Falcon's Nest

ToMB 2.0 - Lucius: His Governor's Secretary

noreply@blogger.com (Corbin Bogert) — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 19:29:00 +0000

Hello, its me again. In the past few months, I started picking up Lucius as my new "main" master. Quotations because while he is the one I've been playing a lot casually there is still a lot I am learning. There are a lot of models that I think Lucius needs outside his crew box so I will most likely go over budget.

Lets take a look at the main box first.

Examining the Box

Malifaux 2e Box

Contents:

Lucius Gustavius FitzWilliam Mattheson, Master, Living, Mimic, Dual Faction Guild/Neverborn.
Scribe, Peon, Totem(Lucius), Living, Mimic, Dual Faction Guild/Neverborn.
Captain Dashel, Henchman, Living, Guardsman.
Guild Lawyer x 2 - Minion, Living, Mimic.
Guild Guard x 2 - Minion, Living, Guardsman.
Note: There was a misprint on the new Guild Guard cards, they are both have the Guardsman characteristic.

Lucius Gustavius FitzWilliam Mattheson

A master manipulator, there is not much in Malifaux that Lucius does not already know. Even less that he didn't help instigate.

What can I say about Lucius, first off just looking at the statline he doesn't look to be much. He's got master level Willpower, a high defense, low wound count, and a pretty slow walk. His real power comes from his abilities and tactical actions. This is going to get wordy.

Abilities

Devil's Deal - This is pretty situational if you spend a soulstone you chose to deal 3 damage to a nearby friendly model to add one soulstone to your pool. Unless you have some models outside of the core set who can heal themselves or have high enough defenses that its not a huge lose to take wounds I would put it on the back burner for now.
Note: This does not extended to soulstone use by other models, re-flipping initiative, and redrawing two cards.
Highest Authority - This is the one ability that I would tattoo to the back of my hand. Negative flips against an opponent's attack are powerful, because they can't be cheated. If Assassination is on the table this will probably force your opponent to either burn a soulstone or use AP to focus in order to get back to a straight flip.
Elite Training - Another situational ability, great if you like to push Lucius close to where the action is or if you want to keep a bodyguard around Lucius. Positive attack flips to a nearby friendly minion, need I say more?
Commanding Presence - Unlike some support masters, Lucius has put so much fear into his men that when he walks he inspires them. A minion within 18" and LoS may take a horror duel TN 13 to perform a (1) Action. This is better than Lucius's Issue Command tactical action due to range and allows Lucius to get into better placement.
Note: This is the only way Lucius can issue orders on Austringers.

Attack Action

Sword Cane - Typically if Lucius is in melee you want to get him out. But this is great deterrent if you have a ram in hand and the target has yet to activate. Double ram trigger causes Red Tape which causes double negative on to attack flips by the target.

Tactical Actions

What Lackeys Are For - This is a get out out of melee action. Place a scheme marker next to lucius and replace him with a target model within 10". I would definitely swap out for a strong melee model. The place scheme marker is good for that extra Spring the Trap, Protect Territory, etc... marker. Low TN compared to
Note: This is Lucius's only tactical action that affects models other than minions.
Guild Intelligence - Very situational, this allows for minions to ignore the engaged restriction on performing interact actions. Not just placing scheme markers, but picking up Head Markers, drop Claim makers, take ownership of stake a claim markers, etc...
Issue Command - 50% of my activation are taken up by this ability, it gives a minion non-austringer (1) action. Can only be used once per model a turn, so if you fail you can't use it again. On the downside short range, but it gets longer when targeting Mimics or Guardsmen which synergize really well with the rest of the crew.

Take Aim! - Grants Focus before the minion's action takes place. Some models have abilities and/or triggers that you just want to get off. One particular

Guild Rifleman - Gains +1 Ram if it uses Focus.

Subterfuge - This allows a minion to perform an interact after they take the command action
Get Down! - This gives Defensive +1. But only until that model's next activation. I recommend saving this for models that have already activated in the turn or a model that is in immediate danger.

Upgrades

Surprisingly Loyal - The defensive trigger is really difficult to pull off. You need to burn a stone and have the right suit to get it off. The main thing you want is the Personal Retinue giving you access to 4 of the following to hire:

Beckoner (Minion)
Candy (Henchman)
Doppleganger (Enforcer)
Mr. Graves (Enforcer)
Mr. Tannen (Enforcer)
Changeling(Minon)*

Downside is that these models are mostly Enforcers and Henchmen, but on the plus side you probably won't be taking too many of these models. On the Neverborn side you are looking at 8(10*) Guardsman models to choose from.

*Beta rules only as of blog post. Rules not finalized.

Secret Objectives - I only take this if I plan on dropping a lot of scheme markers. I then place Lucius in the middle of a bunch of misplaced markers to give him some insurance.
Legalese - This is a must take. Every so often you have an enemy aura that detriments you models(such as decaying Aura).
Secret Assets - This gives Lucius is only range attack, but it requires a Ram of greater than 6 and higher than your opponents defence flip.
Useless Duplications - Really helps that its ability can force an opponent to have to randomly flip to see if they hit the right target. Its other ability is good if you have a mimic meatshield, such as Tannen, Graves, or even Candy.

Scribe

Seen from the shadows, but never remembered. A silent and reliable assistant.

Not much to say. I never use totems, but he is really inexpensive for 2ss. The main reason you'll want him is to remove conditions off Lucius. The side benefit is that he can give other mimics +1 defense. This helps putting Lucius and Lawyers at Df 7. Sadly The Scribe has terrible defense and will probably be targeted first to get rid of the bonus. If you have to use him for defense boosts make sure that your opponent doesn't have line of sight to him. Typically I leave this guy in my bag, but I might start using him more often.

Captain Dashel

Promoted beyond his station, even his men still lovingly refer to him as sarge.

I keep this guy around just to give (0) action focus to Guild Rifleman and Warden models. His melee has both triggers already built in. Not the best model in melee, but he can give slow to an enemy. I have never used his tactical action to give reactivate, mostly because none of my minion models have hard to kill and are rarely left with low enough wounds for me to warrant using it. Typically I use him as a support model.

Guild Guard

Standard Guild militia. some say they have the shortest life expecting of those who work for the Governor. Sans the accountants.

These guys are your standard Guild minion. I find two of their abilities to be really good; Patrol and Investigate. Patrol ups the defense of nearby Guild Guard models making these guys durable for their cost, Investigate allows them to be placed in base with nearby enemy scheme markers without wasting any AP. Typically I use these guys to hold down areas and as distraction pieces.

Note - I really like the female Guard model pictured above, but I have lost her left hand twice. It wouldn't have been an issue, but I specifically bought a second box so she could have both hands.

Guild Lawyer

Two faced, backstabbing cutthroats who would indict their own mothers if it would help further their career.

Like Lucius Guild Lawyers are Mimics and have Highest Authority, a good combo with their high defenses. While not the most imposing of a model, Lawyers bring a lot of conditions to spread around such as Slow, Paralyzed, Fees(Target takes 1 damage when they damage), and Poison. It also acts as a support model with the ability to give Hard to Wound and positive flips to horror duels to allies. Typically I use these guys for support.

Note - The Lawyer Model with the hat and cane has a problem with the contact point where his fingers meet the palm of his hand. As such there might be need to finagle it to not break off. In my case I pinned his cane to his jacket.

Thinking Outside the Crew Box

In my mind Lucius's current crew is mainly support with two low point, stationary scheme runners. There is a lot to be desired with this box, but it does come with two Lawyers which are a necessity for a mobile Lucius list. Here is the short list of models that I am going to try to use to fill the holes my crew:

Guild Rifleman - Minion, Low Cost, High Damage. Synergize well with Lucius's Take Aim! and Captain Dashel's Aim and Fire. Lucius's Issue Command range is increased for this model.
Warden - Minion, Average Cost, Highly Durable, Range Paralyze Trigger. Lucius's Issue Command range is increased for this model.
Guardian - Minion, High Cost, Highly Durable, Minor Healing and Support.
Hunter - Minion, High Cost, High Damage, Range Slow Built-In, Scheme Runner.
Death Marshal - Minion, Average Cost, Durable, Can Bury Enemy, Scheme Runner.
Executioner - Enforcer, High Cost, Terrifying(Living), High Damage, Decapitate Trigger, Scheme Marker Removal.

We'll see what I decide to go with at the end of February, I will be at TempleCon's Gaining Grounds tournament so I should be able to get a few games in there.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them down below in the comments section or you can find me on twitter at @DontEatRawHagis.

A Return to Purple: Assembly Progress....lack of bases

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 15:58:00 +0000

So made some progress last night on my three new crew boxes I'll be adding to my Neverborn from yesteryears.

Zoraida, new Lilith, and Pandora boxes are assembled, as well as Miss Ery, Tuco, and Black Blood Shaman. Need to just assemble one of the regular plastic teddies. Some notes on assembly of these crew boxes.

First of all, the plastic models are absolutely amazing sculpts, no argument there. Out of the three I recently assembled though, I was surprised that the newest one (Zoraida) was so complex. Some of the decisions on where to split the model just seemed weird, but I'm not a sculptor/modeler so take that for what its worth. Each silurid had a separate tongue which wasn't terribly difficult to deal with but was something to take care of. Also the silurid standing on the rock had a very thin left leg making it a challenge to get it to stand nicely.

Now I love the pose, so maybe the frustration was worth it. So my main complaint with this box is that a lot of the key contact points (legs/arms) really could have benefited from more notched joins. Its just odd that some had them while others did not. Overall, though I am quite happy with all of these boxes and really can't say they were that difficult. The Bad Juju model is stunning and is the main reason I bought the box, but know I'll get a lot of good use out of Silurids in the upcoming year.

Zoraida herself was interesting, her dress is similar to the female Illuminated model. She goes together pretty easily, but all of her voodoo dolls (while cool) took extra time to get put on the model. Speaking of, the actual voodoo doll model has some super thing plastic areas which look like they will probably break off with excessive use.

For now I am awaiting on the Secret Weapon Blasted Wetlands bases to arrive. I am doing these three boxes on these wetlands and Lucius is based on DragonForge Lost Empires already. I forget what Lynch is on since he has been built and based for over a year and a half.

Dragonforge 30mm Lost Empire

Secret Weapon 30mm Blasted Wetlands

Thanks to some friends on Google Hangouts who pointed me to the actual secret weapon video showing ideas on making getting the bases all water-effect fancy.

So looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I think this is a good challenge for me in the hobby area, since its something I've never done before. I have most of the materials already just need to track down some water effects liquid from the hobby store.

Played 2 Missions of Firestorm: Planetfall...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 15:42:00 +0000

Yesterday Jerico and I sat down to learn Firestorm: Planetfall. I have been in love with the models ever since Jeremy first posted up the news about em way back. I held off just knowing there'd be a ton out there to play. Disclaimer, this was a learning game, anything below could be wrong and incomplete since we were playing through the starter box. Also, just random impressions throughout this, but thought some may be interested.

So the first mission is a simple move and occupy, no opposing forces. These intro games are played on a 2'x2' and each gets larger.

