My first Malifaux Tournament - 4-5-14

I played in my first Malifaux tournament yesterday... and had fun.
I was on the fence as to whether or not I was going to join in, up til the last minute. But when I walked into the game store and saw a group of folks ready to play, I knew I wanted to just have fun.
Don't get me wrong... I went in with the expectation of losing (hoping I might win once), and that's exactly what happened. I even lost to a guy who picked up David Lynch's crew the night before.
But again, I just went to play the game, and enjoy a Saturday afternoon at the LGS.
I met/played with two new guys, so meeting new people in the world of Malifaux is also a positive thing.
Now that the Slow-Grow league is officially over (I placed last in that too, not counting the people who signed up for the league then dropped out after a few games)... And having competed in the tournament with Seamus, only because they were timed games, and I didn't want to slow the games down by starting a new crew. I'll be putting Seamus on the back shelf for now and will look forward to trying out a new Crew (or two). I definitely want to try out Misaki again, and I'd like to assemble McMourning next. I'm hopeful that maybe I'm just not grasping the subtleties of Seamus' crew, and that once I find the right Master/Crew, I'll be able to win more games.

I should add... During the tournament I also helped my opponents win. I'm not sure many people would do that in a tournament setting. My first opponent was familiar with Malifaux 1.5 edition, but either he was rusty, or some of the rules changed in the 2.0 version, but when he was doing "Line in the Sand", he was just dropping markers "near" the centerline. I corrected him towards the end of the game (where he pretty much tabled me), and said you had to drop the markers ON the centerline. The last game, my opponent had the plant explosives, and after dropping the scheme marker, he announced his Scheme. I corrected him, and said, you have to announce that at the end of the Turn. Now, I still had a model yet to move, and could have moved away from his marker, and denied him a point, but I decided that wasn't in the spirit of things, and so I stayed within his radius so he got the extra VP. I'm not sure he even knew I did that on purpose. Maybe I'm just not competitive enough for tournaments? :)

First game with Misaki!

Well, after finishing out my last Slow Grow league game last week, I was able to play a game tonight with a new master = Misaki from the Ten Thunders faction.
It was a casual game, and my buddy Joel was kind enough to play a game tonight while I stumbled my way through reading all the new cards and models.
I ended up winning the game (7-6), but it was close, and had it gone one more turn, I think I would have definitely lost.
After playing Seamus and his crew for a while now, the biggest difference between the crews, was that I kept looking for some sort of "defense" with Misaki and crew. Several of the Resurrectionists have things like "Hard to Kill, Impossible to Kill, Hard to Wound, etc..." But most of the Ten Thunders I played tonight were just straight forward. There were some adjustments and tricks, but not that many.

Overall, I liked the way the crew played. I didn't really see any great synergy yet, but I'm sure with a few more games I'll find some. I look forward to learning more about Misaki and the Ten Thunders.

PS> My final total for the league was 2 wins and 6 losses. Of the people who actually finished all 8 of their games, I came in last place. No real surprise there. :) So yeah... it's time to look at a new Master/Crew and then I'll come back later and revisit Seamus.

PS2> This Saturday is our LGS' first tournament. I still have not decided if I'm going to play or not. It will be 3 games of 35ss, which at this point sounds grueling to me. I'm not sure if my brain can handle 3 games of Malifaux under a tournament setting. I may volunteer the be the "ringer".

Seamus vs Ramos - oh my 3-22-14

Mini-battlereport!

This past Saturday, I went up against Ramos. It was technically my second game vs him, but in the first game we didn't have time to finish, so it's difficult to count that one.

We played a 50ss game.
Turf War = Strategy
I chose: Distract and Line in the sand
My opponent chose: Murder protege (target Izamu) and Protect Territory.

First the disclaimer, it turns out after the game, my opponent misread the card, and was summoning more spiders than she was allowed (only once per turn can you summon). So there is a slight chance that I could have had a better scoring game. Also, on one or two occasions, she moved the spiders over a "climbable" wall thinking that the spiders ignored it, but later we both learned that spiders only ignore "severe" terrain. So with those couple mistakes, I ended up losing 10-0.

Basically, Ramos started the game first and moved his crew into position, gaining control of the center of the table quickly (not good for Turf war).

Then starting turn 2, I knew I was in deep trouble. Ramos had already summoned a handful of spiders, and started moving them in to engage several of my models. My opponent also targeted Izamu on turn two and nearly killed him with Howard Langston. She also tore through my cheat deck and SS by using decapitate... which now I'm reading that, and either she had two lucky flips, or was incorrectly using an SS's - which an Enforcer can not.

It was an incredibly long game (approx. 3-3.5 hours), and I have to admit that by turn 4, I had pretty much given up on winning, and was not cheating when I could have in order to end the game sooner.

The only highlight for me, was that Seamus on turn 2 failed miserably at hitting Howard Langston (both times with the upgrade), but then at the beginning of turn 3, he hit once, then pulled the Red Joker for the damage flip. That felt good.

