Bringing Molly back from the dead

I have been somewhat absent on here of late. I do not get much time to do much gaming at the beginning of the year due to work. Plus my second daughter was born in December, so I have been juggling work and child rearing duties rather than gaming.

Boarfaux was my first tournament in 2016 and before the weekend I had actually only managed two games of Malifaux. Of those only one  was with the new GG2016 schemes. Nothing better than learning in a live situation though.

As usual John ran a great event. Between him and Warboar there were some fantastic tables and the Warboar staff were great. They even brought us drinks during games...apparently their booze license is in the works so hopefully next time I will have a couple of beers to improve my gameplay. This was their first Malifaux tournament at the venue and I am looking forward to the next one. It was also the biggest in London to date at 32 players.

I was keen to get Molly back on the table after such a long break. It was also good to go into the tournament with no expectations other than to learn more.

It was a great day and I managed to play against four fantastic opponents - none of whom I had ever played before. So how did it go?

Tara visits Croydon

Alas it has been too long since I have had the opportunity to gush about my love for Tara. Work and real life have been getting in the way. That is not to say I have not been getting games in though. After about a year or so of playing with Tara I feel that her and I are starting to click nicely.

Two weeks ago I took Tara along to Crofaux - a 50ss fixed master event at Croydon Gaming club. It was a small event being run by John as a dry run for future events. It was my first time there and it was a great little venue...plus I had a bus that took me basically to the front door so it was super easy. That convenience, the bar and the great crowd mean that I will definitely be back.

So with only 8 players and fixed master it did not take long to find out which masters were there:

• Pandora
• Jakob Lynch (Neverborn) - Andreas, one of my Dark Sphere colleagues
• Gremlins Zoraida
• Perdita (there is always one)
• Mei Feng (Ten Thunders) - read Bad Luck & Blood's post on this very blog for more
• Lucius (Neverborn I think)
• Jakob Lynch (Ten Thunders)
• And lastly my Resurrectionist Tara

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

Winter's Touch

My first game with Tara was always going to be a tough one. I knew enough to do the Tara-Bomb and not really much else. I was also facing off against Pippa's Rasputina crew. I know enough about the ice witch to know that she can knock your face off, but is pretty slow.

This game was played some time back but I remember enough of it to be useful.

Scenario
Tara vs Rasputina 26SS
Strategy - Reckoning
Schemes - Tara (break through and make them suffer) Raspy (Assassinate and ?)
Standard deployment

Crews:
Tara + Knowledge of Eternity and Obliteration Symbiote
Izamu
2 x belles

Rasputina + improved ice mirror upgrade
Ice golem
December acolyte
Ice gamin (or 2?)
Wendigo

Terrain
We were playing on an outdoor themed table with a relatively large forest just off centre on my right flank. There was a pond on the left flank just outside Raspy's deployment zone. I had a building near mine and various other walls and small forests.

Rasputina was deployed on the left side of the board to navigate round the pond. She had wendigo near her. The gamin and golem were set up to run down the right side of the forest and the acolyte hid behind the building.

I decided to stay as far away from Raspy as possible. Figuring I could score break through and make them suffer on the golem side of the board.

Dead of Winter: Introducing Tara

Back in the beginning of 2013 there was an international Malifaux campaign called Dead of Winter. Players anywhere could submit the results of their games and achievements and the results would be tallied. I was finishing up a work project in Nigeria at the time so I could not participate as there was no local gaming community. I am an Arcanist player so I was obviously cheering for them. The characters participating in the story were introduced at the beginning. I don’t recall of the details, but they were out in the wilderness investigating some powerful magical forces. Pieter, the Arcanist had definite potential and many were hoping he was introduced at the new Arcanist master in M2E. It was not to be though, as it was an Outcast victory, with Resurrectionists in second.

The characters were descending upon a cave where the magic seemed to be emanating from. Tara, a self-determined and headstrong mercenary was the first to enter the cave. There she met Obliteration, some form of Tyrant that sucked the life from the world. She survived the meeting and rescued Karina from the Labyrinth, an alternate dimension where time passes differently, died and was resurrected by Karina. She now has a connection to Obliteration that allows the Nothing Beast to exist in Malifaux as personification of Obliteration itself.

I was hooked. I loved this sarcastic, gun-slinging, fast talking and dangerous lady called Tara.

So when the opportunity to pick up her nightmare (and only) set from Gencon, I jumped at the chance. And then she sat amongst my other models unassembled for some time. Now that I have her on the table I need to figure out how to get her to work.