Now I've been told that its is standard Spartan Games ruleset with some obvious caveats, differences, and unique rules, but for me it was my first time playing a Spartan Game so it was all new to me. Its the exploding 6 dice, etc. so I won't go into that.

As far as occupying a building can be done with infantry units and once they're inside they are hard to dislodge, especially if you get up close (see Close Quarters Combat below). This is one of the main ways to score points in the game, grabbing and controlling objectives. A secondary way to score is for every squad you kill of your opponents (as they have points associated with them).

So the second mission is where we got to see the Directorate (me) face off against the Aquan Prime (Jerico). This was fun. Victory is obtained by getting your planetfall (forget name) tracker down to zero. We started at 12, this is done as I mentioned before by killing squads, but more importantly by controlling victory point scoring buildings (there was one). Besides having infantry occupy to control you can have entire squad that has the "Track & Hold" ability (like my scout buggy).

Think it took about 5 turns to get the game to a finish point. It was quite close, but once my infantry got in the building it was just time that i needed to really win. We did identify that tanks should not try and move up on a building to shoot for any real reason (at least the units we used). As you would expect its best for the tank to sit back and just blast the building. The reason for this is one of my favorite parts of planetfall....Close Quarters Combat (CQC).

CQC is sort of reminiscent of ARO in Infinity. Basically if a squad ends a move within 4" of an enemy squad the chance for CQC occurs. The attacker decides first if he/she will CQC, then the defender. This is great because, like Infinity ARO, it keeps both players involved and you both feel like you're really doing something even though it isn't your turn. Then each squad rolls their unmodified CQC die (different stat) for their entire squad and starts reporting damages. In this case, during CQC attacks, squads don't get to use their shields to defend so the damage can help turn the tide before the main ordinance attack which is about to come. This is also why its bad for a tank to move up to a building which is occupied and try and take out infantry because it gives them free shots.

So after both sides complete CQC and casualties are removed (closest ones to squad first), the main ordinance attack occurs. This is where a vehicles/troops main weapon is fired. You can do things like focus (if you haven't moved) or consolidated shot where all vehicles in the squad fire at an enemy (which some reduction in dice pools but still helpful when a bunch of buggies are trying to take out a tank).

Anyways, I know this is long, but its random thoughts from the game. Loved it a bunch. Here are some photos I took before the game.

Live Free or Die Cheating 2015 Malifaux Event

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 18:33:00 +0000

This is the 2nd annual "Live Free or Die Cheating" Malifaux event. This will be a Gaining Grounds 2015 event held on May 2nd, 2015.

This year we are trying something different, as the event will be held at a private hall. Milly's Tavern, in Manchester, New Hampshire. If we can sell at least 24 tickets. Otherwise it will be held at the Game Castle, like last year.

By reserving and buying this ticket you are guaranteeing a spot at the event which includes the following (regardless of location):

1 ticket for enterance to the event
1 Lunch time meal
1 on-site cash-bar (only if at Milly's Tavern)

Note: A portion of your ticket fee will go towards charity (to be decided) and to prize support.

Reserve your spot today!

This event is NON-REFUNDABLE due to the deposit required on the location.

Event registration for Live Free or Die Cheating 2015 powered by Eventbrite

A Return to Purple: Neverborn is the new Rezzers in 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 17:55:00 +0000

A Return To Purple

This is the start of what I plan to be the coverage of my journey back to purple. I'll be playing Neverborn in 2015. For me, it is a return to where I started. Lilith was my first master back in Malifaux 1st Edition. While I still plan to use my old metal models, and some new-to-me metal models I picked up with the recent price reduction on Wyrd's old stock. I am really focusing on the 4 plastic boxes I have with other stuff sprinkled in.

I have already assembled and primed and played a few games with Lucius (you won't see them in the list below as I've already assembled and based them). I will be building new plastic Lilith, Pandora, and Zoraida boxes. I am looking forward to this in fact. Initially, I felt overwhelmed that I'd be able to build all of these, and get them on the table with color. I even went as far to have a quote done on getting them commission painted and decided, I'd just challenge myself with painting them all myself.

What I'm listing here is all of the stuff I plan on using for my 2015 Neverborn year that needs to get assembled, primed, and painted. I will be putting just about all of these on swamp bases from Secret Weapon miniatures. I may have missed some, but at least this is as complete of a list that I can think of right now. It comes to 18 30mm bases, 5 40mm bases, 5 50mm bases. Stay tuned as I'll try and post things up as I go both from a modeling and a gameplay perspective. As always, listen to Joe and I on Cheated Fates Radio.

ToMB - End-of-June, Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:51:00 +0000

Hi,
I've been working on the Sonnia Criid Avatar piece. I'm really pleased with it. The hair still needs doing, but it's getting close to finished. Thought you'd enjoy. I hope to finish it by the next posting.

Dave

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers: Molly and her Students

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 16:04:00 +0000

School is in session. For this months ToMB (May/June) I present one of the larger purchases for a Molly crew. In this month's purchase we take a look at the University of Transmortis box set. This box came out about 11-12 months ago, in 2013. It was a highly anticipated product at the time as it was our first chance to physically see what a Malifaux 2E stat card was made out of. It also shipped with a number of M2E specific story missions.

There is a helpful review that decomposes the students (see what I did there) over at GMort_Chaotica's blog. If you're looking for great unboxing/reviews take a look at his stuff, its quite informative. One word of caution, when looking at the stat cards keep in mind that these cards are no longer legal stat cards. Even though they are M2E, they went through a re-work during the Wave2 open beta Wyrd ran at the beginning of 2014. This was done in order to bring their abilities/stats more in line with what M2E Wave 1 and Wave 2 models ended up being. This is understandable since this box went to print well before M2E was done. Make sure to grab them over at the Wyrd site before they go away when Wave 2 book/cards become available (that's when they'll be removed from the site; low-res, hi-res).

The models are all Iron Zombies and can be used in the story encounters (some of the rules are a little weird, but for a good 'ol fun game they're worth giving a try; there is also a 1-player mission). The rulebook for the story encounters comes with the box.

The box retails for $40, so we will be using the $14.51 + $25 from this month, so I'm short $0.49 which I'm just going to borrow from next month. I will have $24.51 for next month. The following models/stat cards come in this box:

The Valedictorian
Student of Sinew
Student of Steel
Student of Viscera

Ok so on to the models, first off they're stunning. These are some of the most amazing and beautiful models Wyrd has produced. The Valedictorian is of course my favorite model, but all are in a league of their own, really showing what the transition to plastics has enabled from a modeling perspective.

I have had these fellas primed for about 9 months, and they are on the painting table, but other models are taking their slots in the queue for now. I'm hoping to get to them in the next month or so. Stay tuned for some painted Iron Zombies next month hopefully.

Before we jump into what each model does, let's review why they're good in a Molly crew and specifically why I use them in my crews. The simplest answer is that 3 of the 4 models can be summoned by Molly when taking the Forgotten Life upgrade card because they are Horror minions. The beauty of this is that each of the iron zombies / students are tailored to combat (exploit) specific model traits/characteristics.

All the iron zombies also have Flurry, which can be pre-loaded by using Molly's (0) Whispers of Future Flesh to have them move before activating and then when they activate they are in position to use their Flurry. All of the iron zombies also have Armor +1 as well as the Hard to Wound +1 and a (0) Lecture Notes to remove the ability for a model to take triggers. This is great against models with Squee or other triggers allowing them to move away.

So from a summoning standpoint you can summon the right model for the right job against the right enemy models. For a quick recap on what Molly can summon with this upgrade here are the card requirements to summon certain models (notice the students).

The student of Sinew and Steel require the same 11 crow that a Punk Zombie does but the Student of Viscera needs a 12 crow. The Sinew and Steel variants have the same stat lines but differ in that sinew is better suited against undead models, while steel is better suited against constructs. They have terrifying which targets undead/constructs, ignore hard to wound/armor and have triggers gaining ++ to damage flips against undead/constructs.

So lets take a quick look at the other models:

Valedictorian

Key Remarks:

Henchman - Access to using soul stones to mitigate damage, valid Bodyguard and Entourage candidate (due to mobility from flight, armor, and hard to wound)
50mm base - This is often over looked but can really help. This coupled with the 3" Ml attack. Meaning getting and keeping models in engagement range is a little easier. Add in Unnerving Aura or Decaying Aura and she can put the hurt on. This also makes her a great model to help carry out Deliver a Message against an enemy master since she can get there and engage early to take the action next turn (or be moved by Molly/Necrotic Machine)
Overall she is pretty resilient, and for 10ss a great Henchman to use in various situations. Give her a try and you'll be happy you did, just remember like any other model in Malifaux she has a specific purpose and should hired and used in specific roles

Student of Viscera

Key Remarks:

Slither - This ability alone makes this model worth the 12 crow needed to summon. Slither allows for a 9" movement (not a push) ignoring severe terrain. After moving the model can take a (1) Ml action. It is basically an alternative to a charge action. The charge of this model is 6" and because its a charge would suffer penalties due to terrain; so thats a 8" threat range. With (2) Slither the model gets 11" threat range. Now just remember if you summon this model you'll want to either remove the Slow condition (with someone like Chiaki or Johan) so it can use this ability the turn it is summoned
50mm base - As mentioned above this allows for a larger range of models it can hit. Just remember if summoned it can't take interact actions the turn it summons in. But a 50mm base model with 2" Ml attack doing 2/3/5 is pretty slick.

So that's it for this month. A quick overview of the models and why I think they're great for Horror Molly. Let me know how you fair with them.

ToMB - Mid-June, Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 03:32:00 +0000

Hi,

It’s mid-June now. This month has been productive in the modeling side of things, but I haven't bought anything and I only got one game in. I do however have pictures for you. It’s a work in progress, but I’m very pleased with how the Sonnia Criid Avatar piece is working out. I’m layering paint on it to simulate the fire, first the white primer, then GW Sunburst Yellow, then GW Fire Dragon Bright (Orange), then a watered down Vallejo Orange Fire, and coming up will be GW Blood Red, Privateer Press Skorne Red (a darker red), and then a uniform dark grey from Vallejo (not sure which one yet). Only the yellow touches the white, only the orange goes on the yellow, etc...I'm trying to build up the effect of the fire as a large glowing force. Fire goes from white to black as it cools. I even painted the backside of Sonnia a uniform gray before painting the browns and other colors to add contrast to the brightness portrayed in the model. So, like I said it’s a work in progress, but at minimum I'm enjoying the project immensely.

Also in the picture, the Witchling Handler is on the right side, she is not a finished product yet either. Her hair and jewelry flair needs painting. I haven't decided on colors and thus haven't painted them yet. The model on the left is Sonnia Criid from the basic metal set. She’s finished, although not shown, I really like what I did with her sword flame pattern on the backside. Maybe next time I'll show that.

In the next picture, I have the Executioner. The Executioner I finished. Given my unhappiness with the graphic nature of the severed hands I replaced them with green stuff. The two hands are now a loaf of bread and a turtle shell (lunch) hanging from his belt instead. Here’s the finished product.

Hope you enjoyed them.

Dave

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers: Molly Update Delays

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 15:19:00 +0000

This update is for April and should have been posted on May 17th.

