058 - Malifaux UK GT Doubles Roundup

Just thought I'd write a short belated roundup of my time at the Doubles tournament a few weekends back. Actually I realise it's a full month ago today - time flies!

The Doubles format required two players to team up and nominate a single Master that would be their crew leader over 5 brawls. the second Master could be changed from game to game. I formed an alliance with Dom "Dumb Luck" Westerland, one of the more prolific gremlin players in the UK, with him bringing Som'er alongside my Ophelia. Unfortunately I wasn't able to contribute quite as much to the available model pool as Dom, as you can see below.

Mine are the models in muted tones. Dom's have Scorpion Green bases

Round 1
Since I was the last person to arrive at the venue, team "One and a Half Grem" suffered a bye through to the next round.

Round 2
Shared Destroy Evidence vs Jo-anne (Neverata) and Aidan (Cunningstunt) fielding Leviticus and "Ramatar" (that's aRamos to everyone else!).
This was where I first experienced the Pigapult and saw how it really comes into it's own when firing disposable Bayou Gremlins at Evidence markers. The first turn saw two Gremlins sucessfully destroy their evidence, and Reckless used to fire a third to protect an enemy counter from a roaming Watcher. My first meeting with Ashes and Dust ended when it met the Gremlin gunline, and Ophelia met a sticky end when she gambled our last Soulstone on a Pigapult launch (only a DF 12 flip required and she flipped a 2 and then Soulstoned a 1! Opheliafaceplantapult!). Ramos manifested late in the game and did his best to clear up the gremlins in his DZ for breakthrough but it wasn't enough and the Gremlins squealed to a narrow victory

Round 3
Shared Reconnoiter vs Mitch (Stern) and Simon - another meeting with Avatar Ramos, this time with Kaeris in support.
The Gremlins again turtled up in our deployment zone with the plan of launching from the Pigapult or just plain legging it across to the enemy half once they came a bit closer. Ramos manifested early and was on us too quickly. Ophelia got paralysed when we forgot about the Arachnid Swarm's trigger, which meant our main offensive power was out of action. In Turn 3 aRamos was in our deployment zone cutting up Gremlins with impunity and droppings Large SPAs and Electrical Creations in their midst. It was a bloodbath and the Arcanists sealed a comfortable win.

Ramos reaches the Gremlin gunline, tears up Ophelia and rips our plan to shreds

Round 4
Shared Escape and Survive vs Rich and Phil playing as Perdita and Hoffman.
In the first activation of the Turn 1, a companioned Ophelia, Pigapult and Pere Ravage managed to land a very big explosion into the middle of the Guild forces. Nino, his Grandmother and the Enslaved Nephilim all perished in the detonation, as well as a big chunk of Perdita's wounds. I later learned that Dom had promised our opponents (guys from his FLGS that he was relying on for a lift home!) that he wouldn't pull this move, so I felt rather bad for how effective it was (especially with +1 feud damage!). The Guild never fully recovered from this strike. Hoffman secured himself in the center of the board with Stake a Claim and Bodyguard active meanwhile Somer manifested and, with the help of Reactivate from a Hog Whisperer, crossed the whole length of the table in one turn, including a brief pause for Peaches to stampede all over an unfortunate Guild Guard. His ability to give free Reckless to all Gremlins around him, combined with McTavish giving everyone the Scout ability, meant that the Gremlin horde was able to quickly cross the table and gang up to finish off Perdita and claim max VPs for the strategy, giving the Gremlins their second win of the weekend.

Round 5
Shared Claim Jump vs Malcolm & Andrew playing Hoffman & Lady Justice.
We had a similar tactic in this game to the previous. Turtle up in a corner and make more Gremlins for a few turns, then Avatar up and make a rush for the Claim (with Swamp Gas to push enemies off the marker) in turns 4-6. Hoffman and his Peacekeeper/Guardian combo positioned themselves near the claim but also refused to commit. We sent our Mosquitoes to get rid of a roaming Watcher, and once it was gone, to tie up enemy models in melee to stop them walking about.
The plan went pretty well, a couple of hit and run strikes with Rami and Ophelia got rid of some Death Marshalls, but Lady J was hiding behind the building nearest the Claim and we couldn't get a bead on her. Andrew and Malcolm wisely kept her protected after we announced Assassinate on her, but this worked in our favour as it kept her out of most of the fight.
In Turn 5, we suddenly realised that aSom'er has "Companion: Bayou Gremlin", and how ridiculous this was when combined with Reckless Frenzy. Thus began around 10 or 12 simultaneous activations whereby we swarmed onto the claim marker all guns blazing. Unfortunately Som'er didn't make it close enough to use Swamp Gas, and the Peacekeeper advanced next to the claim marker. All that remained was to see how many Gremlins survived the Peacekeeper/Lady J melee onslaught.

