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Tournaments

OFCC 2014 – Day 0 and 1

Instead of pulling my photography stuff out, I edited photos from the weekend. I know I still owe you guys some final photos of my skinks, rippers, maybe those tokens and *cough* the last Old Blood (who won’t be finished anytime soon), but I just couldn’t be bothered to set it all up last night. >.<

So now you’ll get to read about OFCC 2014. I’m going to post these in quick succession instead of waiting my usual 3 days, and hopefully we can get back to some painting shortly!

There are a ton of photos in this post, so I’m going to put them behind a cut.

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Musings & Meta Tournaments

OFCC 2014 Painting Todo

While the last month and a bit of blog entries has been scheduled after the Wyrd contest, and while I did not get much painting done at all in the last months of the show I was in, I haven’t been entirely slack. I’ve been busy assembly-lining skinks for OFCC.

I don’t have photos of them yet, but they should be done really soon, because I have a list of things that need doing before the 26th of September!

  • 24+ extra skinks. My lists have been under powered by far because I only own 33 skinks. Another 24, plus using my camo skinks, means that I can get up to a useful amount. These guys are almost done.
  • 6 Ripperdactyl riders. These are such cool units and models, and I really want to use them. I need another 3, as I already have 3 in a box, but either way I need to shake a leg to get them painted!
  • Old Blood on Cold One with Stegadon Helm. I have my Old Blood with the Blade of Realities sorted, but I need to get my tanky guy done. I’ve built him, but he’s on pause while I finish skinks and figure out this Agrellan Earth business.
  • Finish a base for my 3rd skink priest. He was previously riding a stegadon, but I need the steg naked now and need a third priest.
  • Make another 1-3 skirmisher movement trays. I need at least 1 more, but if I have time for 3 they probably will get used at other tournaments.
  • Something to replace the Engine on my stegs back. This is the least likely thing on the list to be completed, but here it is. My current stegadon has an Enginey thing on it’s back, and I’m not using it as an Engine. Also, has no Giant Blowpipes, which is a bit of a WYSIWYG issue. We’ll see how the month goes.

I’m not doing as much circus this month, having brought it down to a single 2 hour class…on Wednesdays. I really want to take this class, and I’m super sad that it interferes still with Warhammer, but sometimes we don’t get everything. 🙂

However, I should be able to bring up the painting. If anyone has 3+ rippers they don’t want…I’d love to buy them from you. 🙂

Tournaments

Wet Coast GT 2014 – Day 2

Finally a few games I do remember! Mainly because I didn’t take any notes during the day on my sheet of paper, and made sure to write it all down when I got home!

 

Build a Wagon vs Mark, 35ss

This was fun…I wrote this scenario for Walpurgis. I playtested it a bunch against Jamie and had a decent idea of what kind of crew would work best for it. I also got to answer questions about the scenario for people at other tables…thankfully, nothing came up in my game, because that would be a little conflict-of-interest.

I took Distract and Line and revealed Line. I tend to do this when I take Line, because it’s a Scheme that my opponent can see pretty obviously (even if I wanted to waste AP bluffing it out) and if they decide to try to stop me, I can still fairly easily get 1VP from it. And I only take it when I don’t like the other options at all, or when it’s a Corner/Flank and I can devote the Emberling to running to the corner all game.

Mark took Entourage and Murder Protege. Murder is a very situational Scheme, and I didn’t like my options for it. And I just don’t like Entourage, particularly since you have to announce it to make it good and because Assassinate was already an option. It just gives my opponent on more reason to want Mei Feng dead, and I don’t like that.

He played Von Schill with a Trapper, a Friekorpsman, a Strongarm Suit, a Librarian and a Steamtrunk. I took Mei with Seismic Claws, Imbued Protection (because of Assassinate) and Arcane Reservoir, the Rail Golem, 3 Metal Gamin and the Emberling.