Wow and Sorry, is all I can say at this point. Things have been hectic as of late and I missed all of May as far as an update to my Molly ToMB progress for the month of April.

The good news...I've been playing Molly still, so she continues to be my main master the past few months. Besides her, I've been playing a little Tara down in VA with +Aaron Darland, which was an amazingly fun game. Also, played some Molly against +matthew m against his Dreamer crew. Both really close games which I lost by 1 measly point. I've also been running events and prepping for events:

Live Free or Die Cheating May 10th - Great turn out, 16 players and a lot of fun
CaptainCon July 25 - 27 - Go sign-up and attend

As far as painting progress, I've made none! Yup after my Adepticon painting blitz I just couldn't get the energy. I did assemble a fair amount of terrain from my Renaissance Miniatures KS delivery of the East Asian terrain (which is stunning).

Ok so what did I buy for May? Well as I stated for April, it was going to be the Punk Zombies. Oh boy, yeah these are amazing. I have finally mastered what I simply call the "PZ Bomb", the amount of damage this thing can deal out is amazing. The other day in a two player game I coupled it with the Valedictorian + 2 Punk Zombies dropped in between a Guild line with stunning results. I'll go into more specifics in a moment on how/what it specifically is.

$-wise I have $4.51 left over from last months Beta + Necrotic Machine purchases giving me a total of $29.51 for this month. The new Punk Zombie plastics have been released in May, but I have the old metals. Here is a cost breakdown for those tracking costs (both come with 3 zombies):

Metal Punk Zombies - $15
Plastic Punk Zombies - $21

I ended up purchasing the Nicodem box for myself since it comes with 3 of the new Punk Zombies and he is the only Ressurectionist master I do not own. However, I'm using the cost of the old metals for cost tracking. So at the end of May that leaves me $14.51 left over, but wanted to make sure newer players see all the options for purchasing the Punk Zombies available (as a note there is one other valid Wyrd Punk Zombie model, it is the Judge from the rare, hard to find Undead Lady Justice Nightmare Edition box from Gencon 2011). I'll be saving the $14.51 for next month.

Ok, so let's go over why the Punk Zombies are so great in the Molly crew. First of all they are horror minions so benefit from her ability to reactivate them, and they can be summoned by her. Along with the necrotic machine's (0) Brethren they can be pushed 4" towards the necrotic machine. The punk zombies also gain Black Blood while within 6" of Molly which is stellar. Now punk zombies are fantastic models alone, but with all of Molly's abilities from taking her upgrade Forgotten Life they just go over the top. When summoned in they must be placed within 6", so gain Black Blood and loose all of their wounds minus how many enemy models they're standing near. The key to summoning a Punk Zombie in with Molly is that you really want it to be near 2+ models so it can take advantage of its Hard to Kill. If not than don't summon a Punk Zombie in, it is a waste to do so unless near 2+ enemy models for this reason.

When Molly summons anything in she forces every enemy model within 3" to suffer 1 wound if it fails a Wp 15 duel. This is nice and helps deplete your opponents hand, but isn't the main source of damage. Now ideally its nice to get two Punk Zombies down here, but really isn't necessary, it just increases the damage output. The reason is that the Punk Zombies, if placed in a position to get max benefit, can use their Slice & Dice. Now be careful with this as it does 3 dmg to ALL models within (Aura 3") who fail a Df 13 duel, meaning it can hit your own models. But come on, we're ressers, we can take advantage of this can't we? Oh you bet your decayed eye sockets we can, watch and learn.

Can anyone think of a model that is pretty resilient and can get some really great movement (who may also be a Horror)? How about oh, I dunno the Valedictorian? So you get the Valedictorian into the mix there; within 3" of the PZ. Also, have it within 6" of Molly so it gains Black Blood and then use the Slice & Dice from a Punk Zombie. Of course the Valedictorian will choose to fail and take the damage. It has Armor +1 so it only takes 2 dmg, and as a Henchman you can choose if you want to dmg prevent, but it really isn't necessary. You do want to take at least 1 dmg so you can trigger Black Blood! So let's count it up.

1 dmg from summon to all enemy within 3"
3 dmg to every model within 3" from Slide & Dice
1 dmg from Black Blood to every model without black blood within 1"

That's around 5+/- dmg to all models in the area. Now sure this is all contingent on some duels passing/failing, but you can see the potential I hope. Add in any other mix of more models that can take the slice and dice dmg that can have black blood and your dmg numbers can get pretty high. This also can quickly force your opponent to have to use a lot of cards.

The observant reader may be asking, "how does Slice & Dice action get taken during Molly's turn?". Well its from her (0) Whispers of Future Flesh on her Forgotten Life upgrade I mentioned earlier. This gives any friendly Belle or Horror (within LoS and 10") the chance to take a (1) Action; Slice & Dice is a 1 action. It's also great coupled with her Tear of the Gorgon upgrade to allow her to take two (0) actions. The second I take besides Whispers of Future Flesh before ending her turn is (0) Gorgon's Cry to give her Terrifying (All) 12 until her next Activation.

We're not done! After Molly is done, she can accomplice, and choose the Punk Zombie she summoned to activate which he will than choose to do Slice & Dice again, potentially handing out 3 more dmg to everything within 3" (and potentially the extra 1" from Black blood on Valedictorian).

So that's the PZ bomb, I've come to really like it and there are obvious variations and I have perfected which are better for certain situations. For example, if you setup some other key things before you drop it you can also make it hard for specific enemy models to pass. Like activating a Dead Doxy and having it give -flip to duels the enemy model is the defender of (via Confusing Feelings trigger from (0) Take the Lead). Also, during Molly's activation, but before dropping a PZ in use her (1) Whispered Secret to give a model -flip on all duels. These combined make it very tough for enemy models to pass the duels required from the summon (Wp 15), and the Slice & Dice (Df 13).

One quick note if you have the opportunity to put the PZ in a more tactically advantageous position he may just want to use his 2" Ml attack and do some dmg to one model. My main reason for enjoying the Slice & Dice approach is that it really can kill an opponents hand (and their models).

So that's all for my incredibly late update which was due May 17th. I'll be ready for the next one coming up June 17th. Any guesses what I'll be buying? I already used it here in this update; I'm a dirty Cheater at ToMB!

ToMB - Mid-May, Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 23 May 2014 03:31:00 +0000

Hi,

It’s mid-May and in the last month I have only made one purchase for Malifaux to add to Sonnia’s crew, a Guild Executioner. I found that I would like to have a brute, a damage soaker, to control the center of the board. My attempts to do that with Sam Hopkins, Witchling Stalkers, or the Witchling Handler resulted in unfavorable, but fun results. I believe the Executioner will help with this. To go with the Executioner I bought some 40 mm bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures, the Trench works ones. They’ll match the theme I have for the rest of the minis, which also have the trench work bases. In the near future, I will want to apply some green stuff to the model. The mini has a pair of severed hands dangling from his belt, which kind of breaks my rule/desire to have miniatures I’m ok with showing to my kids. I intend to make them into pouches, should be simple enough.

In other modeling news I made a little bit more progress with the Sonnia Crid avatar and the Witchling Handler, but they still need more paint.

In game playing, I missed a big tournament in New England for Malifaux, held at the Game Castle in Londonderry, NH. I had other plans that conflicted, however I did get to play 3-4 times this past month. Once was even a 4-player game that was great. I got crushed, but the story was good and I’ll get to it in a minute.

My friend Mike, an avid player/collector of Malifaux, keeps bringing different crews against me, some guy with a top hat and mechanical spider-things, someone Pandora with a bunch of ghosts, someone with a bunch of rats, and some ugly lady in a swamp. Obviously I pay great attention to the details such as names and techniques so I can master it later, not. Nah, we play fun games and enjoy the event. I make slight variations to my list of Sonnia, but it remains similar for now as I learn more about the schemes and strategies. Some work well and others are disasters.

In the 4-player game we started in corners, with a hidden desire to get to a set campfire for extra victory points. The game quickly became 2 games of 1 on 1 for the first few turns since we ended up wanting the opposing person’s campfire. I ended up clashing with some Resurrectionist who kept taking bone corpse counters to summon more opponents. I used the 1 point skill to allow Sonnia to create Witchling Stalkers from dead opponents. It was a crazy battle, I started with 7 figures and had 14 die and 1 survive the game! My main opponent of this game had 15 die, unfortunately there were more. It was a great story and a great game. I’ve never seen a Malifaux game turn into such a blood bath. Combined we had 9 die and 6 get created on Turn 3 alone. Anyway, I recommend trying the multi-player scenarios or making some up.

Take care.
-Dave

ToMB - Mid-April - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 01:39:00 +0000

Hello Folks,

I wanted to update you all on my activities in the past month in modeling and game playing in regards to Malifaux. Now I haven’t been as productive this month with Malifaux for many reasons you probably don’t care about, but I have purchased or previously purchased the Sonnia Criid Avatar and the Witchling Handler. Both are currently assembled. I’ve been taking care with the Sonnia Criid centerpiece, removing mold lines and green stuffing the cracks. A picture is included of the model during my green stuffing. Since then I’ve primed the model white and have begun to prime the backside of Sonnia as black to hint at a less illuminated backside. In addition I’ve been trying out on some excess GW and Confrontation Orc Heads different attempts to make their eyes look like they are on fire. I have a favorite, but I’m still experimenting so I’ll hold off saying what has won.

For the Witchling Handler, I have primed it black and have begun to paint it. It’s not finished, but I’m content with the progress. Sorry, no picture.

For gaming, I think I’ve played one game of Malifaux versus my friend Mike. I substituted in the Witchling Handler for the 2 Guild Hounds and Samuel Hopkins’s armor from the Guild Arsenal Deck. It was my first play with her. She did well, put a little fear into Mike, but in the end I believe she died on the field. Technically I lost 5-3 on victory points, but I had changed my normal tactics and ignored/forgot the strategy card objective (quarters), costing me objectives and ultimately the game. Instead I did a bum’s rush up the middle going after his caster for the assassinate objective. I got him, but with Sonnia’s fireballs. My charge up the middle failed to reach him, but resulted in much entertainment as it faltered in a bottled-up charge across a stone bridge. Great game. Talk to you some more later in on, family Easter dinner is at our house this year and I got some cleaning to do.

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (ToMB) March - Molly Purchases

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 13:48:00 +0000

The month of March has been an exciting month. Its the beginning of April and I just returned from Adepticon in Lombard, IL where I had a blast playing in the Cake match, Team Tournament, and Masters of Malifaux. This post is going to focus more on what I've learned the past 4 weeks playing with Molly. I've played a fair amount of games with her now, and have pretty much solidified how I am going to be playing her at the 50ss level. So what I'll introduce is my second months purchase, with some forethought on where I see her crew being by the end of ToMB.

Last month I had $1.01 left over, meaning I have $26.01, which puts me JUST shy of what I'd like to buy for this month, which is a necrotic machine and a punk zombie boxset. The old necrotic machine is $12 and the old 3 pack of punk zomibes is $15, so I'm $0.99 short.

Since May we'll be seeing the release of the new plastic punk zombies ($21), I'll wait. For March I decided it's important for a Molly player to grab a necrotic machine and Bete Noire. Yup, that's right I said it, Bete Noire.

