Malifaux Nationals - Sunday

Second day of the Malifaux Nationals and I hadn't collapsed from exhaustion, drinking or excitement. Calling that a win, I threw myself back into the fray for the final 3 games.

My first game was against a new face - Alessandro who was running Sonnia Criid. Not a Master I'd faced before on the table but the strategy of Turf War seemed tailor made for her - everyone grouping up around a single marker just begging to be incinerated with blasts.

Sadly for me that was exactly what happened. In hindsight my crew selection was simply not geared to deal with the sheer number of blasts that Sonnia was able to churn out. I decided to run Hamelin for the game, thinking he'd be immune to any Burning that got tossed around but I failed in not selecting Nix with his Hollow upgrade - this would have given him a (0) that allows all friendly models within 5" to be immune to all damage from Pulses, Auras and Blasts.

I did have some success in the game though and a high point was Hamelin Obeying Papa Loco to walk into the middle of the Sonnia crew and basically explode. While this didn't do a massive amount of damage it was still a pretty funny moment in a game that otherwise didn't go at all my way.

After that loss it was onto game 2 against a rather familiar opponent, Tim Brown. I'd played Tim twice before Nationals and each game, while ending in a loss for me, had been very enjoyable. The Strategy announced for this one was Reckoning with Close Deployment. Given I know Tim plays Gremlins pretty much exclusively and he knew I was bringing Outcasts, we both had a pretty good idea of what the other was going to produce from their case. Although a Pigapult in Close Deployment? Bad Timmy bad!

Sure enough, Tim ran with Ophelia and I couldn't resist bringing out the Viks, despite the fact that I knew Assassinate was in the pool and it was certainly a scheme Ophelia is more than capable of achieving. The temptation of being able to have the Viks right up in the opposing side of the table bringing stabbity whirlwinds of death was simply too much for me to ignore!

Malifaux Nationals - Saturday

This is going to be a very general overview of my 2 days at the Malifaux Nationals - the biggest event I've attended since starting this game. I'll be giving overviews of my game but I leave the more detailed battle reports to other members of the blog - they're far better at it!

I'd been wanting to go to the Nationals since I'd heard about them the year before. I wasn't able to go to the 2014 event for a number of reasons so I was determined I was going to go this year, finances and travel be damned. To help out with the former, I'd managed to wangle space for myself and Bob (my travel buddy and a good mate) to stay in a house share with some of the guys attending. None of whom I had ever actually met in person before. But this is one of the things I like about the Malifaux community - so many people are very quick to offer friendship, advice and help. None of these guys had met me or Bob in person yet they were kind enough to let us stay with them.

I was actually really really nervous in the week leading up to the event. Sure I'd been to tournaments before but there were usually a lot less people there. This was 88 people, including some I had spoken to on social media, some I knew quite well and would call friends, and still some others I'd never spoken to at all. The idea of walking into that room and being faced with such a large group of people was quite intimidating; although I was looking forward to meeting up with people and putting some faces to Twitter handles!

100 Malifaux Players in one space

Actually 88 players in one space. Which is a very lucky number for the Chinese. Also for Insidiously Mad as he...Spoiler alert....came 8th! I was also very lucky in getting to play 7 great opponents plus me = 8 great players ;)

So more on the positives, I won two games on day two which came down to the wire. Basically as both opponents took assassinate against Ironsides and she managed to survive by one wound by leading a merry dance around the board (not so proud of running away but nonetheless). I know had we reached 5 turns it would have been a different story. Often having to cut the game short to fit the 2 hour tournament window negatively impacts on some schemes, notably Bodyguard as that can only be achieved on turn 4 onwards. I know most players are amazed that I rarely reach turn 4 but I play unbelievably slowly. I don't like it either.

Having the 10 min deadline for crew selection was good for me, stressful...but good. It meant I chose similar crews more often. The Blessed of December saw the table a lot for its leap ability and reasonable toughness. I took Seize the Day as often as I could fit it in (I think once I took Arcane Reservoir instead and proceeded to forget I had it until my opponent noticed). And took Snow Storm, coz SNOW STORM with Raspy is the best mix. It made me realise that there are some popular pairs for master and henchman. Francisco is almost always found next to Sonnia and Perdita. I used to think henchmen could go off on their own, but it seems to work best when they have combos with close proximity to the master. Obvious in theory maybe but nice to see in action.