Who's in the box?

It feels like forever since I've written a blog post or played Malifaux. Now I'm back to blogging or at least trying to be. This isn't a "I burned out of Malifaux and I'm trying to recapture the love" post. I stopped playing Malifaux because I decided to put my house on the market and move out of London to Basingstoke. Various disasters have happened along the way and most of my collection remains in boxes in storage. I do have a crew packed in a KR multicase so hopefully I can actually get some games at a new club once I'm settled. This article is actually about why I chose  the only master I did to keep out of storage to play with. A "if you could only choose one master, who would it be and why?"

Pandora Bites Back; Tournament report of Bitefaux April 2016

Wow, another tournament. I can hardly believe I've had two tournaments so close together. I got lucky as my wife decided to go to Spain. Sadly she hates Malifaux, Wargaming, Comic books, Sci Fi, and tournaments so play time can be seriously restricted. 

I went to Bitefaux in Chessington, London (UK. It was held in a stunningly nice church hall. Not an old shed but a genuinely big, modern and spacious Church activity centre. We were in two lovely big rooms with big windows on a gloriously sunny spring day. It helped make the atmosphere light and pleasant. I was really pleased about that as I'd had an anxiety attack the night before the tournament, so I was feeling rough on the way to the venue. Luckily I'd bumped into Insidious Madness as we got out of the same train carriage and a walk in the sunshine cheered me up no end. 

I took Pandora. The strategies/schemes were prepublished and they were great for the Mistress of Mental Hate. If only she had a decent player controlling her. 

Pandora cries at Boarfaux

Ok tournament write up time. 

This was one of those rare times when my wife gave me permission to go to a tournament. What a tournament. Boarfaux, held in the fabulous Paradise cafe Warboar in Bromley, London (UK). A 50ss fixed faction event in 2016 using Gaining Grounds and the new schemes. 

Now I was very nervous going into this tournament. Not only am I one of the worst Malifaux players in the UK, but I'm also very inexperienced with Neverborn. I'd had 4 games with Pandora in the run up (2 wins, 2 losses). I also have trouble knowing what the strategies are and I have never scored more than 1 to 2 points of a strat. If I get 5 points overall I have had a high scoring game by my standards. I was therefore worried I'd be a boring and disappointing opponent. Still it was a chance to play 4 games in a row, see my friends and some of the wider community in a great location. 

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!

Viktorias (Insidiously Mad) vs Sonnia (Dr Walnut) Battle Report

 

Crew Selection
So after declaring guild and seeing the stratagies and schemes available I had to try cobble together a crew. Now it's worth mentioning I'm far from an expert at this game so think of this as an example in what can happen instead of a lesson in what should.

So when choosing a crew I start with the strategy, first choosing a master that can handle the strategy and then adding what they need to work. In this case that was Sonnia, good table control, consistent damage output and a summoning ability all seemed like good skills to have for recconitor. To compliment this I added 3 witchling stalkers and the faithful Samuel. This would be my main crew with a focus on burning and damage dealing to control the table quarters.

Next up I looked at the schemes with the Sonnia and friend being on the slow side I aimed for scheme that involved a minimum amount of walking. In this case line in the sand and make them suffer.

To help add a bit of mobility I also included 2 death marshals and the alway great Lone Marshal.

Final part of the hiring phase for me is upgrades. For Sonnia Cheafe imprint to give me a flame wall to throw around and reincarnation to summon in some more stalkers later on. Samuel had lead lined coat to try and reduce his glass cannon-ness.

"Switching up"

Well this is my first article and I feel all excited about our shiny new blog.

Malifaux seems to be on the up at the moment. The awesome 2^nd edition has become well established, the tournament scene is buzzing, there are new models and the fabulous Crossroads book. In the spirit of shiny newness, I thought I’d write a few words about starting new crews. Not a new crew in particular, but starting new crews in general. With the new models, strategy and scheme decks what better time to start a new crew?

Now let’s be honest, most of us will end up collecting a ton more models from various factions than we could even use. Malifaux is a fairly cheap game so building up a collection is easy and my bank a/c doesn’t seem to bleed in the way that it used to when I played 40k or fantasy. In those large games, jumping between armies could require a major investment.

There are a lot of articles out there for people getting into the basics of Malifaux, but once you’ve learned the rules the possibilities for expansion are endless. If you are a beginner, I’d recommend getting a crew that looks good and that you like the back ground for, then play as many games as you can without changing up the list too much. Learn the basics and the schemes.