A demo and a loss

Yesterday was a fun day at the LGS (Local Game Store).
I managed to give a demo to a potential new player, only because our henchman was running late. I think it went well overall, and my opponent picked up on the rules pretty quickly. Hopefully I'll get some good Malifaux Karma for helping a new player. :)

Then, it was followed by a second game, with another brutal loss to Rasputina. It was basically an exact repeat of the last time I played her (same opponent too). I believe Raspy walked once, then remained there the rest of the game, and cast her spells/attacks through the gamin.
Turn one, I lost one belle, and took a lot of damage on Izamu. Turn two, I raised the belle, only to lose her again, and lost Izamu and Copycat. Turn three, I lost everyone except Sybelle and Belle.
At this point, The score was 7-1, and there was no hope. I literally just ran my two remaining models to their deaths in the hopes of ending the slaughter sooner, rather than later, and didn't even bother looking at my hand to cheat. Final score was 10-1.

Raspy is now on my list that I will not play against at this point, until I learn how to defend against her.
Couple of comments; Raspy's ability to turn a Black Joker into a Red Joker... During the 4 Turns, my opponent played I think a total of 6 Red Jokers because of that. Seriously? 6!?
The second ability that absolutely crushed me, was Raspy's ability to cast her spell/attack at least 3-6 times during ONE activation. Apparently her trigger let her re-cast the same spell more than once, and with a broken soulstone, that was easy.

I've heard several times now, that most starter boxes are "balanced". Um, I'm calling "horse-pucky" on that. There's no way that Raspy's 6 Attacks compares to Seamus' ONE attack. AND, one of my defenses is that Seamus and Sybelle have "Terrifying" - Which Raspy's entire crew ignores.

My only hope next time, is that I MUST use the belles to lure the gamins away from Raspy as early as I possibly can. I'm still not sure if that will help though... because at some point, I'd still have to face-off against "Snowstorm" who just sounds brutal by itself.

A turn for the better!

I really should have posted this sooner, but it's been a busy week.

On Tuesday night, there was a shout heard around the Breach... I had won my first game of Malifaux! After a series of back to back losses (approx 15 games), I finally managed to pull out a win. I owe credit to several sources... To Chris M, who (after beating me with Ophelia several times), suggested that my Crew needed a model to both take damage, and who could deal it out. Chris recommended that I check out the dual-faction model called Izamu. A week or so went by, and then I saw Izamu on my local game store's shelf, and after seeing the model, knew I had to pick it up. Also, because I have since made the decision to also play Ten Thunders as my next Faction. In addition of people to thank... the folks at the LGS who have given me the other losses (learning experience), my buddy Joel R. who always plays a competitive game, and his partner Tre R. who read over some of my Upgrade cards and suggested two options that I had not looked into (Sinister and RedChapel). As well as posting my woes on Facebook, where I received a bunch of encouragement and advice, and also the Wyrd Forums as well. As you can tell, I reached out to a lot of people.

But yes, I give a huge amount of credit to the model of Izamu himself. He is a beast for sure. He can hit really hard, and has a melee range of 3"! Izamu also has +2 armor which really helps him stand up to my opponents heavy hitters (such as Lilith). I decided to remove one of my Belle's from the starting line up (which leaves me with two), and that makes room for Izamu's 10pts in a 35pt SS game.

Hmm, it just now hit me, that both wins were against Lilith. I'm not sure if that's a coincidence, or not. I did lose to Lilith once before as well (My first game using Izamu).

I'm scheduled to head into the LGS tomorrow as well, to try and get one (maybe two) more games in. I don't expect to hold this winning streak for long, but I'm very glad to have finally won a game.

Malifaux Shang Tail

So guess who is assembling a new Crew?

Yep... I picked up Misaki - Ten Thunders.

I went on the forums and several people comment that I might have some better luck with Misaki - and since I like the sculpts and look of Ten Thunders anyway, it didn't take much convincing.

