at times should, charge  model x or y into their certain doom for the good of the cause. You realise after a few games that even a model as important as your leader may die and it may not matter in the overall picture, it might even help as long as your opponent didn't have Assassinate of course and if they had Deliver the Message you are actually denying them 3 VPs!