I walked into the Malifaux room with trepidation. I didn’t know anyone, and I hoped to make a good impression. Direct communication is still the best way to get to know people!
In addition, I was wearing a costume for the Story Encounter that night. I had asked on Facebook whether or not folks wore them to the Saturday Masters, and was told that some people had been the day before. I was staying at a hotel a 7 minute walk away, and didn’t want to travel back at the end of the first event…laziness won out over anxiety so I showed up to the Masters in a tea-stained tank top (“wife beater”, what a horrible name), a pair of coveralls, a stereotyping Asian hat, steampunk goggles, a homemade hammer and a leather satchel. No one else in the Masters wore a costume. >.>
Wargaming is nice, in that if you have nothing to talk about, you can find some models on a table, kneel down and start asking questions. You can ask about how they find the models or how they painted them and if you pick the right person, a conversation is easy to start. I did this and found someone friendly, but then foolishly moved on in the room. Rookie mistake! I grabbed some water outside, rather than stand around awkwardly. 😛
Game 1
My first game was against Jarrett K and his Seamus crew. We were playing Turf War with Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Frame for Murder, Entourage and Protect Territory with a Standard Deployment. I picked Frame for Murder on the Emberling and Bodyguard on Kang. You can see the table in these photos.
It was very tight quarters with a bottleneck in the middle. That plus Turf War meant I knew we were going to get stuck in pretty quickly. I knew from GottaCon that Frame was superb with the Emberling – I tossed him as far forward as I could and hoped that Sybelle or Seamus would attack him. As luck would have it, Seamus ended up on one side of that horse and buggy, so I put the Emberling behind the buggy protecting him from attacks from everyone but Seamus…and the CopyCatKiller. I think I tried to out-activate to ensure it was Seamus and not CCK that fired…but it was lucky for me that it was Seamus that finished him off, giving me 3VPs!
We positioned ourselves around the Turf Marker, and Jarrett did a great job of ensuring that he had the 2 models every round, as did I with my legion of cheap tanky models. I remember wishing I could push the enemy at one point, but that’s an upgrade I rarely look at on Mei (and Kang was in the wrong spot). 🙂
Kang killed Sybelle. Sybelle can be a pain in the ass, she buffs the Belles and has a decent attack. She isn’t a high priority target compared to CCK, but she was standing where Kang wanted to stand. Giving Jarrett 3VPs for Frame. Damnit! >.<
In the middle of Turn 4 I looked at the Schemes again and realized that his Bodyguard was on Killjoy, who was still hiding. I Defensive Stanced my entire crew to prevent anymore death that turn, ensuring that Jarrett wouldn’t get the point for Bodyguard! I got that point because Kang was on the table, and is an excellent Bodyguard!
In the end, I won this game 9-8 because I stopped Killjoy from coming on the table! Jarrett was an super friendly guy, and if there had been Favourite Opponent voting, I’d have given him my vote.
Game 2
After my first game went well, I expected a hard second and I got it. I played Jeff Kroesch and his Rasputina crew. We played Reckoning with Line in the Sand, Breakthrough, Distract, Deliver a Message and Spring the Trap with a Corner Deployment. I took Line and Distract, and revealed Line. He took Line and Deliver a Message and revealed Line.
We flipped for deployment and Jeff choose the table side I was sitting in. He admitted after that this gave him a distinct advantage, which I struggled to overcome. You can see the board below, this photo was taken from the side of the table I played from.
Jeff had the high ground, with easy access to stand up against the grates and shoot horrible horrible icey death upon me. He removed the Rail Golem and a Metal Gamin in the second turn, putting me on the backfoot with regards to Reckoning, a Strategy that I’m particularly bad at anyway.
I placed my December Acolyte in the closest right corner to my table edge – you can see a little alcove there, where he spent most of his game. Eventually he tentatively came out of that pocket to earn me 3VPs for Line. At one point I had to push him forward to ensure that Jeff couldn’t remove my Scheme Markers, exposing him to ice from above. I’m not certain what else Jeff had going on, because I felt at that moment like he could have stopped me from getting Line by killing the Acolyte (I felt, relatively easy, given the models Jeff had) and picking up that single Marker. He didn’t, and I brought Kang around to defend the Acolyte.
There was a hell of a lot of movement nonsense going on in my end. At one point Kang Whomped a Metal Gamin to push him 3″ through a door, so he could Walk and Distract. Mei started on the walkway to the top left and Railwalked down when Jeff’s Acolyte moved down.
Actually, that part was funny. I talked through my entire Mei activation, before choosing to do something else. When I finally did activate Mei, I was really glad that I had taken the time to stop – my original thought had been to charge his Blessed of December – which could have given him 3VPs for Deliver! Instead I Vented Steam to protect my models…unfortunately I was to timid and Vented to far back to save the Rail Golem – a costly mistake that I wouldn’t make again in future games.
Jeff won this one 7-6. He congratulated me on holding onto such a solid loss, and I’m pretty happy with this game (outside of that Steam mistake…)
Game 3
2 days of AdeptiCon and 2 hard games of Malifaux later, and I was pretty tired. I played Adam of Cheated Fates Radio and we had a hell of a great game! First, a photo of the terrain.
Adam and I spent 20 minutes discussing how the hell to play this board. We finally settled on the sewer pipes being Ht1 and Severe. That meant the bridges were Ht1, and a Ht2 model couldn’t walk under them. The center of the board had a pit into the sewer pipe from a donut-shaped grate, and it meant that this was also Ht1. And that any Ht2 model caught down there was probably trapped. In this game, the terrain affected my choice of models as much as the scenario did!
