082 - Wyrd Postage Rates

With GenCon only a month away, we're all getting a bit antsy to hear which new toys Wyrd are going to make available for us to order online while the convention is happening. We know that the Malifaux M2E book is going to be available, and that many of the first wave Masters' boxed sets will be up for grabs, but we don't know which ones, with the exception of Nightmare Tara.

As usual, Wyrd will be including a limited edition "Miss" model with every order over $100 which, for those of us thinking about combining orders with our friends to minimise postage costs to the UK, presents us with an interesting dilemma. How much does it cost us to split up the orders into $100 chunks?

I spent half an hour on the Wyrd online store yesterday putting dummy orders into their system, to try and work out the best way to combine orders. I used the Rail Crew boxed set ($35) and the Storm of Shadows book ($30) as a best estimate of the size and weight of the stuff we'll all be ordering next month, and input various multiples of these into the checkout, noting the UK postage cost for each combination. The results were interesting.

The top green table shows the postage cost for multiple books and multiple boxed sets. The dark green indicates an order that is valued over $100, so would qualify for a free Miss model.

The 2nd table shows how much the postage goes up for each book you add to a single order. For example, my local gaming group will want at least 5 books, and the table shows that for each book you add to the order after the first one, it costs an extra $11.60 in shipping. This table should be read by going across, from left to right.

The 3rd table shows the same thing for adding extra crew boxes. You can see that adding an extra crew box to your order will cost you an additional $2.60, *except* if the order doesn't include any books, in which case your second and third crews do not cost any extra. This table should be read going down, from top to bottom.

The interesting part of the tables is the top left of the second table. You can see that if your order contains boxed sets, adding a single book to the order will cost you slightly less than $11.60. It's not a massive difference, but worth noting.

The lesson we can take from this?

If you don't want books, but you want as many Miss models as possible, group your crew boxes together in threes. Your first Miss will be effectively free. Your second Miss will cost you $4, and your third Miss will cost you only $3. Seems like a bargain to me!

If you want books, don't group them together in a separate order to the models. If you do, each book will cost you $11.60 shipping. Admittedly, you only get a very marginal benefit by grouping a single book in with 1 - 3 boxed sets, but it's worth taking. If you do this, your orders will probably be in groups of 1 book & 3 boxes, saving you $2 on each book. It's not a lot, but every penny helps right?

DISCLAIMER: Wyrd have the power to alter their postage rates for GenCon. If they do so (and I have no idea if they will or not), all of the above becomes irrelevant.

081 - Monkeefaux & Breachside Brawl Tournaments

Note: This post was written over a month ago, and I was intending to write up my Breachside Brawl tournament games in the same post, but never got back to it. I'm throwing the post up now in case anybody is interested in reading about some of my last ever M1E games.

Sorry for the prolonged quietness here - the release of the Malifaux 2nd Edition beta files has meant that I've been spending precious lunchtimes at work pouring over the new details rather than blogging. Shame on me. I still haven't had opportunity to get the new rules on the tabletop (soon to change I hope!), but I'm feeling very positive about practically everything I've seen so far. I'll be back with some more detailed musings soon.

Order of today, though, is to give a quick rundown of a tournament I attended last month.

I was very much looking forward to making the trip to York for Monkeefaux. Despite the organiser Guildmonkee's attempts to label it something else, the name seems to have stuck. I took my Perdita crew along, after pulling together a 70ss pool of Guild models which basically consisted of everything I have painted for the faction.

Game 1 - Shared Land Grab vs Dave Chandler (Mei Feng)

This was my first time I've played against Mei Feng (and against Dave) so I was wary straight off the bat. Not only that, but most of Dave's crew were unfamiliar to me, being predominantly made up of Union Miners and Willie. I'd have probably played a cagey early game until I'd worked out what she might do, however Dave took that choice out of my hands by launching Mei across the board using Railwalker in the first turn in an attempt to take out his Kill Protege target. Although she succeeed, this left her exposed in the middle of my entire crew, and a Family alpha-strike in turn two almost managed to take her down. Only liberal use of soulstones managed to keep her on the table, at which point Dave remembered that he'd selected Bodyguard for his scheme and regretted the whole thing. The Miners showed up and so began a bit of a scrap just outside my deployment zone. The Guild's raw damage output prevailed, with Mei limping away and my survivors chasing her down and spreading out for strategy points. A final charge from Perdita across the table and up a cliffside saw her get a bead on Willie (my Kill Protege target who'd been hiding all game) and take him out with the final card flip of the encounter.

Mei Feng begins to regret being so reckless

Game 2 - Shared Line in the Sand vs Ant Hoult (Yan Lo)

The first time I'd faced Yan Lo in the hands of somebody who wasn't testing him out for the first time, I expected Ant to be able to use the guy to his fullest potential and he definitely didn't disappoint. With Toshiro and 3 Ashigaru advancing on one flank, I quickly understood what his plan was going to be - he would advance onto two of the strategy markers and use the Ashigaru to prevent anybody getting close. The combined shooting from Perdita, Santiago and Nino (and a luckily relatively sparse terrain board) meant that I'd killed the Ashigaru before they got close enough, and Perdita's speed allowed her to start capturing markers in Turn 2.
Toshiro summoned up a couple of new Ashigaru, while on the opposite flank Yan Lo laid some smack down on a Death Marshall and Francisco. My Immune to Influence Watcher proved useful in holding a marker against a Belle who was unable to Lure him closer. Yan Lo had powered up through all the surrounding carnage, which meant that he'd gained enough abilities to charge Perdita, kill her, push to Nino, kill him, and then activate a trigger which gave him multiple hits on Santiago. I'd been feeling relatively comfortable until that point, but suddenly most of my crew was dead or dying.
With some incredible luck, though, I managed to squeak a win despite losing both of my schemes. Fortunately for me my deck had been flipping very well the whole game, and despite some poor control hands, I always seemed to land on the required card (including not flipping a single weak damage on Ashigaru, who have additional mitigation against it, all game)

Game 3 - Shared Beatdown vs Nathan Chennery (Viktorias)

This was going to be painful. I've never managed to beat the Viktorias before, and here I was on table 2 in a strategy that plays to all their strengths. I had a couple of secret weapons though: Lucius, and Papa Loco. With the addition of the Executioner and an Austringer my small elite crew was complete. Lucius would be great in Beatdown due to being a high cost soulstone user that is difficult to target (negative flips on all attacks). Papa Loco's ability to blow himself up would come into its own since he wouldn't count for strategy purposes if killed in this way (and neither would any of my models caught in the blast).
The Viks darted up one flank in cover and were ready to strike in Turn 2, were it not for Lucius and his Issue Command ability, which sent 4 Austringer shots at them and forced them to retreat to lick their wounds and count their remaining soulstones. Lazarus advanced up the centre and became engaged with the Executioner, while Perdita grappled with Johan on my right. In waded Papa Loco, who detonated himself in a massive explosion, killing himself, the Executioner, Lazarus and a Ronin in an almighty BOOM! The only survivors were the Viks, Perdita, Lucius and the Austringer. With hindsight I should have sacrificed the Austringer using Lucius to gain reactivate, because the Viks barrelled around the wood terrain my gun/bird platform was hiding behind, and picked off the Austringer in one turn and then Lucius in the next (damn those paired swords bypassing his negative flip defense!!). These two kills were enough to pull the game back to a draw, and a well fought one at that.

My final standings for the day? WWD put me in 3rd place for my first podium finish in two years of tournaments, so I was very pleased with how the day worked out!