She is a viable entry in just about every crew and serves a fantastic role in so many situations being a staple in your Resurrectionists repertoire. Typically, I'd suggest saving the money for the punk zombies next month plus something else, but I think this is a good time to get another heavy beater.

She can help you accomplish some important schemes and strategies. She has 2 releases sculpts and a new plastic sculpt prepared to be released this summer, so you will have options with which model fits your tastes.

Original Bete Noire - $9.50

Bete Noire Alternate - $13.50

Bete Noire Plastic - $11.00

So I already have the original bete noire, which I will use for my cost putting me at $9.50 + $12.00 = $21.50. Leaving me $4.51 for next month.

So let's first discuss the necrotic machine. This little guy may not appear to be anything useful, but it is a nice little totem who can be summoned. At 2ss, the only reason I could see hiring him with the crew is because you feel like you're going to get out activated early game. Otherwise, its best to summon him. Even so, I need to emphasis I have no plans to hire him. If you're looking for activation control I guess you could spend the 2ss, activate him to move up his double walk. Move your models with his (0) action. Then have Molly summon another one and have it activate and move your models up more. If anyone has another reason to hire him, enlighten me. He can be summoned 10" from Molly or her regular 6" and this is how I typically plan to use him.

I prefer the 6" summon, but when I need it the 10" summon is nice because it forces you're enemy to have to deal with him before dealing with Molly if you lose initiative and plan to summon a bunch of stuff. Now the necrotic machine is no slouch either, as it provides the ability to get a last push of belles, horrors, and spirits within range before a turn end. It's attack Ml is base 5Crow, but if you get lucky it does have a 1/1/6 dmg spread and some interesting triggers, most notably Infectious Fluid which has a way of potentially handing out paralyzed (especially if you opponent has no cards left). Again nothing fantastic, but just a little something to turn the tide if you get lucky and something to remember.

With bete, you can use her in multiple ways. Having her pop out when one of your crooligans or other living/undead models die is great. You just need to ensure you unbury Bete Noire out near the model you want to kill because her movement isn't great.

I enjoy unnerving or decaying aura on her. Usually its Decaying Aura, especially if Assassinate is on the list of schemes. Bete is pretty straight forward, with some solid Df of 7, and a paired attack (+ on attack flips). I enjoy her paralyze trigger as it is quite effective at shutting down just about any master. Now she has very low wounds so you'll want to keep a 10+ in your hand, because once she 'dies' she can take the "One with the Night" action for free and attempt to bury. If you can keep a 10+ in your hand the only thing that can cause her to fail this is a black joker. So as you can imagine a black joker and a 10+ is pretty powerful for you to hold if you're using Bete Noire.

The other way to use her is have her unbury, kill something with 1 AP, and then choose to take the (1) One with the Night action to re-bury setting up for next turn. Again somewhat circumstantial but an option one should consider when fielding bete. With Molly she becomes incredibly mobile.

So I want to wrap this post up but I do expect to post a short writeup about using Molly at Adepticon before the end of this month. I used her for three games and find her to be incredibly powerful. Stay tuned for that. It won't be focused completely on ToMB as I threw in some other models, but it will be a glimpse of where I see her fleshing out to by the end of this ToMB journey! Until next time.

ToMB - March - Steel and Blood

noreply@blogger.com (Steve "Jokerbomb" Flagg) — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 03:24:00 +0000

Last month, I forgot to give you what I spent in my budget. So if you go back to my previous post, you can see what I spent in the month of February.

However, we're in March now and some fun stuff has happened since my last update. Adam ran a wonderful 35ss fixed list tournament (Fixed list, by the way, means that you show up with one list that is predetermined before the tournament; contrary to the Malifaux rules that state crews are determined before each game). My list for the tournament included:

Viktoria of Ashes

Upgrades: Sisters in Spirit

I chose this to give the wonderful teleport ability that the Viktorias are so famous for.

Viktoria of Blood

Upgrades: Oathkeeper

My main idea for this was to give her an extra AP when it counted, however that ended up being a waste of soulstones.

Taelor

Upgrades: Scramble

I'm not sure why you would take anything other than this on Taelor. The stat bonuses it provides on top of making her unimpeded seems to be a prime tool to help her slay summoned beasts.

Ronin x 2
Student of Conflict
6 ss cache

Now, I have really only dabbled in Malifaux before this tournament. Adam showed my fiance and I a few games at TempleCon, but this was my first experience playing Malifaux with people who.. play a lot of Malifaux. My apologizes for the lack of photos here, I was so focused on the games I kind of forgot to take photos. Also because I'm a terrible slacker and should have posted this back in February, I don't remember every single detail of these matches.

ROUND ONE: Viktoria vs Lilith

This game was certainly a learning experience, as I believe we were the first game to finish. The Strategy was Turf War with Close deployment. The schemes I ended up choosing were Bodyguard (Taelor as the model needing protecting) and Outflank

Lesson Learned: If you don't know how your opponent's crew plays, the easiest thing is to run up and stick a sword in them

I would have done so much better this game if I had taken that approach. However, I play a lot of games like League of Legends where if you don't know what your opponent can do it's better to just avoid them and focus on farming. This mindset does not work in Malifaux.

I quickly learned that Nekima is a tough cookie. My opponent immediately rushed Taelor knowing that she can put a hurt on things and pretty much killed her turn 1. The Viks proceeded to march up the center to get into position with the Ronin to work the strategy since Taelor was now a victim of Black Blood. The next few turns resulted in some Ronin dying to Nekima and Terror tots and the Viks netting me 1 victory point for being near the center. My opponent ended up taking the game 6 to 1 when we finished.

ROUND TWO: Viktoria vs Perdita

This game was a lot of work for the win I ended up getting. The strategy here was Reconnoiter with Flank Deployment. My schemes ended up being Line in the Sand (revealed) and Spring the Trap.

Lesson Learned: Remember your schemes.

This game was nerve wracking a bit. Everything I've read about the Viks is to play smart around ranged crews. However, taking my lesson from the previous game; the best plan was to run up and stab some members of the Guild.

I did my best to keep to my schemes. Knowing that Line in the Sand would net me the most points; I tried to step my crew in the best possible places for scheme markers. Perdita thought it best to compel the Ronin and keep picking up my scheme markers. The game wasn't too bloody (In the end I think Papa Loco and a single Ronin were among the dead). We also made a few mistakes (They're detailed here.), but in the end the Viktorias were uh.. victorious? I ended up successfully pulling off line in the sand by removing Papa Loco and getting Vik of Ashes on the center line; completing that scheme.

Where I failed with the schemes involved one of my Ronin engaging Perdita. I could have used her to finish Spring the trap, however I failed to do it. In the end, I won with 3 victory points.

ROUND THREE: Viktoria vs Lady Justice

I think this game I felt the most comfortable. That could have had a lot to do with my opponent being a close friend, but I also felt I was getting more comfortable with the game itself. The strategy was Stake a Claim with Standard deployment. My schemes were Line in the Sand and Plant Explosives.

Lesson Learned: Make sure you understand the Strategy

Lady J took some early ground to try to distract me from the strategy. It worked, since I spent pretty much my first turn killing her. This allowed her crew to get some early Claim markers out without any sort of disruption. We later learned that Claim markers cannot be within 6" of another claim marker, so I would have spent more time trying to take ground from him. I was able to nab 2 victory points by completing Plant Explosives and eventually a 3rd from the scheme. However, Lady J's crew had already gained too much ground on me and I wasn't able to close the gap.

It was ultimately a great time and I learned a lot! Thank you again Adam for putting this on.

I did play another team game recently, but let's save that for another post ;)

Hobby Time:

Well I haven't finished painted my crew. So much has been going on in my personal life that I have not had much time for painting. I did finish one of my Ronin however. I'll get a picture up of her on my next post.

Total Cost:

So for March, I only added one model. This model is pretty much THE model to get for the Viktorias. Say hello to Viktoria of Ashes' real sister: Vanessa!

Vanessa seems to shore up a weak point in the Hired Sword Box; their lack of healing. I'll have her put together this month and we'll have a picture as well.

The Running Tally:
Hired Swords Malifaux Second Edition box Set: $45.00
Vanessa, Treasure Hunter: $11.00

This leaves me with $44.00 at this point in March with the new 25 dollars for the month of march and the left overs from February.
I recently made another purchase, but I thought about saving it for April. Guess we'll have to see ;).

As usual, I'd love to hear any feedback anyone would like to provide! Be safe in Malifaux!

ToMB - Mid-March - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 04:16:00 +0000

Hello Folks,

I wanted to talk to you a little bit about why I play Malifaux. With literally hundreds of miniature game choices out there, why do I choose Malifaux amongst all the others? For me, Malifaux meets all the criteria of a good game. 1) It’s easy to find a game with people you enjoy playing games with, 2) the cost for entry is relatively cheap, 3) it fills a nitch, 4) ease of rules and/or ease in mastering the rules, 5) it has tactical complexity that makes you want to come back, and 6) specific game rules don’t leave you frustrated or give you angst.

Malifaux, 40K, War-Ma/Hordes, and Infinity all fit number one. Other games I like that don’t fill #1 include Confrontation, Dreadball, and Blood Bowl. The locals here play Blood Bowl online instead.

For #2, 40K is out, entry is over $100 before you buy models, but both Infinity and Malifaux are skirmish games with low initial costs. End cost may not be low, but the amount needed to start playing is low.

For #3, by nitch I mean they meet a type of game. I split miniature games into 4 types of nitches, Sports, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Other. Sports include Blood Bowl (I own 3 teams) and Dreadball (6 teams). Sci-Fi includes Infinity (2 armies), 40K (2 armies), and the likes of Firestorm Armada (3+ fleets). Fantasy includes WFB (1), War-Ma-Hordes (0), Malifaux (1 crew), and Confrontation (3+). Others are all the rest, like Wild West Exodus (0), and Dystopian Wars (1). My nitch for Fantasy had a need. I love Confrontation, but the players I know don’t live in NH, so that’s not enough playing time to justify the effort. Also it’s getting difficult to get miniatures. I recently sold/traded away my Warmachine Cygnar, and ½ my WFB Orcs and Goblins. Malifaux is my replacement to Confrontation and my go to game for the Fantasy nitch.

For #4, 2E rules are easy to comprehend. Granted the local henchman is a great teacher, but the game has an ease to it.

For #5, the skirmish game isn’t a get’em game, it’s schemes and strategies appeal to me. The variety makes it enjoyable. Playing a game where the job is to kill the opponent’s pieces gets old faster than something with scenarios.

For #6, unlike War Machine with the rules as written allowing a model to go in-between 2 models with a slightly bigger than a hair’s width gap, I found myself not interested in playing War Machine. With Infinity, one model can do all the moves while all the others cower and provide actions to the super model. These rules burn me on a game. I haven’t seen a rule that burns me in Malifaux yet.

So, I play Malifaux because of ease, price, convenience, variety, and lack of angst, that’s all.