I looked on the Wyrd website for assembling instructions, but oddly could not find them listed anywhere. (I also had a very difficult time even finding the assembly instructions on their website... here's the link incase you end up on this page searching for it: http://wyrd-games.net/community/files/category/12-plastic-build-instructions/ ).
(update: You can also find build instructions here: http://malifaux.com/instructions.php)

So I had a hard time figuring out how the two tail pieces of Shang fitted together. The image on the box did not help either. So I did a google search and managed to find this image (below) - it helped me so I'm reposting it here. Again, the link originally leads back to the Wyrd forums, but since they redid their website the link was broken.

The piece in Red is actually one solid piece and the other piece sort of fits OVER top of the red piece. Hope this helps.

Line of Sight and Cover issues

Hey all! I made this graphic, to help myself (and others) understand some of the more common examples of issues that may arise when talking about 'Line of Sight' (LOS) and Cover (both Hard and Soft).

I don't intend this graphic to represent "official" policy! In fact there are a couple instances on this graphic that has stirred up some debate in both the Wyrd Forums and the Facebook Wyrd Forum. But, after reading the debates and getting lots of good input, I believe this graphic solves most of the issues.

I also showed this to our local "Henchman" and he agreed and also clarified the "lower left" situation.

I hope this may help other beginners like myself. Feel free to share this image.

(click to enlarge)

Hopeful...

Well, after getting quite a bit of helpful tips on running Seamus via forums and friends at my LGS, tonight's game, although still a loss, felt like it *could* have gone my way.

I played Lilith for a 35SS game.

My opponent one-shotted Sybelle with a Red Joker Cheat on Damage on turn two. So I had an uphill battle from the start. But thankfully my new model (Izamu) really held his own against Lilith. Were it not for Iz - I think I would have been stomped on again. I'm also aware of a few mistakes I made, so hopefully next game I can correct those mistakes.

AND I also picked up the Misaki (Ten Thunders) Crew tonight for when Seamus needs to be put aside for a bit.

So in spite of yet another loss, I'm feeling more hopeful that a Win is within my grasp soon. Fingers Crossed.

Discouraged...

I wasn't sure how to continue or even start this blog post, so I'll just dive right in.

This past weekend (Saturday) I played another 2 games at my LGS. The first one was really fun vs Pandora. We had a real chess match going with both of us trying to strategically get our schemes and Strategy.  I believe the final score was 4VP vs 3VP with me losing. I'll post a short recap of a fun moment during that game in just a bit...
The second game was against a new Master that I had not faced before... Lady Justice.
Yes, a big part of the reason I lost this one was because I was completely unaware of what Lady J (and her crew) were capable of. There were a few attacks also where I asked my opponent what the damage was, and he would say something like, "2, 3, 4" at which point I felt that wasn't too bad, so I didn't cheat it... but then was surprised that there was MORE than just damage happening - like some sort of harpoon attack that drug my model into base contact with one of his heavy hitter, and another one which put one of my Belle's in a pine coffin for the entire game! Had I known, I would have tried harder to prevent those attacks.

But as of Saturday evening and into Sunday I was completely discouraged with trying to play Seamus. I have yet to win ONE game (out of about 15 I think). I mean, am I really that bad? Can I simply not comprehend this game of Malifaux?! And - other than 2-3 games, where the results were at least close in VP, most of those games were me getting stomped on (like 10-1)! Sigh.

So, since then, I've managed to get a lot of new advice from the Facebook forum, as well as suggestions on switching Masters to see if I can't find one that either 1) better fits my play-style* and/or 2) is easier for me to learn. I'm currently thinking of switching over to Misaki of Ten Thunders (and/or Yan Lo).
I also picked up a new model called "Izamu" - in the hopes of bringing a stronger melee model to Seamus' crew.

Now that a few days have passed from the sting of continually losing, I've managed to regroup and I'm anxious to try again.