I sent the Emberling up the right side to start on Line – that was to be his only job all game. Mei and the Golem went up the right middle to engage his entire crew, while 2 of the Gamin went up the left middle to engage the Trapper. My intention was to send the Gamin out to get the Wagon Conditions for VPs and block with Mei and the Golem.

He removed the Golem relatively easily, but I made him pay for it thankfully! I was doing great, but on the last turn he Disengaged from Mei to walk towards a Wagon Marker. When I let him get away, I was thinking that he could have the 1VP for the Wagon Marker…but had completely forgotten about Entourage! That mistake cost me 3VPs, leaving this game ending in an 8-8 draw.

 

Reckoning+Soulsquatch, 45ss

I played Jesse again in this one, and his Lady Justice crew. The Strategy was a simple change to Reckoning – there was a 50mm Soulsquatch monster in the middle of the table who was worth “2 kills” for the purposes of Reckoning. Since I find Reckoning points pretty hard to get, I decided that I’d do my best to kill the Soulsquatch so I could get that extra VP.

This game ended up being a 10-1 win for me…

I played Mei with Seismic Claws, Imbued Protection and Arcane Reservoir, Kang with Imbued Energies, Joss with Imbued Energies, the Rail Golem with Imbued Energies…and the Emberling. I took Line in the Sand and revealed it, and Bodyguard on Kang. Jesse had Lady Justice, the Judge, 2 Death Marshalls, Brutal Effigy…I don’t recall what else.

First turn I moved the Emberling forward to drop a Scheme marker in my deployment zone. The Soulsquatch had an ability that he would move his Cg towards any Interact Actions within 12″, and then either shoot or melee the target. I made sure the Emberling was out of melee, so he shot and missed. Then my entire, brutal, crew charged him and brought him down to 5 Wds.

Jesse made a choice. It turned out to be the wrong choice, but I definitely respect that he made it. He charged Lady Justice at the Soulsquatch, after performing some movement tricks with her. He swung twice…and black jokered for damage, leaving the Soulsquatch at 1 Wd! This was still during the first turn – his entire purpose was to stop me from getting the point. Unfortunately for him, I won the initiative next round and kill the Soulsquatch for the point, and then spent the rest of my turn killing Lady Justice – she was so far extended from her support lines that I didn’t have to worry about any other enemy model interfering. With Justice killed, I felt I could relax a bit – she is a big threat in that crew.

I spent the rest of the game killing 2 per turn. At one point he used a Death Marshal to Bury the Effigy to prevent me getting the Reckoning point that turn (good plan!) but he had so many squishy models compared to my destructive crew that I just picked another model and got the point anyway.

Arcane Ritual, 50ss

I played Tao again here. During the break he decided to swap his crew around if he could, but since it was a fixed Master tournament he had to get the TOs permission as well as my own. Since he’d steamrolled everyone else in the weekend close to 10-0 every game, I gave him permission – my odds stood higher of winning with him playing something else…

The Strategy was another from Walpurgis. There was a 50mm blocking Arcane Artifact in the middle of the table – you get VPs for placing and removing your own Scheme marker from it at the end of each round after the first. As well the Soulsquatch is back, and he’s pissed that you’re Interacting within 12″ of him. You could also take an upgrade that gives you limited control over the Squatch.

I took Mei with Seismic Claws, Imbued Energies and Control the Beast, the Firestarter with Imbued Energies, a Steam Arachnid Swarm, a Performer, 3 Metal Gamin and 3 Rail Workers. Tao took Hoffman, Ryle, 2 of a Guardian (or Warden), 1 of a Warden (or Guardian), a Mechanical Attendant, and Hopkins.

For Schemes I took Distract and revealed Power Ritual. Tao took Distract and Plant Explosives.

My plan early on was to use the SAS to be an ass and remove Scheme Markers. I was pretty successful, stopping Tao from getting full points for the Strategy. It also turned out to be great for stopping most of Plant Explosives as well! The Performer and her Seduction turned out to be great as well, allowing me to surprise Tao as he tried to get PE.