On other notes, I ordered the Sonnia Criid avatar model with the flame dragon coming screaming out of her mouth, so cool. I’ve wanted this model for months to paint not necessarily to play with, it’s that cool. And I also got a 50mm base for a total with the avatar of $45. I only had $23 in credit for the price, so in effect this cost me February and March’s plus up. I have a $1 left until mid-April, I think, if I’m counting the bases into the cost, $26 if I’m not, however I am.

Dave

ToMB Perdita: First Games

noreply@blogger.com (Corbin Bogert) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 04:17:00 +0000

Time for my first impressions of the Latigo Posse. Note that these were three games, all part of the same tournament that was fixed list.

I would like also thank my buddy Mike for lending me his Perdita crew and congratulate him on winning the tournament with his Ramos crew.

The Crew

Perdita

Francisco

Enslaved Nephlim

Santiago

Nino

Papa Loco

Cache: 5ss

Total Soulstones: 35

Initial Thoughts

Taking the base crew without upgrades gave me a great disadvantage. A lot of what makes Perdita good are her upgrades. I'll go into more detail on upgrades in a later post. That way I can focus on the synergies and tactics that the base box brings.

A lot of what makes the Ortegas great are their abilities. Know their abilities, more so than other crews the Ortegas hinge on abilities and activations. With Papa Loco a nearby ally is gaining positives to damage and with Francisco positives to defenses as long as the target is within 2 inches.

Onward to the games!

Perdita VS Nicodem:

The streets were empty as Santiago and Francisco turned to look around the corner. A vulture overhead the only break in the silence. "Get down," yelled Francisco as a dead body fell from the carrion bird's claws. Where the body had fell now stood a crazed man, hollowed faced and carrying two blood stained swords.

On instinct Francisco pulled out his sword, slicing the walking corpse's head clean off. "Easy," he said made to sheath his blade. "Watch out!" shouted Santiago, his peacebringers aimed at his brother. In a second the felled corpse was up again, Francisco matching it strike for strike, "Run, hermano!"

Strategy:
Turf War

Scheme Pool:

Take Prisoner, Breakthrough, Outflank, Bodyguard

My Schemes:

Bodyguard(Santiago) (0 VP)

Outflank (0 VP)

Opponent Schemes:

Outflank (2 VP)

Line in the sand (2 VP)

Ending Score:
2/5
Perdita Loss

This match up was my first match up against Nicodem, the setup was perfect for Turf War. Close deployment and on my side of the table there was a three inch high wall that was within 6" of the center of the board. Perdita and Papa Loco sat behind it out of sight for 2 turns. It helped a lot because there was a Rotten Belle luring my other models out of cover.

The biggest obstacle came from Nicodem's summoning. I'm told its very hard to pull off, but my opponent had the resources he needed. A Punk Zombie was able to get within 3 inches of Santiago, Francisco, and Enslaved Nephlim allowing pulse Slice and Dice*. After I killed it, Nicodem resurrected it from its corpse counter and with upgrades allowed it to reactivate without the slow penalty from being summoned. The advice I've been getting is to take a Freikorps Specialist, since it can destroy corpse markers that are near it. Its a good hard counter, but an Outcast model.

The schemes were hard to achieve, especially when I forgot to deploy on both sides of the table to get Outflank, instead staying mostly center. Santiago was in a rough place when the Punk Zombie hit him with flurry, Hard to Kill kept him from dying. If it got to turn 4 I might have gotten a single VP for Bodyguard, but with time constraints we got to turn 3. Take Prisoner with the Punk Zombie could have guaranteed me more reliable VP in theory.

*Slice and Dice - Those within 3 inches must pass a Df test or take damage.

Perdita VS The Viks:

Francisco walked into the quiet graveyard, his brothers and sister waiting on the other side of the gate. A shadow flickered past the corner of his eye, but all that stood before him was a still statue. "I could have sworn-" Bang! The silhouette of a statue-esque woman appeared from behind one of the tombs, gun and sword drawn. Gripping his shoulder, Francisco retreated behind the gate, "Damn mercenary," his palm was red. He could just make out his sister in the distance another assailant already upon her.

The scantily clad woman ran head long at Perdita, her sword at the Ortega's throat. A small smile formed across Perdita's face and within a second the Ronin was grappled. Two shots rang out, and two bodies fell to the ground, Perdita holstering her gun. Francisco picked himself up, "You have to show me how you did that."

The Grave Yard

Strategy:
Reconnoiter

Scheme Pool:
Assassinate, Spring the Trap, Make Them Suffer, Distract

My Schemes:
Make Them Suffer(1 VP)
Assassinate(0 VP)

Opponent Schemes:
Line in the Sand, Revealed(3 VP)
Unknown(0 VP)

Ending Score:
2/4
Perdita Loss

This game was tough for me, I have only ever played Reconnoiter once before and didn't realize that models 6" from the center meant that the model didn't count as scoring. Neither of us realized this. I probably should have had Nino in one of the corner edges, instead I placed him in the middle of the map.

Also I forgot that enemy models couldn't take interact actions near Nino because of his Spotter ability.Might have stopped my opponent from getting line in the sand.

Nino on Top of a Tower. Not as useful as you'd think with Reconnoiter.

I wouldn't suggest taking Make Them Suffer against Ronin, they have Hard to Kill meaning you should kill them before they can activate again. Their Seppuku action allows them to sacrifice a ronin for soulstones, but denying precious VP.

Flank Deployment definitely favored shooting more than melee. The Viks didn't get into melee with any of my models except for two. Obey might have done better giving my own crew exttra actions instead of pulling his models closer to me. I don't find Enslaved Nephlim very useful, mainly because I just end up moving and using his influence to maybe do something if I'm lucky. I wish there was a good tactical action he could use.

Perdita vs Seamus:

Nino had gotten to close, his brothers and sister were still preparing when he slipped out. The Neverborn they had been tracking had made a detour through the red light district. Nino was just about to call out to his family when he saw her. Standing there playing with her parasol, was that giggling he heard? No, it was laughter... manic laughter.

"It's the Hatter!" yelled Nino, repeater already winding up. There was a bang and flash as Nino fell to the ground. From the shadows stood Seamus, grin on his face and smoke trailing from his gun.

In one more activation Seamus would be dead. Impossible to Kill? Peacebringer ftw.

Strategy:
Stake a Claim

Scheme Pool:
Murder Protege, Assassinate, Plant Explosives, Bodyguard

My Schemes:
Line in the Sand Revealed (1 VP)
Plant Explosives(2 VP)

Opponent Schemes:
Murder Protege (0 VP)
Body Guard(2 VP)

Ending Score:
4/2
Perdita Win

Stake a Claim would have been probably better if it was close deployment, anything else is too far away. Mostly because it will take a Perdita crew a lot of movement to get to the other side of the table. The suggestions I get involve using Obey and Influence to push models up the board. However, with Nino in the crew I should use his From the Shadows to deploy on the opponent's side to drop a claim marker turn one.

I was surprised that I killed Seamus turn 2. Sadly I didn't take Assassination, if I did my final score would have probably been 5 VP.

Special Note: For Rezzer players who use Belles in Stake a Claim, make sure not to use Lure too many times as it helps the opponent get closer to your side of the board.

Final Thoughts

So far I'd say these three games were me getting the feel for the Ortegas. I didn't utilize abilities as well as I should. Over used Perdita's Obey, wasting soulstones and high cards. Didn't take utilize Nino's from the Shadows effectively. And lastly didn't take any upgrades.

Freikorps Specialist is not going to be on my buy list for March. I would have to buy the Outcast arsenal deck and Freikorps Specialist, too much investment just to counter summoning crews. I'm not liking Enslaved Neplim too much so you might not see him in too many future posts.

Next post will be focusing on Perdita VS Ramos game I had as well as my purchases for March. Please let me know down at the bottom what you think and leave any suggestions or questions.

@DontEatRawHagis on Twitter.

ToMB - Early March - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 03:02:00 +0000

Hello Folks,

I wanted to blog a bit about the recent Malifaux tournament we had here in balmy Manchester, NH. We had 10 people play in a 35 stone quasi-newbie tournament, organized by one of our local expert henchmen Adam. It was a 3 round 75 minutes per round tournament. The tournament as a whole was a friendly set of games, not a competitive struggle to determine the best. There were prizes, but Adam’s wife baked a cake, and that really was prize enough for all.

I fielded the Guild Faction, led by Sonnia Criid. With her I brought Sam Hopkins with some extra armor, 2 Guild Hounds, 3 Witchling Stalkers, and 5 soul stones. Sonnia had the 1 stone power to make more Witchling Stalkers as well, but I consistently forgot to use the power (5 times) throughout all 3 games and therefore will not speak of this card again… I have a tendency of doing this, so I might need a neon sign or large gold star to remind me of the power I kept forgetting, such as I’ve used in other games. Or maybe I’ll bury this Guild Arsenal Card.

My default strategy was to use the Guild Hounds to run across the board and leave tokens wherever the schemes or strategies required. The Witchling Stalkers would start burning opponents with pistols and later engage them in melee. Sam would effectively block for Sonnia so Sonnia’s magical explosions could go off many many times.

To summarize, I had 3 great games and enjoyed each and every one of them. I played good people, 1 new and 2 old friends. I ended up in 4^th place, much to my surprise with 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 tie.

My first game was with new friend Ed’s Resurrectionists, led by the Seamus model. We tied 4-4. I don’t remember all the details, but I got points for Outflank and Breakthrough, thank you Guild Hounds. He got his for capturing Sam Hopkins and the center objective. The Resurrectionist crew I saw today would have been one of the crews I would be uncomfortable with my children seeing on the painting table. Rotten Belles aka undead hookers I not ready to explain.

My second game was with friend Jerico’s Guild led by the Lady Justice model. I won 4-3. Surprisingly Lady Justice melee’d with Sonnia and Sam for most of the game. Sonnia actually fared well against Lady Justice in melee. That surprised me. In the end, I played the scenarios a little bit luckier than Jerico. He however could have tied by leaving a few tokens instead of charging on the last turn, which we discussed during the competition. He stuck with his plan of charging instead and flipped cards unluckly. Jerico’s crew for the most part would have been decent enough for the painting table, except the scales of justice model.

My third game was with friend Mike’s Arcanists led by the Ramos model. I lost 3-6. Mike and I have played often, of my 8 games of Malifaux thus far, 4 have been against Mike and 3 against this specific Ramos crew. Mike is an avid player/collector of Malifaux so his familiarity with my crew and having battled previously, meant he dominated the game for the most part. I changed my strategy pre-game since it appeared he was prepared for my default strategy. So instead of minimizing combat I changed to kill them all, but it was to no avail. I went for Kill the Protégé instead of schemes of place tokens to win. He had brought 2 big henchman, I had 1. He had numbers, armor, and regeneration too. I never was able to gain control of the ebb and flow of the battle. It was fun, but my current crew doesn’t have the muscle to overpower another crew. That’s something to look for a solution in the future. It ends up Mike went 3-0 and won first place in the tournament. To my surprise if I had won this game I would have won the tournament instead. I didn't think I played that well. Guess I was lucky…Until next time.