* play-style: Someone asked me in the forums what I play-style was... I laughed... I don't have a play-style, because I've lost every single game. :)

>>>

Finally - here's the brief recap of a pivotal moment during my game with Pandora:

I was playing Seamus vs Pandora. It was a really good game, with lots of strategy going on and not so much killing. It was down to Turn 5, and I had a Belle engaged by "Candy". My belle also had the "distract" condition on her, but since she was engaged, 1) she could not remove Distract and 2) could not drop a marker either to gain my 4th Line in the Sand marker. Candy HAD to go! So I activated Seamus first - shooting into combat was the risk I had to take. Luckily I flipped a 12 for my belle, and an 11 for Candy! whew, that was close. I had an excellent had too (11, 12 and two 13's). Bang... his flintlock goes off. I cheated the 13 in for a definite hit. I ended up with a Single Negative Damage flip... I flipped a 12 and a 13!!! Awesome - 8pts! 8pts would have killed Candy! So My opponent decides to mitigate damage by breaking a SS. Can you guess? He flipped a Red Joker! NO Damage!!! (Head on table slam). I ended up losing the game - but it was a good battle. :)

<Shakes fist at FATE!>

Slow Grow - Game 2 - Seamus vs Ophelia

Yep, another battle against Ophelia and loss for the record books. In the second photo, you can see all the corpse markers!

I only got about 4" from my deployment zone with most of my army. I did get ONE VP at the end of the game for the "Squatter's Rights" Strategy. I used Seamus' "Back Alley" to get into a good position to claim two markers.

Unfortunately for me, I chose my other Scheme of "Protected Territory" BUT I totally mis-read the victory conditions! In fact after the game, I still had to have the wording explained to me by another player because I didn't get it. The book said something like, "Marker must be dropped at least 6" from deployment area". I interpreted that to mean it had to be "within 6", but in fact it meant it had to be 6" away from deployment area. Sigh.
So I managed to score 1VP against Ophelia who scored a whopping 10VP.

Two fun games, but I have to admit I was/am frustrated at the continual losses.
I managed to post on the Wyrd Forums, and used their new CHAT feature on their newly revamped website, and I have picked up a few tips on maybe changing up my model selection. But I was also told that Seamus is difficult to learn, AND that Ophelia is a REALLY good Master, and that even if you play Seamus perfectly, Ophelia can still win, with just a few good flips.

Side note: I'm trying to figure out a good way to record the card flips for each player. I'm hoping that I can look at the flips, and maybe see if I can blame my losses on bad cards. So far, I've not thought of an easy way. I'm considering buying a video camera too, so as to try and do a proper battle report. But right now, I have too much going on in game to worry about a video battle report!

Slow Grow - Game 1 - Seamus vs Rasputina

First game of our LGS' Slow Grow league! I faced off against Rasputina (played by Tre R.). I believe the other models in her list were the Ice Golem, 3 Ice Gamins, and a Wendigo.
Maybe you've already figured this out but looking at the photos, that Rasputina's crew was not fully assembled/based. The league rules were relaxed to start with since most of us starting the league are all new players.

I'm just going to give the short version here of a battle report... I lost. Big time. I basically have not learned how to play Seamus yet. Raspy, started just behind the building (photo 2), and on turn 1, walked up abt 4" behind the wall, and then proceeded to stay there the entire game. She basically just arced spells through the Ice Gamins and destroyed my entire crew.

Seamus vs Pandora

(Pandora)

Fun game tonight. I faced off against Pandora for the first time (not technically true, we tried to play a game on Wednesday, but the store closed before we finished, so hard to count that).

Around turn two, I was feeling pretty good about my placement and had already dropped a well placed scheme marker, but then I lost a model. Turn Three, things went down hill even more. By turn four, it was looking really grim. Turn five confirmed the grim feelings, as the score ended up as 7VP Pandora vs my 1VP for Seamus.

I felt like I just couldn't get any damage to stick at all. Pandora did heal at least 2-3 times, which didn't help at all. My luck at drawing bad cards also played a large roll - again.

Trying to re-think what it could be that I'm doing wrong. I tried to really focus on the schemes tonight, but just couldn't get em done. Oh, and the Strategy was "Reckoning" - I only managed to kill one model from Pandora's crew the entire game.

Lastly, what really hurt with Pandora's crew was the failed willpower tests within 6" range of 3-4 of his models. Most of my models only have a WP of around 4.

--- Tomorrow also starts our LGS' First Ever - Slow Grow League! Looking forward to getting more games in, and learning more. ---