Seamus vs Rasputina 3-15-14

WOOHOO!!! A WIN for Seamus today against the dreaded Rasputina!

After being beaten by Raspy in the past (and rather severely too), I had sworn off playing Raspy until I figured out how to defend against her. And then I realized... about a third of the players at my LGS have chosen Rasputina, so if I wanted to play Malifaux, I better figure it out fast.

I posted to forums, and asked for advice, and basically in a nutshell, the key to Raspy are the Belle's and their Lure capability. Raspy can "arc" through a model, but only if they are within 10" of her. So by using the Lure capability, I'm able to break that strong ability of Raspy.

I've played 2 games now, where I focus on luring, and it's been working out ok.
Today, I managed to pull off a 7-3 win. It was a rough start, My opponent had placed 4 Line in the Sand Markers by the end of turn 2, but I knew I had the rest of the game to try and remove them. After lots of back and forth, I managed to bring his total markers down to 2, which only gave him the one VP.

I also paid attention to the Strategy which was "Reconnoiter", and that, I think is basically how I won the game. I also managed 2 VP from "Cursed Object".

Overall a fun game, with strong tactical play on both sides. There was not a lot of model killing.

One of the downsides though... approx. 4 hours for a 50ss Game! We are both kinda new players, so we obviously took our time, as well as asked a lot of questions, but man, 4 hours of thinking like that had turned my brain to mush at the end of the day. Good times!

Seamus vs Raspy

Just a short 'battle report' today.
Saturday, I played a new person in Malifaux, and it was against my nemesis Rasputina.
A week ago, I swore off playing Raspy until I was able to come up with some sort of defense. But, just my luck, 3 of about 10 players at my LGS are playing Raspy. So, I decided to lift my short lived ban, and dive in with a new tactic.
It wasn't complicated at all. Basically, I brought 2 Belles, and concentrated on Luring the gamin away from Raspy, so that she could not arc her spells through them. For the most part, this did work. It was a much closer game than the ones I played in the past (10-0 and 9-1). (It was also a different opponent, so that may have had something to do with it also). I still lost, it was 9-5, but at least I didn't get  stomped on - AND - I feel like a win was within my grasp at the start of turn 4. I had surprisingly taken out his Ice Golem AND Snowstorm! Both were quite the achievement if you ask me.
But, my opponent was clever, he used his Wendigo and Raspy to cast 2 Ice Pillar spells, which severely hindered my ability to get to the squatter's rights markers (not to mention blocking LOS for other attacks). But, I think the game was won, towards the end of turn 4... I was definitely up in model count, but my opponent was able to successfully cast Paralyze on 3 of my models, and at the start of turn 5, I was pretty much frozen, and unable to move. I didn't have the cards in my hand to cheat those paralyze spells away, and I believe that's what cost me the game.
So while it was still a loss, I enjoyed the game very much as it was close all the way up to the end, and the tactics my opponent played I enjoyed defending against, because it was clever.

Seamus vs Wong

Played a game the other day with Seamus vs the Gremlin's Master Wong. It was still a loss, but I managed to get a decent amount of VPs (6), unfortunately, I could not prevent my opponent from scoring 9VP's.

It was an interesting game, and I had fun. It was my first time facing Wong (and his assistant), as well as 3 little pigs that go boom. I had to laugh when my opponent told me about the pieces... the one model that I have the hardest time with (Pere) the one that explodes, my opponent basically built an entire army that explodes.

As usual, I made a bunch of "mistakes" with this game.
In my defense, I was faced with several new models that I had never heard of, so it was a huge learning curve. My biggest problem, was that Wong tore up my models on turn 2! He had some ability (or the assistant did, I can't recall), that brought all models within 6" into base to base contact with my Izamu. At which point, he unleashed a series of about 5 attacks that all did 2-4 damage to everyone. At first, I thought, 2-3 damage isn't too bad, so didn't bother cheating to defend against, but then I found myself cheating on the damages, whereas I SHOULD have cheating on the 'to hit' instead. I think at the start of turn 3, most of my faction was destroyed. All of those back-to-back small damages added up quickly.

Another mistake (I think?) is that I realized after playing this game... almost all of these games that I'm losing are against ranged attacks. I'm finding that I'm usually able to move 1-2 models up to half the board (to get schemes/strats), while the rest of my models are usually within 6" of where I initially deployed them. I think the two games where I won (against Lilith) were when I was actually engaged in melee more often. There's got to be a connection here - am I playing too reserved? should I concentrate more of getting my models further up the board? That sounds dangerous to me though, because basically, I too have a ranged army.

Lastly - a bit of good news... I FINALLY got my hands on the new full sized RULEBOOK!!! It's taken months of patiently waiting, but it finally arrived via UPS last night. NOW, maybe I can start to learn more about what my opponents are capable of and can think a bit more as to how to defend against them.

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)