ToMB Molly: Month 1 Post 2 - A little Tactica!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 13:53:00 +0000

Introduction

Well there is a lot that I've learned in the past few weeks of playing with my #ToMB crew. I have tried my best to stick to my guns, and have had good success. The only thing that 'put me out of my ToMB' is one summon of a punk zombie! Which means I know where next month's budget is going. Punk Zombies are likely (based on the upgrade "Forgotten Life") in my next month purchase. I want to fit a "Hanged" in, but I'm a few dollars short. The Punk Zombies have Hard to Kill, can be affected by Imbue Vigor (they're minions), and as well all know they just kill things DEAD (Oh plus I can use my NE Dead Justice box Judge model as a Punk Zombie)

Apologies

So before I continue though, I need to apologize for 'reading an upgrade' on-the-air incorrectly. I try and hold my self to a high standard of knowing the rules. I made a mistake in both playing (my first Molly game) and talking about my first Molly game on the podcast. Specifically, I mentioned that I was excited to use "The Philosophy of Uncertainty" on Yin. Well, it makes no sense because getting the trigger to go off puts the ability onto Molly NOT on the target which Molly casts "Whispered Secret" on.

My incorrect tacitca approach was to give some negatives to the model getting "Whispered Secrets" and then knowing that if that model is killed it will be sacrificing the model that killed it. Well this is straight up WRONG!!! My apologies.

The correct tactica is to use her "Whispered Secrets" on an enemy model to give it the obligatory negative flips on all duels (on success), but the key is that if Molly (i.e. the one who casts this) gets the Tome to succeed on the trigger for "Philosophy of Uncertainty". So, if she is killed by another model, the model which killed it is sacrificed after resolving the current action. So, this makes Molly a less than stellar target to kill, especially coupled with her base ability "Masterful Dead" (Crow trigger on Df/Wp - After this model suffers damage, it may discard two cards to reduce the damage to 1).

New (experimental) Tactica (i.e. lessons learned)

Ok, so 11+ of crows! Yup that's what Molly wants, any 11+ of crows and she is a happy camper. You can watch some vassalfaux between Joe and me (its mulit-part) to see how we use our respective ToMB crews. This game play isn't representative of how I usually play my masters, but it was an attempt to try something new. So to the point of the 11+ crows, my upgrades have consistently been "Spare Parts", "Terrible Knowledge", and "Forgotten Life" on Molly, and "Pack" on the Rogue Necromancy, and Yin takes "Unnerving Aura". So I'm going to specifically talk about what I tried against Joe due to the Corner Deployment and Reckoning style game. For those new to the game reading this, corner deployment forces more distance between the two players crews giving a little delay to the action.

With 4 corpse counters within 6" and a 11+ crow she can use 2 AP to summon a rogue necromancy in base contact to her. So how would we go about getting these 4 corpse counters. Up front I'd like to state that while this tactic is doable it uses far too many resources. A canine with an 8+ crow can use 2 AP to dig up a corpse marker, now if you get lucky and have 1 of the right cards that's great, but you still need 3 other corpses. So maybe you have 2 8+crows, and utilize Molly's (0) Imbue Vigor to give reactivate to the canine remains (i.e. minion); needing a 9 of rams. Then he can drop a second corpse marker during his reactivate.

Well, that's two. So how do you get two more in a single turn, to reach the 4? You can use Molly's (1) The Ones Left Behind to attempt to summon 2 crooligans, meaning you need two other 8+ crows in your hand. So for those following at home, thats 4 cards of 8+ crows to get 4 corpse markers. The reason the 2 crooligans generate the corpse markers is that they die as soon as summoned since on turn 1 I don't see them being anywhere near enemy models and just die (generating corpses). Ok so that's 2 AP from the canine, another 2 AP (if he gets reactivate), 2 AP from Molly to get 2 more potential corpses and her 0 to do reactivate.

So wow, 5 high cards all with specific suits. Hopefully, now you can see that this isn't the best use of her resources. I think that taking her forward and having things die and taking advantage of the corspes on the table is a better tactic and will be the norm for me going forward. This experiment was just that, to see how well it plays out. Molly has so much in the way of avoiding death that she can be near the fight and survive, between black blood, impossible to wound, masterful dead, and her upgrade to give the trigger philosophy of uncertainty, she is a hard nut to crack.

One lesson learned here, is that sometimes it may be worth summoning a model not near an enemy to see it die and generate her that final corpse marker (assuming you need for her to utilize corpse makers). Again, this is only necessary if she uses Spare Parts upgrade as she really doesn't need corpse markers to do her summoning well. I'm actually going to stop using Spar parts for some time because I see better uses going forward for the cost.

With all of this said, the biggest take away I've had with playing 4 games with Molly is that Soulstones are key for her and that I need to probably drop at least 1 upgrade to give me some more AP at 35ss.

All-Stars

So all-stars in my games have def. been the Crooligans and the Rogue Necro combo. Using their blistering fog to give out +1 damage from blasts the rogue necro can dish out is great. Plus their 'Creepy' to apply -1 Wp to enemy models within 1" is an amazing setup for Yin, other summons by Molly, any Terrifying checks, etc. What is so nice, is that Molly can summon them fairly easily and as long as Make them Suffer and Reckoning aren't the missions they are doing a good job of tar pitting, while killing enemy models with black blood.

Ok, so I need to mention Yin! Simply, because I want him to be my All-star and he just isn't. I mostly think that is because he is expendable AND he gets a big bullseye on his head (I mean that's all that is remaining of his body). He is an absolutely amazing control piece. No doubt, his "No Escape" trigger built into his "The Fear Behind the Eyes" is worth the weight in gold, but his 8 Wd are easily dropped with ~2 AP from any average to moderate heavy hitter. Even with his "Mass of Viscera" which forces negative on attack and damage flips. So with that said, I think he serves an important role in this crew. He forces the enemy to HAVE to deal with him, and during that process the rest of your crew can do what it does best.

Crew I've Been Fielding

Resurrectionists Crew - 35 - Dustup

Molly Squidpiddge -- 6 Pool

+Forgotten Life [1]

+Spare Parts [2]

+Terrible Knowledge [1]

Canine Remains [4]

Crooligan [4]

Rogue Necromancy [10]

+Pack [1]

Yin the Penangalan [8]

+Unnerving Aura [1]

Painting

Finally, I'll leave you with my painting progress for this month. I have to just base the rogue necro and then finish up my crooligans and Yin in the next 2 weeks. Pretty sure I can reach that goal :)

ToMB - Late February - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 01:31:00 +0000

Hi All,
Just thought I'd update with some spending and building. Last month I had spent according to the rules $42 on miniatures, $32 for the Sonnia metal crew and $10 for Secret Weapons Miniature Trench Work bases. Since then I picked up a Witchling Handler ($10) and yet more of the same type of bases (to maintain the theme, again $10). So expense wise I'm up to $62 spent, leaving me with $23 in credit.

I picked up the Witchling Handler because this force currently has 5 Witchling Stalkers and having something to improve them is worth considering. She's not ready for play yet, but I have her assembled and primed thanks to an unnaturally warm break in the weather Sunday (stuff it Mr. Gopher!). I also spent a little bit of time touching up some spots I missed on Sonnia.

Our first tournament and my first play since the beginning of this blog fest will be tomorrow. Ms. Handler won't see play this tournament, but soon. The tournament is a 35 stone tournament, 3 rounds at Myriad Games - Manchester. I'll be going with my initial force, Sonnia Criid, Samuel Hopkins, 3 Witchling Stalkers, and 2 Guild Hounds. I'm trying to stay with the same list for a bit longer as I learn the nuances of the game to pick up speed by familiarity. These 3 games will be numbers 4, 5, & 6 for me, so yes I'm a newbie. Game 1, I learned the basic rules, like dice aren't needed, but little token markers are needed. Game 2, I learned Sonnia Criid is really good at ranged attacks. Game 3, I learned that despite a really cool sword on the model, Sonnia is poor at melee attacks. Anyway, wish me luck, and thanks for reading.

ToMB: The Guild's Judgement

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:44:00 +0000

I've been a fan of Malifaux for a long time. I've told anyone that has ever asked, "if Malifaux had the same following locally to me that Warmachine does, it would be my 'go-to' game." Now, I can comfortably say that my requirement has been filled! This blog series has given me the opportunity to dive into my local Malifaux "meta" with both feet.

My wife and I are both players, and you may see her comment in my posts from time to time. We decided that the ToMB series would be a good reason to break out the plastic sets we bought at Gen Con. She is painting up the Shadows of Redchapel and I'm completing The Guild's Judgement.

In truth, I assembled both of the starter sets. I can say that I found the entirety of assembling Redchapel to be significantly easier than assembling Lady J alone. I need to state a qualifier here, I'm an experienced modeler and can easily assemble a 12 piece metal Infinity 25mm trooper. I HATED assembling Lady J. For anyone considering the crew, my advice is to use both super glue and plastic cement (where appropriate) and purchase some precision tweezers.

Well, here's some photos of the prep:

The contents of the box

Superglue on the bases

Yep, it's cat litter

I knocked of the extra, and gave each a squirt of Insta-Set. Bases were done and ready to prime in about 5 min.

I made the classic mistake of not documenting my individual model progress, but here is where I stand today:

You may notice that her sword blade is not congruent with her sword hilt. It drives me INSANE.

I hope this has inspired the rest of my ToMB'ers like their posts have inspired me! Great work everyone :)

ToMB - Come my mechanical minions!

noreply@blogger.com (WillyBaby) — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:58:00 +0000

Hey guys, short introduction :) I'm Will, owner of UrbanLasercraft.com, avid gamer, hobby guy and more. I've been into miniatures since the early 90s and when Malifaux first came out I jumped right in. I love skirmish games and this one had some really cool fluff and lore and the minis were just amazing. Plus with my luck at dice ... well it was a win on all sides :) My very first master was Ramos and over the years and versions I have played all kinds of factions and masters but with the release of Malifaux 2.0 and the new plastics, I had to go back to my old favorite. I haven't even really read much of his rules but in the old game you had exploding mechanical spiders and the ability to create more spiders out of scrap to then blow up! You can't beat that :)

Ok so let's try to format my rambling into something that might make a little sense to read :)

Who did I pick?
I picked Ramos, but not just any Ramos, but the new plastic box set. Wyrd has made some great improvements to their plastics and the new models are just fabulous!

Ok so the box comes with Ramos who is the maser, Howard Langston who is the Steamborg Executioner, basically a mechanical Drider of doom. The Brass Arachnid who is a support model, Joss who is an elecric axe wielding crazy man and 6 spiders that you can base as either a swarm of 3 or individually.

The other good thing about the new box is it comes with all the cards you need to play them so you don't need to worry about arsenal boxes.

That comes to 42 Soul Stones without any upgrades, throw in a few upgrades and extra soul stones since Ramos only has 3 and you have a 50 point game you can play with a single box set.

Bases

Now for the rules of the ToMB we have $60 to purchase stuff for our first month. Technically bases do not count but I want to highlight that I think some of the amazing custom bases out there by companies can really make the model stand out. Normally you are only playing with 5-10 models, so splurging a little for custom bases for these guys really makes each one a mini diorama.

For my Ramos crew I am using Groundwerks Base Inserts - Dungeon Floor. I think it gives them a really cool look and you can imagine him in his underground lab making these mechanical monstrosities!