During one activation, Tao counted that Ryle did 27 Wds in a single turn. I didn’t note it all…but he had a Modification on him and something to give him more Rams for Critical Strike and such. He did those 27 Wds to Mei Feng, who, thankfully, was not a critical part of my winning plan. But still, that’s gross!

In the end, we both got full points for Distract because it’s a fairly easy Scheme, particularly since we went for turn 6. He only got 2 for PE. I got an easy 3VPs for Power Ritual, with the Firestarter heading straight for a well defended corner. And I got 4VPs for the Strategy, with him getting 3. I won 10-8!

This game was super hard, Tao is a brutal opponent, and I think the fact that I was his only loss all weekend was the most delicious thing!

 

 

I won a Zoraida crew from this, which I’m not really certain I want…and I got the Best General award for winning and/or drawing the most games, because I made Tao lose! 😀

 

 

Tournaments

Wet Coast GT 2014 – Hardcore Malifaux

Again with me not having my paper of notes…I managed to cobble together some of the results, but in the end….Hardcore was just so intense that I have no idea what happened, let alone how many games I won, lost or drooled on myself for!

 

Here’s a summary of “Hardcore”, a format that’s getting a lot of discussion! If I list it as “(Opt)” it’s because I’ve read elsewhere and that didn’t include this.

  • 20ss, Henchman only.
  • 4 models exactly.
  • 20 minutes per game.
  • The only Scheme is Assassinate.
  • The Strategy is Turf War.
  • Close Deployment
  • (Opt) Excess soulstones are not added to your pool, so spend them all!
  • (Opt) No summoning.

I started by playing a game against Mark Handford, who was the Henchman running this weekends events. I’d never played Hardcore before and wanted to get a sense of how it went, before I went into a “tournament situation”. My crew for the entire event consisted of…

  • Joss, with Imbued Energies
  • Rail Golem
  • Metal Gamin
  • Metal Gamin

The plan is pretty obvious – the Rail Golem destroys my enemies with Joss as support (because if he dies, I’m more likely to lose), while the Metal Gamin hang out and hold the center.

 

Mark took Mortimer, 2 Belles and Izamu. I later questioned his use of Mortimer, since he doesn’t seem like an optimal choice for this…he admitted that Mortimer was the only Henchman in his case he had for Ressers… Mark spent the first turn Luring me to him while I walked backwards to avoid being Lured. My Golem and Joss tagteamed Izamu after he’d activated and killed him, leaving not much to stop me from taking the rest of the points for the game. I won this one 7-0…but it didn’t count. 😛

 

Game 1…

These games are all out of order. Non-Henchman Mark was playing with Viktoria of Blood, 3 Ronin. I lost this one 5-2. I came around one side of a hut in the middle of the table, he came around the other side. He made short work of my Golem with BloodVik and I killed a Ronin.

Unfortunately, we had a misunderstanding and I attacked BloodVik with Joss while he thought I was attacking his Ronin. He pulled the model off the table and I exclaimed that was the wrong model!  There was nothing that could be done, not only because of the 20 minute time limit, but also because this is I think the only major failing of Malifaux – there is no way to “undo”. In Warhammer, you can just undo and re-roll all the dice. You can’t undo all those flips because now you know what did happen and what could have happened and dropped cards from hands and all that.

This isn’t Mark – Mark is a wonderful opponent whom I’ve played a number of times at 40k, but I’m imagining a terrible opponent that runs a FluffyBunny next to his DestructionMasterOfDoom and “oops, oh my, I had absolutely no idea you were attacking my Master…”. (and such a person would not get more than 1 game in before he was banned for life. :P)

Game…2?

I played Niko. He was playing Guild with Francisco, an Executioner, a Death Marshal and a Guild Guard. The Executioner walked a little to far forward early, and I recognized it as a big threat and charged my Golem at it. The (0) Locomotion worked wonders in this format, as long as you have a 4+ in your hand you can Walk and Charge in your first turn and since it’s Close Deployment, that leaves your opponent with a very narrow window of movement. The Executioner died pretty easily. I don’t remember how the rest of this game went, but I’m pretty sure I won it.

