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.
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