Assembly Time!

So the other good thing about the new plastics is that they glue very well together with Testors plastic model glue. They can be a little fiddly because of how tiny some of the parts are but once they meld together they are pretty much not going to fall apart after that.

Now I'm sort of cheating because at GenCon, if you spent over $100 on Malifaux stuff you got an exclusive Miss Step, who replaces Howard Langston. So of course I had to use the crazy female version of a mechanical Drider so in the pictures that is who you will see instead of the one that comes in the box. Too bad they are Rare 1 or I would glue and paint them both.

So here we have my models glued and primed black. I assembled 3 of the spiders on a single big base and the other 3 on single bases since throughout the game you will need them both.

Painting and Gaming!

This thursday I'll be actually bringing these guys to the table and testing them out.

I don't really have a plan as I still need to read how they interact with each other but the Brass Arachnid can cause Miss Step to reactivate giving this monster beast of a model 2 turns in a single turn. I hope to use that to good effect, combining that with Ramos's send in the spiders and blow them up! He is by no means a front line fighter but can do some range shooting especially against models his other minions have tied up and then can also push other models into the embrace of loving Miss Step. Now I just need to remember to use all these cool abilities! Joss is my beat stick front line troop, in addition anybody he kills drops scrap tokens for Ramos to turn into more spiders. I think it's a pretty easy combo to keep track of and I think it will do pretty good overall. But I'll report back and we'll see!

In addition I plan on starting to add some paint to the models. The lucky thing is since there is a lot of metal and brass, I can use some pretty easy painting techniques with metallic paints to get them done pretty quickly. The rest of them I will drybrush a grey and then a white and then start painting in their colors. I admit that I only have a few rudimentary painting techniques but I will try to spend more time on these models. I get impatient and just want them done and ready to play with, in addition to all the other projects I have going on, but hey it's a good excuse to work on them!

Budget Tracker:

Ok so we went over who I picked and why and even showed off the assembled models that are primed. How am I doing for budget?

The M&SU Box Set - $50

So yup leaves me $10 carrying over to next month!

Now what I'm not counting is the following, mainly because you may either already have them or are learning from a friend or just doesn't count in the ToMB budget :)

Mini Rules Manual - $12.99 - The main rule book is amazing, great fluff and stories and also all the cards in there for looking at future purchases. However it's big and bulky to take when actually gaming so the mini rule book is perfect for taking with you. (Still get the big rule book too! $32.99)

Bases - $21 for 2 40mm bases and 6 30mm bases. Again, these can really make a model stand out.

Fate Deck - $7.25. You really want to have one of these to play the game and not have to deal with other decks of cards and the suits.

So if you were starting from scratch, you could be ready to go all in for less than $100 which you really can't beat for such a fantastic miniatures game.

Next month I plan on adding more spiders to the crew and maybe looking at some other models to help augment the crew.

So until next time guys when hopefully I have a battle report, some thoughts on how they did, and even some paint on the models!

-Will

ToMB - Perdita: Welcome to the Family

noreply@blogger.com (Corbin Bogert) — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 07:01:00 +0000

Hello, my name is Corbin, Hagisman on the forums. I’m a mali-newb and joined Tale of Malifaux Bloggers to help other mali-newbs learn about Malifaux from my successes and mistakes. I started wargaming two years ago when Warhammer 40k switched from 5th to 6th edition. Last September I realized that I wanted to play more skirmish based games and discovered Malifaux, which coincidentally was going through an edition change.

Most of the time I play in tournaments since I have a pretty busy schedule on weekdays. Mainly due to tournament games ending around turn three or four, my play style is slowly becoming tailored to scoring Victory Points early.
I started off as a Guild player and have kept to it for the most part. So far the masters that I haven't played from Guild are Lucius, Hoffman, Sonnia, and Perdita... what's that?...Lucas McCabe? Never heard of him.

With introductions out of the way lets begin this Tale of a Malifaux Blogger.

Who did I pick?

From left to right: Papa Loco, Santiago Ortega, Perdita Ortega, Nino Ortega, Francisco Ortega, and Enslaved Nephilim(out of frame, no relation)

The Latigo Posse. Which includes Perdita Ortega(Master), Francisco Ortega(Henchman), and Enslaved Nephilim(Totem), Nino Ortega(Enforcer), Papa Loco(Enforcer), and Santiago Ortega(Enforcer). A very elite crew at 32 soul stones(ss) base with a Cache of 2 and doesn't include a single minion. For reference Lady Justice’s box is 30SS and Sonnia Criid’s is 27SS.

And adding two Guild Guard(Minion) at 4SS each, just in case my opponent takes Make Them Suffer as a scheme, which considering the Ortegas have only one Peon model it is a guaranteed 3 VP if I run the base crew.

In total I have 40 soulstones worth of models without upgrades.

Why did I pick them?

The Ortegas were a crew that slipped past my radar, Lady Justice's and Sonnia's stood out more for me, but after reading the Ortega fluff and seeing their abilities I changed my opinion.
They are known for being the best Neverborn hunters in Malifaux, those that join up have a dangerously short life expectancy. The Ortegas have been in the Neverborn hunting game longest and are known for being eerily good at it. Crunch wise a lot of their abilities revolve around chain activation and movement shenanigans. I’ll go into more detail when I showcase some individual models in later blog posts.

The main reason I chose them has to be range though. Everyone of the Ortegas, except Papa Loco, has at least a 12" range. Considering that I've been playing Lady Justice and McMourning, arguably both very melee focused, Perdita is a nice change of pace with her 14" attack action that can double as a melee attack. She also brings some nice special abilities that allow her to re-draw your hand or shoot out of turn.

When do I get them?

Sadly the Latigo Posse box has yet to be released so right now I have to wait patiently... Or get Vassal setup on my PC... Or rely on the kindness of my fellow gamers to lend me their metal models for a game or two. The release date is only Febuary 2014, so they could be coming out either next week or the week after. Expect a new ToMB post from me each week. Until the new box comes out I'll be focusing on the models I have as well as some theory-faux.

Alternate Perdita, I want!

What advice can you give to new players?

In general, I highly recommend the following to get started:

Buy a Fate Deck - A playing card deck made by Wyrd for Malifaux that has the the symbols the game uses to declare triggers. There are rules for using a standard Bicycle deck, but its a lot easier to recognize the symbols you need with an official Fate Deck. Also the tournament rules now require Fate Decks if you are interested in tournament play.
Buy a Rulebook - For a good layout and low cost I recommend the mini-rulebook. However, the big rulebook has every stat card for Wave 1 models, which makes it easier to study your opponents. Supposedly there is a reprint due out the end of February that fixes the layout issues with the big rulebook.
Know your Models - Very important. Make sure to remember what abilities your models have. Abilities like Hard to Wound and Armor keep your models alive, whereas abilities like Accomplice and Companion allow you to activate out of order. Other abilities, such as Perdita’s Relocate can help move your models around the table. Forget an ability and you are playing at a disadvantage. If you can know your opponent’s models as well you'll be playing with an advantage.
Know your Schemes and Strategy - This is what decides the result of a game. If you are just starting, figure out how to complete your Schemes and Strategy. Don’t let yourself forget them, if you do you are losing Victory Points(VP). Eventually as you play you’ll learn how to deny your opponents their schemes and strategies.
Learn from Mistakes - Should be a given, but if you don’t play that much you might forget what worked and what didn't. For example, Guild Guard are very fragile, especially when Reckoning and Make Them Suffer are flipped.
Have Fun - Malifaux is one of the few games I've played where at the end of the day both players can say they had a good game. It doesn't happen all the time, but it can and has happened for me. Be a good sport, play fair, and don’t take it too seriously. Leave the "win at all costs" attitude at the door and relax.

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers Budget Tracker:

The Latigo Posse - $45.00

Perdita

Francisco

Enslaved Nephlim

Nino

Papa Loco

Santiago

Guild Guard - $14.50

Guild Guard x 2

Total Cost = $59.50

Carry Over into March = $0.50

ToMB February - Compelled by the Masamune

noreply@blogger.com (Steve "Jokerbomb" Flagg) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 15:59:00 +0000

Adam had asked me if I wanted to participate in this blog adventure after asking him if he could run a demo of the Version 2 rules for my fiance and I at Templecon.

I've played Malifaux v1.5 once. I picked up the game because my fiance was really into the game. Someone ran me through a game which I enjoyed, but ultimately my Sonnia Criid crew ended up in a battlefoam bag, not seeing a table again.

What is the ultimate goal for my posts?

I definitely going to show painting progress and theorycraft, but what I want to do is talk about a lesson I have learned in all aspects of the game. Hopefully someone will learn from the mistakes I've made.

Who did I pick for my tale?

Despite already owning the Sonnia Criid crew, I decided I wanted to start completely fresh with a crew that was already tuned for version 2. So, I decided I wanted to pick up the Hired Swords box.

When I first looked at the game, I really liked the concept of the Viktorias as well as their models. However, after some research I found that they had a higher difficulty curve than most crews. I didn't really understand the game all that well, so the thought of having to learn the rules of the game at the same time as learning a crew that was known to be tough didn't make sense to me at the time. But you know what, fortune favors the bold.

The sheer attitude and look of these models are definitely translated into the rules for this box. They're aggressive and powerful. Due to this fact, they also glass cannons. Both Viktorias clock in at 7 wounds a piece, which means that learning to protect them properly while still allowing them to slaughter the enemy. I'm very curious about their Avatar, however I want to see if they are going to redo them in plastic. The rest of this box brings along a bunch of additional murder pieces as well as some decent support pieces.

The Ronin act has great combatants who also have a wonderful ability to refund the crew 2 soulstones when they have "outlived" their usefulness.

The Student of Conflict is by far my favorite little piece. She can give someone the Fast status for 2 action points which makes for some fun first turn rushing. With her having the Sister keyword, there are some nice tools that the Viktorias can give her to make her a wonderful combatant.

Then there is Taelor, who is the lady with the robot arm and giant hammer in the picture above. Taelor fits with the "lets murder everything in our way" theme that the Viks bring to the table, however her position seems to be a bit difficult if there is impeding terrain which makes me think that Scramble is a good upgrade to give her.

Lesson learned: Brush control

While I have been enjoying the hobby aspect, I'm finding that I still have a lot to learn in that world. Behold my painting progress:

Both are very much still a WIP but decent for being on the table. The detailed lines on Taelor's jump suit and the Student of Conflict's sandals were frustrating to try to paint without getting paint in places I don't want it. But the more I do the better my control will be.

Total Cost:

Here's the running tally of what I have spent so far:

Hired Swords Malifaux Second Edition box Set: $45.00

This leaves me with $15.00 left to carry over into March.

Gameplay:

I played a few games recently at Templecon, but I think I'm going to save that for another post, since I've been pretty wordy in this post already; so we'll talk about those later.

I'd definitely like to hear feedback on everything from the writing to my game play. Every little bit helps!

Thanks!

ToMB Month 1 - A lot to keep track of!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:13:00 +0000

Introduction

So to officially kick-off my ToMB, this month's post is going to be focused on how you as a new player can dip your toes into playing my master of choice for this little series of blogs, Molly.