Game 3!

No idea. I literally have no idea what happened or who I played. We figured out that I must have played Jesse, because there were only 6 people in the event, I didn’t play myself or Darren and I played the other 3.

Game 4…

I drew Tao. Everyone around me says “Ooh, now it’s your turn!”. I know that Tao is a hard opponent, but whatever he’s brought, it can be beat. He’d caused Niko to concede his game, and a lot of people were “jokingly” abusing him for his list.

He played the Valedictorian, Yin, a Dead Doxy and a Crooked Man.

It was absolutely insane. I had a tough as nails crew, but he took my models off the table with ease, and even when I got the charge off he just shrugged and gave me negative flips to this and that. I tried to escape with Joss to deny him the Assassinate points, but on my last activation he brought Joss to his Hard to Kill…and gave him Poison +1. >.< I got rolled.

 

I think I finished this event 2-2-0. I knew my list had some hard counters (anti armour…) but a bunch of us discussed Tao’s baggery after and agreed that the best counter to his crew was to just bring the exact same crew. Rough.

Tournaments

Wet Coast GT 2014 – Day 1

I missed my gaming clubs game day to go swim in a beautiful lake in the sun…so I signed up for the Wet Coast GT instead! I played 11 games of Malifaux over 2 days…(5 of them were Hardcore :P). Unfortunately, I left my piece of paper with all my game notes on it, and so I’ve had to re-create some of this from memory. Which sucks in some cases because I can’t remember even the Schemes we played!

 

Reckoning 35ss

My first opponent was Tao and his Molly crew. Tao and I played last at GottaCon many months ago, and I beat him 7-1, because he wasn’t actually playing Malifaux – he was playing “take models off the table”. I was looking forward to a re-match because of all the talk about his incredible gaming prowess…

I took Mei Feng with Seismic Claws and Arcane Reservoir – the first because I never leave home without it and the second to help fuel the Rail Golems need for Tomes. I also took the Rail Golem, Joss with Open Current and Kang. A tight, hard crew for Reckoning.

He tabled me. I lost this one 10-3 or 10-2. He summoned 27ss of models onto the table, including a Rogue Necromancy and a second Hanged. 2 of his models gave other pieces Reactivate, to increase the destructive power of his best pieces.

 

Reconnoiter 45ss

My second opponent was Nico with his Kirai crew. I took Bodyguard on Kang, because he’s great at that and Frame for Murder on the Emberling. This turned out to be a silly idea, but I won 10-7 anyway.

I took Mei Feng with Seismic Claws and Imbued Energies, 3 Metal Gamin, 3 Rail Workers, Kang and the Emberling.

Reconnoiter is a solid Strategy for me. I have enough tanky models that I can overwhelm most opponents and stop them from getting points from it. If the Scheme pool is good for a swarm crew, then it just works out great for me.

I decided to kite Izamu in the bottom right corner, because I’d sent 2 Workers and a Gamin that way, and there was no way they’d be able to take him and a Hanged down while still holding the quarter. There was enough terrain that way that I could play the hiding game, but he eventually caught up with me. He tried to pull some of my models away from the fight in the top left by eventually moving Izamu into the bottom left corner, but it was too little, too late.

Most of the game was decided in the top left, where I had more than enough models to keep Reconnoiter from Nico.

He left a Night Terror in the top right to hold it for the game, playing down 3ss. Makes me think the December Acolyte would have been a good model to take. I ended up moving Mei up there to stop him claiming that quarter in turn 4 or 5.

The Frame for Murder thing was silly. He only had the one Master/Henchman – Kirai. And she’s a summoning Master, not a killing Master. At turn 4 I flew the Emberling into her face to try to get her to deal with him, but she instead did 2 damage to him and pushed him away so she could go somewhere else.

I got the 10 because Nico conceded the game.