The scenario was Squatter’s Rights, with Line, Assassinate, Distract, Cursed Object and Plant Explosives with a Standard Deployment. I played Plant Exposives and Distract, schemes I’m pretty confident with. Adam played Plant Explosives and Assassinate.
I pulled out a Steam Arachnid that I’d only just painted for Ramos, since it was Unimpeded and Ht1. I put that and a Metal Gamin on one side, the Emberling and a Gamin on the other side and Mei, Kang and an Arachnid Swarm in the middle. Adam played Tara as a Resser, with a few Necropunks, the Nothing Beast, Chiaki and a Hanged. I lucked into him deploying the Necropunks on the edges, so my Gamin Magnetized forward and started hurting them badly. On the Emberling side, the Necropunk died, and that Gamin spent the rest of the game moving 4″ a turn out of the sewers. On the other side, the Hanged reinforced his position, and I was pretty sure he had Plant so I backed up to prevent him getting points for it.
The downside with Plant…you can give your opponent 2VPs, and he might take them. But if you put him down to 1VP, he probably won’t take that and you still have to worry about that Scheme. Adam had 2 at one point, and I reduced it 1 by using the Swarm to remove his Markers. Next turn he was back up to 3VPs for it. Thankfully, I also got 3VPs for Plant so we were tied there.
We both got 2 points for Squatter’s Rights. This was a hard Strategy in the sewers, because all of the markers were in the muck! I did my best to take him off of the Markers, but I spent more energy trying to prevent Plant, which he got for 3 anyway. In hindsight, I’d have been better off focusing on the Strategy instead of plant.
Two more things of note happened in this game, one positive and one that I was incredibly frustrated about.
Turn 5 and we’re at 8-6 for me. It’s been a hell of a long 2 days, and a hell of a long day of Malifaux. We’re playing on this incredibly challenging board and both of us are trying desperately to keep it all together. We’ve made a few minor mistakes. Then we made a really big mistake, which ended poorly for me. He activated the Nothing Beast and moved it twice towards Mei who was at 2 wounds remaining and swung at her. He did 1 wound. And then I remembered that Kang had been standing right next to the Nothing Beast when he walked away. We missed a rule.
Different gaming circles have different ways of dealing with this sort of thing, as do different games. Malifaux’s card mechanic means that “backing up” is not possible, since each card flip is affected by all those that came before it. Unlike in Warhammer where you can just pull the unit back and re-roll, or agree to keep it, or 4-5-6 the result, in Malifaux you just have a situation where nothing can resolve it perfectly.
This sort of thing most often happens when an opponent has Terrifying. When I’m moving my own model, I don’t have the Terrifying models card in front of me, and I can’t be expected to remember it has this ability. So far, in my area, we’ve tended to “back up” the card stack so that the first card flipped is for the Terrifying, and everything down the line is flipped in order.
So, here we are. We asked each other what we wanted to do. We were both mortified that an absolutely superb game was about to be ruined by a stupid forgetful mistake. I suggested we leave the cards as they lie and put the Nothing Beast back. Adam suggested a third-party. The third-party we chose said that cards had been flipped, the game continues on. I was frustrated. Adam suggested we call a judge, and abide by his or her decision. I agreed, since this is the pinnacle of the most reasonable option. The judge ruled that cards had been flipped, and that the game continues on. I was frustrated.
I think we’ve all been in a situation like that at some point or another. Now you’re about to lose, and it’s because two people screwed up a rule that can’t be undone. You’ve got a choice to make – be frustrated for the rest of the game and ruin it for both of you, or suck it up and move on. I did my best to do the latter. (but I’m not above noting that if nothing else changed, I would have been 6th out of 45, instead of 12th out of 45 :)).
The super cool thing that happened (for Adam, mind you :P) was he had a Malifaux Moment similar to my game against Mark some weeks ago. We’ve moved on. We have a bunch more models to activate, we do some things. I make the critical error of using my last soulstone on the Firestarter who was holding the center against being taken. I didn’t even know if he could take it, I didn’t want to calculate it, I just wanted to make sure it didn’t happen. He takes a look at the clock counting down, and says “Pass, your go”. I think that the game is done, nothing else to do, and I do the same. He reminds me that I have to activate every model. I ponder about why…and then remember that the Nothing Beast, who is engaged with my 1 wound Mei, has Unnerving Aura. And there is a very good bet that Adam has Assassinate.
I take my 3 chances to get away, and failed all 3. No scrap markers or constructs nearby to help her out of the bind, and no more soulstones to save her. Blat, 2VPs for Assassinate and the game ends in an 8-8 draw. Draw is good, everyone wins!
Some Other Stuff
These were some good games of Malifaux! I played a bunch of Masters that I had played before, which I was very glad helped me out. At the same time, the same Masters in new hands still means new things to look out for – I hadn’t realized Tara was a Resser master, for example! (The Hanged is an awful model!)
That sewer table was amazing. I wouldn’t have wanted to play all 3 games on such brutal terrain, but I think that throwing such a thing in the middle is an excellent plan. Malifaux is a game of adapting to changing situations, but after a bit I’ve tended to pick the Schemes that I’m good at, and a relatively set crew list for those Schemes with some variation depending on my opponents crew and that’s that. Making the terrain horrible had a wonderful way of shaking up the game again.
Patrick and Pip had been playing Warhammer all day, and I had barely a clue what they were up to. None of our breaks lined up at all. I had a feeling they weren’t doing as well as they’d hoped.
I left the room and found some food – I had only 2 hours before the Story Encounter!
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