The title of this post reflects the complexity of choosing Molly for ToMB due to the fact that her new plastic boxset is not released yet. However, I will surmise what is included in the box. I will calculate her costs for both the old metals and the new plastic set (assuming the price is similar to other sets available). That's why below I list two 'configurations' for her.

Choices

So let's get right into what I'm choosing, then I'll discuss why I chose these models and what stats I find important. If you're new to Malifaux (or M2E) in general, I hope to shed some light on my thought process and things that I see working. Now please keep in mind, this is Post 1 of Month 1 so there is quite a bit of 'Theory-faux' going on here.

One other general and important thing to keep in mind, is that Molly is a summoner (well can be), so while she can summon much more than I am playing with. I am really trying to play her with only the models that are within budget for each month. So even though I can summon a guild autopsy with the "Spare Parts" Wave 2 upgrade (Cost 2ss), they are not in budget for this month and I'll try and stay away from them.

Models (based on M2E box being unreleased yet):

Molly Horrors Boxset (Metals) - $36

1 Molly
3 Crooligans
1 Rogue Necromancy

Yin the Panangalen - $8.99 (Could not find on Wyrd site so linked Warstore price)
Canine Remains - $14

2 Canine Remain models

So total for this month is: $58.99 leaving $1.01 for next month. This is also 8 models for me to use.

Models (based on assumed M2E boxset, estimated cost):

Molly plastic M2E boxset - ~$40

1 Molly
2 Crooligans
1 Rogue Necromancy
1 Philip and the Nanny
1 Necrotic Machine

Yin the Panangalen - $8.99

So total for this month (plastics) is: $48.99 leaving $11.01 for next month. This is 7 models.

Reasoning

Ok now as to why I chose these models. As you can see in both lists I've included Yin the Panangalen, and I think he is going to serve an important role in Molly's crew. Sure he is a horror, so hiring him makes sense. However, that's not the key reason for including him.

The main reason to include him stems from a core concept in winning duels in the game of Malifaux. Forcing a (-) negative flip on the duel. If you look at Yin's action (0) Gnawing Fear you see it forces, upon success, the recipient of the condition to suffer a (-) on all Ca and Wp duels. Molly and the rest of her crew use a lot of casting (Ca) and (Wp) duels both from their attack actions and their forcing of Terrifying. Therefore, timed correctly this can be devastating to a model which has the condition applied to it. I will report on the success of this and see if it pans out.

Besides Yin, I'm really excited about figuring out how to do summoning right in M2E. It is a mechanic which I expect to be resource intensive. Now as I mentioned before, I am limited in what I'm able to summon since I only really have 1 rogue necromancy. So until the new boxset is out I will have to use spare 50mm bases or some acrylic tokens. With that said I'm going to stick to summoning what I am allowed to for this month. In Molly's case her upgrades allow for her to extend her summoning capabilities (enhanced versions of "The Ones Left Behind") or summon via "Spare Parts" to get a rogue necromancy. Plus the fact I can summon the Crooligans with Molly, I really love her versatility, Their -1WP to enemy models is nice, especially when summoning and forcing the obligatory TN15 Wp duel when summoned. I really am excited to see how this plays out, especially coupled with Yin.

So, yeah the Rogue Necromancy (RN) is going to be my beatstick. I really see a healthy, but obvious, synergy with the crooligans and the RN via their "(0) Blistering Fog" because they help increase his damage output. I'll be starting to play with her "Forgotten Life" (Cost 1ss) in order to hand out Black Blood to my Horrors (i.e. Crooligans, etc.). This means I'll have to be cautious with strats/schemes like Reckoning and Make them Suffer.

With all that said I see Molly being a heavy soulstone user mostly for giving me any suits I am lacking for summoning.

So before my first painting status update here are some models I'm considering for the rest of #ToMB with her, this isn't all she can summon, but its what I've gravitated towards, we will see:

Dead Doxies

Canine Remains

University of Transmoirtis (4x models, Valedictorian, Students of Sinew, Student of Steel, Student of Viscera)

Rotten Belles

Carrion Effigy

Crooked Man

Mindless Zombies

Guild Autopsies

Drowned

Painting Status

I cheated (just a little). Seeing as though I already had Molly painted, and the new boxset isn't available, I am using her painted model. Everyone else I have I am just starting.

Molly

3 Crooligans

Rogue Necromancy

Yin

2 Canines

Pssst, the reason for the Canine's is:

Their -1Df (you know the stat used to oppose the RN attacks)
They're also great objective runners for their cost
Can help dig-up corpse counters

ToMB - February - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 01:34:00 +0000

Hello, my name is Dave. I have been a miniature gamer for over 10 years, and a gamer for over 30. I decided recently to pick up Malifaux 2.0, since my friends were playing the game. I had some requirements that are a little unusual from the norm to choose a crew. I have 2 little kids at home so I felt I had a need to keep a game that was more G rated or at most PG rated, if these minis were a movie. I for instance don’t want to be in a situation of having to explain undead hookers to my daughter or some nightmarish figure to my son that already has me checking the closet for monsters every night. The second requirement is I’m cheap. I don’t want to invest heavily in this game, I just want to play games with my friends. Third, the force has to be fun to play against. I don’t care about winning; I just want to have fun with friends. I want a list that leads to close games, not an uber list that wipes out an opponent. So, my list has to be on par with other local lists and probably a few pegs below a tournament level crew.

I took care of the first requirement by choosing Guild, they mostly look like normal humans, so I figured I could work with them, certainly not nightmarish nor overtly sexual. I found Sonnia Criid’s crew in metal for $32, and proxied in some old Mage Knight miniatures to represent 2 Guild Hounds and a Burning Effigy. I also acquired from a Game Trade Magazine promotion 3 extra Witchling Stalkers (I have 5 total). I bought some Secret Weapon Miniature 30mm Trench bases for $10 to bring all the pieces to some cohesion. For low model count armies or crews, I like to have special bases to help make them look a team. I also picked up a set of Malifaux playing cards (Fate deck) for $10, the Guild Arsenal Wave 1 cards for $8, and the small rulebook (without PG-13 pictures) for $15.

I modeled the Guild Hounds with Mage Knight Zombie Hounds and the Burning Effigy with a Magma Guardian. The Burning Effigy proxy is more to do with my being uncomfortable with a miniature of a man burning to death praying and possibly having to explain that to my kids. That is on the threshold of too PG-13 for my tastes, as an example.

I have assembled the miniatures, primed them and on a challenge painted them (although they could use some more details) in a week. Technically it took 9 days, but they are done for now. My crew consists of Sonnia Criid, Samuel Hopkins, 5 Witchling Stalkers, a Burning Effigy, and 2 Guild Hounds.

I am leaning toward the purchase of more Trench bases and a Witchling Handler for next month. Then the following month the avatar model for Sonnia Criid and the Guild Arsenal Wave 2…

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

New Hampshire is "Playing at Home" with the Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (ToMB)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:19:00 +0000

If you haven't heard. ToMB was unveiled this week, to understand my blog entry please read the links below. No need for me to re-type the rules, idea, inspiration, etc.

Ok, so 'we' are playing from home. That's right. I said 'we', a bunch of Malifaux players from my local area have decided to hop in on this. Also, if you are reading this and are from the Southern NH area and want to get involved feel free to reach out to me.

All of our #ToMB entries will be posted here on my blog (they don't have to be, but just makes it easier to see the Southern NH groups progress all in one place!)

So far I have the following people committed to this. So please look for entries from them when this officially kicks off sometime after Feb. 17th.

Will - Founder of Urban Lasercraft
Jerico - Painting phenom
Steve - Brand new to M2E, but played in 1st ed
Corbin - New to Malifaux, starting 3rd master
Dave - New to Malifaux
Myself...

Personally, I was torn between two different masters. However, I think I have settled on someone who I really have always had such a love for, and that's Molly. For those who were around in 1/1.5 edition she was an often loved model, but underplayed due to her Henchman status and the fact that she really wasn't terribly powerful. With that said, she is intriguing to me in M2E.

So you want to know who she displaced, right?! Well its Jack Daw. If I chose Jack Daw I was going to proxy "The Carver" model and put him on a 30mm base (with an insert into a 50mm in case I wanted to use him for the Halloween encounter). Then I was going to use the NE hanging tree in his crew since they are legal per the new Gaining Grounds proxy rules. With that said, I have a lot of Molly's crew not painted, and figured it would be a good compromise to paint AND play with a crew I've always wanted to field more. Also, she has some really cool new artwork.

Oh and this doesn't count as my first post. I'm going to do an official ToMB post on or shortly after Feb. 17th.

Finally, some logistics. I will let them introduce themselves in their first post. Who their master is, what their goals are and their general story. If you want to follow one in particular, we will be using the ToMB labels and the master of choice. So for example, I am using the Molly label. I have attached both to this entry.

So are you partaking in this "Play at Home" ToMB thing? If so let us know and we will link to you.

Cheers and happy ToMB-ing!

P.S. Special thanks to Chris and Dave for lighting the fire for us all on this

Falcon's Nest

ToMB 2.0 - Lucius: His Governor's Secretary

Examining the Box

Lucius Gustavius FitzWilliam Mattheson

Abilities

Attack Action

Tactical Actions

Upgrades

Scribe

Captain Dashel

Guild Guard

Guild Lawyer

Thinking Outside the Crew Box

A Return to Purple: Assembly Progress....lack of bases

Played 2 Missions of Firestorm: Planetfall...

Live Free or Die Cheating 2015 Malifaux Event

A Return to Purple: Neverborn is the new Rezzers in 2015

A Return To Purple

ToMB - End-of-June, Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers: Molly and her Students

Valedictorian

Student of Viscera

ToMB - Mid-June, Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers: Molly Update Delays

ToMB - Mid-May, Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

ToMB - Mid-April - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (ToMB) March - Molly Purchases

ToMB - March - Steel and Blood

ToMB - Mid-March - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

ToMB Perdita: First Games

The Crew

Initial Thoughts

Perdita VS Nicodem:

Perdita VS The Viks:

Perdita vs Seamus:

Final Thoughts

ToMB - Early March - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

ToMB Molly: Month 1 Post 2 - A little Tactica!

Introduction

Apologies

New (experimental) Tactica (i.e. lessons learned)

All-Stars

Crew I've Been Fielding

Painting

ToMB - Late February - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

ToMB: The Guild's Judgement

ToMB - Come my mechanical minions!

ToMB - Perdita: Welcome to the Family

Who did I pick?

Why did I pick them?

When do I get them?

What advice can you give to new players?

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers Budget Tracker:

The Latigo Posse - $45.00 Perdita Francisco Enslaved Nephlim Nino Papa Loco Santiago Guild Guard - $14.50 Guild Guard x 2

ToMB February - Compelled by the Masamune

ToMB Month 1 - A lot to keep track of!

Introduction

Choices

Reasoning

Painting Status

ToMB - February - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

New Hampshire is "Playing at Home" with the Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (ToMB)

The Latigo Posse - $45.00

Perdita

Francisco

Enslaved Nephlim

Nino

Papa Loco

Santiago

Guild Guard - $14.50

Guild Guard x 2