 

Stake a Claim 50ss

My last opponent for this one-day tournament was Jesse and his Lady Justice crew. I took Mei with Seismic Claws, Arcane Reservoir and Imbued Energies, along with the Rail Golem, the Firestarter, the Emberling and 3 Metal Gamin.

I really love Stake a Claim. Mostly because it never gets flipped for other people, but I’ve played it once or twice and have a good plan for it. Firestarter is good because of Reckless, and the Rail Golem can move a long ways on Locomotion if he needs to. The Emberling is also great for the late game since he moves so quickly.

This game largely revolved around a grove of trees in the middle of the board. It had impassible terrain on both sides of it, with a little bit of open space surrounding it. Enough that with his mostly shooting crew that I didn’t want to let him see me. I broke the seal by moving Mei into the forest, but I Vented Steam to see if he’d move closer and shoot…he didn’t.

The game did finally break when he moved one Guild Hound into my side, trying to Breakthrough, and then charged the Rail Golem with a second one, flipping the Red Joker for damage and destroying the Golem!

I won this game 10-3, even though he had the power in the end. I had completely stopped him from getting Claim Markers on my side of the table, which is huge in this zero-sum Strategy. I had 3VPs for a good Plant Explosives in the middle forest, and 3 VPs for Breakthrough, which is a great Scheme for Emberling/Firestarter combo. I don’t even reveal it, I’m happier having to place that extra Scheme marker.

 

Conclusion

Tao won the tournament…I think he 10-something’d all of his opponents this day. I got Best Sportsman, which is fun. 🙂 I also won in the raffle a copy of the Gremlin Fate Deck. I don’t really like the art on this one, as it’s really hard to read. I tried to give it to Jamie, but he had a copy already! So now I have a spare and rare Fate Deck in my gaming closet to give away…

Still have the Hardcore tournament and the Story Encounter to write about – later!

Musings & Meta

Painting myyyyysssssteryyyyyyy!

I’ve been painting up a storm this last week! I saw the Wyrd Summer Painting contest and got excited to paint something for it!

Unfortunately, the rules state that I can’t have shown off the model before, so I can’t post it or any of the lead-up posts until July 27th!! Which is kind of brutal, since that’s a month away and this is pretty awesome work…:)

I also finally decided to go to Wet Coast GT this year! So next week I should have some mini-battle reports/con-reports to go through that might keep this blog active for the next month. 🙂 The deadline helped to give me a big push to get an extra model or two painted so I could be competitive at the Hardcore tournament…

 

Completely non-painting related, I’ve been super busy training for a circus show I’m performing in at the end of August. The painting related part…is that it’s been tough to scrape away time to paint, since a lot of evenings are taken up working on the show…and then collapsing in bed afterwards. 😛 Just you wait until July 27th though…going to be tons of posts! 🙂 (and I might even find time to paint something non-contest related!)

Tournaments

Adepticon – Final

No, you haven’t missed 4 days of event coverage! I wanted to help guide new readers (I handed out a lot of business cards this weekend!) and to reassure old readers.

If you’re into , you’ll want to Warhammer the “Fantasy” tag on the right – I’ve been writing about my daemons and Patrick’s and my display board for almost a year.

If you’re into Malifaux, you’ll want to click the “Malifaux” tag on the right. I started working on my Rail Crew and Friends around October last year, and have written about it all.

And regardless of what game you like best, I’m sure you’ll find something to enjoy over the next few weeks as I have a ton of photos to post and things to write about. Hold onto your hats, this is going to be awesome!

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Technique Tournaments

GottaCon – Interlude, Painting Contest

I’ve got a ton of posts scheduled here, and I keep pushing them around so I don’t end up posting several times on one day!

Kelly Kim is a long-time member of the gaming community in Vancouver, and I remember even when I was a young pup of a 14 year old that he was known as a fantastic painter. (Not that I knew good painting from bad…). He’s got a blog where he writes the occasional painting related piece. Don’t expect frequency, but when he does write, it’s good stuff. He also managed the painting competition at GottaCon, as well as holding mini-painting seminars at his desk near the Malifaux/Warmahordes folks.

I had long ago decided that since my Herald of Nurgle failed to live up to my expectations, that my Lizard Riding A Lizard would be a model that I’d see about entering into a competition. GottaCon has been my AdeptiCon practice in many ways, so Mr. Lizard ended up spending the weekend in a glass case with some amazing looking models.

Kelly is writing a series where he posts photos of the models in the competition, along with a few sentences of things he liked and things the person could fix. A big project, and I’m super glad he’s doing so because he directly addressed something about my lizards that I didn’t like!

This is a long-winded way of saying…go read his blog!

http://sableandspray.blogspot.ca/2014/03/gottacon-2014-part-2-single-miniature.html

Tournaments

GottaCon 2014 – Day 2

Duke mentioned looking forward to reading my next few days of convention report, so I’ve moved my schedule around to put this one sooner. I have a few more model posts coming after this one!

Day 2 I woke up around 8 and went back to the Deli again for breakfast – good food there, and reasonably priced.

The Malifaux today was all random Story Encounters, with random deployments and Schemes. It was again 50ss and we played 3 games.

Game 1

Reconnoiter Story vs Troy McKnight. I’ve seen his name around the Malifaux BC Facebook group a bunch, but have never spoken with him. I was super glad I did, because Troy is a really friendly and fun guy. He was even friendly as I removed his Master and an entire flank – an impressive feat to stay friendly afterwards, as the gamers amongst us know. He was playing Lady Justice and his goal was to hold table quarters for 1VP a turn, where my goal was to hold a single quarter, specified by me and known to us both, at the end of the game. I sent my Emberling out again to work on Line in the Sand in a table quarter where he couldn’t easily get to. He sent Lady J, a Death Marshall and Fransisc(a/o) after the Emberling, but because of the table layout ended up over extending that flank and allowed me to charge with the Rail Golem and Mei. The Rail Golem got an amazing 5 attacks here, and soaked up most of Lady J’s soulstones while Troy tried to save her! Mei Railwalked in and did a bunch of good work here to end it. Troy had Plant Explosives, and I used the Steam Arachnid Swarm to charge, attack some models and then (0) to remove his PE Scheme Markers – I felt a little bad about clearing his Master and then clearing his best chance of VPs…but my objective was to win, so that’s what I did. I ended this game 10-5, as he got full points for Bodyguard on The Judge and 2 points from Turf War. I had taken Bodyguard on Kang, Line in the Sand and held the table quarter at the end of the game. As Troy said – Reconnoiter isn’t about killing models, but it’s certainly much harder to win if you don’t have bodies on the table!

Game 2

I drew Niko and his Lynch crew again, to play Theft. In this encounter, he had to grab Gem Markers and take them back to his deployment zone and I had to have a non-Peon model within 6″ of his deployment zone for 1VP a turn. To make my game easier, we drew the Close deployment, so getting to his zone was a simple skip across the center line. Early on in this game I had a solid string of flips of Sue vs Teddy and even though Sue only had a single wound left, he managed to remove Teddy. Sue plus Imbued Energies for Fast is beastly. On another side of the board, 2 Metal Gamin, a Rail Worker and Mei took out Huggy. Niko got Brilliance on Kang and then killed him and Sue in a turn and brought back Huggy, but it was too late. At that point I’d broken free to stop him getting Line in the Sand, had a single model claiming my own Theft points that he couldn’t get to, had easily gotten 3VPs for Plant Explosives and he hadn’t stopped me from getting Distract and he was to far away from his deployment zone to bring the Gems back. He gave up. I convinced him to keep playing, because some VPs are better than none. He played another activation and gave up. I talked him into continuing, and after 1 or 2 more activations he gave up for a third time and this time I let it go. I won 10-0 here, but I think it was properly 10-2 or 4 if he’d kept playing and counted it up. You can always have some effect on the game, even if you’re losing! And at that point he’d already gotten 10VPs for his first game, so 4 from this one and 10 for the next one…he could have been in the running for first still!

Game 3

The best game of Malifaux ever. I played Mark again, in Search. You place 4 Markers on the table and flip a card for a suit. The suit determines which Marker you’re looking for, but you have no idea which one it is! (It was the one in his far corner deployment zone…). This encounter needs a restriction like “can’t place markers in your deployment zone” or similar, because it’s busted as-is. Mark had to pick up Markers for 1VP each, I think. He was playing Pandora still, with all those Sorrows. He destroyed my models so badly, by running towards where I was going to get the Markers and making my models Insignificant and making me fail Wp duels and…death and destruction.

At the end of the game, I had 4 models still – Firestarter was way off in a corner getting me 3VPs for Power Ritual, my only points for the game. I had a December Acolyte and 2 Metal Gamin still in the thick of it. He killed the Acolyte. I picked up the Scheme Cards  and sorted through them. I discarded 2 that he couldn’t have, then Distract which he’d already revealed and held Take Prisoner and Bodyguard in my hand. I couldn’t affect Bodyguard – I had nothing on the table I could kill with. But I could do something about Take Prisoner. I activated one Gamin and Magnetismed the other to kill it. I had a single Gamin left with 2 wounds remaining and 1AP – how to kill it? I targeted his Doppleganger and took a Manipulative test, passing it. I cheated in a 5…failing it. Manipulative is a Wp duel. I failed a Wp duel with all of his Sorrows around me. Killed the Metal Gamin. Losing Mark 4VPs. Not only did he lose Distract for that turn (because I had no models left), but he also had Take Prisoner, and had lost the very model he’d been trying to take! We both laughed our asses off for a good 5 minutes after this!

 

I won Best Overall at this event, and also Best Painted! You’ll see some of the models I finished for this event in a few days – they are super nice looking! I grabbed the M&SU Ramos box, which I’m pretty excited to play, and a Pigapult. I felt bad taking two prizes, so I grabbed a model I didn’t think anyone would want and gave it to Jamie. I look forward to having pigs tossed at me soon. 😛

I quickly packed up my models and ran out the door – my Warhammer friends had been hanging around, and we had a ferry to catch!

Overall, I had a great weekend of gaming and friends! Malifaux is a fantastic game, that doesn’t get boring even after playing 10 games in a row, and I’m super excited to be playing it at AdeptiCon in a few weeks. So excited, that I’m thinking of switching my Dreadball League to the Malifaux Costume event…(if possible). I came back from the event exhausted from lack of sleep, but happy from gaming.

 

Finally, here’s the 3 photos I took all weekend.

wpid-IMAG0733.jpg

Out of 10 games, I played on this board 3 times. Not a lot of cover, but it forced your and your opponents models into particular places. Taking advantage of that was key.

wpid-IMAG0734.jpg

Tao, and Tao’s tongue.

wpid-IMAG0735.jpg

Playing King of Tokyo at the ferry terminal on the way back. We didn’t finish this game.

 

Tournaments

GottaCon 2014 – Day 1

I woke up at 6am after going to bed at 3am. I tried to sleep until around 7am, when I said fuckit and got up to take a shower. I opened up WhatsApp and found some folks who were at Sam’s Deli just up the street. The great thing about bringing all of your friends to a con is that you can find new people, if you don’t want to see the old ones for an hour or so! 🙂

I also took a wander through the vendor hall. Lots of great stuff to see and buy! Airsoft, the medieval recreationists, MMA, leather stuff, Magic, board games, miniature games, glass creations, chainmail, video games, terrain – if it involves nerdery, you can find it! I ended up buying 2 items of leather goods for my costume, but left the rest of it alone.

Malifaux started at 9:30am, and it was a jam packed day! So packed, that while the schedule originally called for 5 games, we only played 4 and still went 2 hours over time! All games were at 50ss, and here I really slacked off on noting the Scheme Pool.

Game 1

Stake a Claim with a Standard Deployment vs Tao. Tao was the organizer of the event, so I drew “the ringer” for this game. Tao was playing a brutal, brutal, brutal Von Schill crew with Lazarus. He had more fun than I’ve seen in a while shooting his big guns at my models and me taking them off! However, he wasn’t playing to win, just to take models off, so I ended up winning this 7-1. This was a really fun game – Tao is a hard player, but has a great attitude. I look forward to playing him in the future when he’s actually trying to win…

Game 2

Turf War with a Flank Deployment vs Mark. I love playing Mark – a fantastic fellow, who plays a challenging game. He was playing Pandora mostly this weekend, and had a brutal list with 3 Sorrows so that whenever you failed a WP duel you took a ton of wounds, with no ability to damage prevent and armour did nothing. He out played me and the game ended 9-7 for him. At one point I could have taken 2VPs for Plant Explosives, but I got greedy and thought I could get 3VPs for it and he managed to ensure I got nothing.

Game 3

Reckoning with a Standard Deployment vs Niko. Niko was playing with Lynch still, and here he just dismantled my crew. I took a fairly high-point cost crew, with Kang, Rail Golem, and Sue and unfortunately I separated my crew and his Teddy and Huggy and such were more than capable of killing my models one-on-one. I learned a lesson here, which I applied in my game on Sunday – more on that later. He destroyed me 0-8, and this was actually my worst game all weekend. Not because of Niko, he was fine. But I’ve always said that one significant benefit of Malifaux is that at any time, no matter whether you’re winning or losing, you can affect the game. You have agency, and that’s what I want from my games. In this game I could do nothing but take my models off the table.

Game 4

Reconnoiter with a Corner Deployment vs Erik. Erik was playing Rasputina with a couple Ice Gamin, an Ice Golem and a Cereberus. Apparently he had been doing quite poorly earlier in the day, but he pulled it together a bit here. We had a stand-off with the Ice Golem vs my Rail Golem, but I managed to out-activate him such that I got the drop on his Golem. I also learned, once again – don’t take Assassinate vs Rasputina. Her Sub-zero trigger means you have maybe 1-2 attacks to kill her, unless you get many models on her. Not worth it. I used my Emberling fairly well here, sending him flying off with his 5Wk and only 3SS cost to hold onto a table quarter for the entire game.  I won this 6-5.

 

We had lunch in the middle, which was nice because apparently the Warhammer Fantasy guys didn’t get a lunch break. Afterwards while talking with them, I got to brag that our event was small enough that at the break the TO asked “So where does everyone want to go?” When your TO eats lunch with you, you know you’ll be back at the tournament on time. 🙂

I won Best Painted here, and was the last person to select a prize so I took come a box of Terraclips “Buildings of Malifaux”, a set that I’m looking forward to finding space for in my terrain box. May have to sell off something to make that space…we shall see.

We finished around 9pm, which was worrying me. I had made plans to meet up with a good friend of mine whom I hadn’t gamed with for a while. We used to play RPGs weekly, but he’s recently moved to Sooke and it’s been a while. I quickly grabbed food and found him playing a board game with another friend I tend to only see at gaming conventions. 🙂 They finished that game and started another, a 4-player game with 5 people. I said I was happy to sit and watch, which surprisingly was the truth – my brain was exhausted after 3 hours of sleep and a day of Malifaux. So I watched and helped with Galaxy Trucker for a bit. When they finished that, we took the game back and went for another. A brilliant idea came upon Adrian – someone in the room was about to start teaching Russian Railroads, a new train-themed worker-placement game, and we could grab a second copy and get in on the explanation. This was a great game! We played until 2am, at which point I was about to pass out in the con. I was super glad I stayed out though – it’s always awesome to see Jer, and Adrian is fun to hang out with.

Back at the hotel room, I lay down and worried about when my roommates were going to come back and wake me up. The night before I had thought about getting my own room, but didn’t enact the plan. 45 minutes later around 3am they came in…as silent as mice. Apparently, I had made an impression the night before and while I woke up when they entered, I managed to get back to sleep ok.