The buildings made accessing the Claim Jump marker rather difficult

In the final tally, the Gremlins had two extra models within 3" of the objective (helped by the large base of the Peacekeeper blocking too many Guild from getting close). Another Gremlin victory!

Our final results for the day were thus 3W/0D/1L and a bye. Unfortunately the first round bye only ended up counting for 0.5 Tournament points, and so we finished on 9.5TPs which put us in 4th place. Narrowly behind Mitch and Simon who also had 9.5TPs but a much higher VP Diff due to a rollicking 10-0 final game win (I heard that Collodi + 8 Marionettes wrecked the enemy Master in the first activation of their game!).

Narrowly missing out on a podium spot (and a pair of custom 3rd place trophies made up of the Hog Whisperer and a Piglet) was a bit disappointing, but it didn't detract from an awesome weekend with a great bunch of people.

I don't think I'll be able to make it to the Team GT in June, but the main GT in November is getting closer and I'm already looking forward to it!

Mike

053 - Gremlin Reinforcements Ahoy!

Here's a couple of shots of two recent additions to the ranks of painted Kin - Rami LaCroix and Pere Ravage. I love how the piggy theme pervades Ophelia's crew even though they're a strictly Som'er crew feature and she can't hire them herself.

At first I thought that the 3D glasses were an anachronism, and put them in as a joke, but a bit of research later and I was surprised to find that they were invented by Wilhelm Rollman in Leipzig in 1852!

These guys still need a few reeds sticking on the bases to finish off, but unfortunately my wallpaper pasting brush has gone missing!

050 - Ophelia Second Thoughts

I had a lot of fun with Ophelia at the Harrogate Icebreaker tournament last weekend. She performed well against Perdita in the first round, helped by me drawing the Red Joker into my hand on three of the six turns. Nino, Santiago and Perdita herself all took a Red Joker to the face.

Unfortunately she came up against serious opposition in rounds 2-4, in the form of Pandora, Hamelin the Plagued and then minion Hamelin (accompanying Nicodem). Probably three of the nastiest things for a Gremlin crew to come up against and they were all queuing up to give Ophelia a kicking.

She gave it her all, but ended up narrowly missing out on a draw vs Hamelin and losing the other two games convincingly.

My first games with a Slop Hauler proved him to be worth his weight in gold in keeping the Dumb Luck shots coming thick and fast (thanks for the recommendation Dom!), and I got some great results out of Rami who one-shotted Nicodem with a very dumb and very lucky shot.

I think I have an effective anti-Hamelin the Plagued tactic (hide from his ratty death-star until it gets closer, then run around it to reach your objectives behind him, popping off a few shots as you run past for a distraction.

I currently have no plans on how Pandora should be dealt with though. Low WP across the board and low WDs mean that it takes much less than "one thousand cuts" to make your gremlins die very fast indeed. The paralyzing power of Coppelius (automatic on WP 4 Ophelia) is also something that doesn't have a great counter.

I'm a little disillusioned with Ophelia as a competitive master due to the ease in which an opponent can put a hard counter in their crew to make the game an uphill struggle for her, but that may be due to the fact that it was common knowledge at the tournament that I'd be using gremlins.

I'm looking forward to using her again at the Doubles GT next month, but I don't think that she'll have a long and illustrious competitive career after that. We shall see.

049 - Ophelia First Thoughts

I gave a new crew a couple of trial games this week. In a serious breach of my personal "don't use unpainted models" rule, I'm taking Ophelia and the gremlin kin to the Harrogate Icebreaker tournament this weekend. Many of the Harrogate players are retiring their established crews and building new lists for 2012, in a similar way to myself, and so the painting requirement has been relaxed for the tournament (as long as the models are assembled). I've painted 3 of my gremlins so far, so although the majority of my crew will be silver. they'll be green in spirit.

I played two 25ss games on Tuesday, one against Adam using Sonnia, and one against James using Hamelin, and had a 35ss rematch against Adam yesterday night. Three excellent games, and I think as a result I have at least a basic idea of what my models do.

Ophelia vs Sonnia was perhaps the most violent game I've ever played. On one side of the table, Ophelia was in melee with Sonnia and two Witchlings. Sonnia had cast (0) Inferno which causes 3 damage in a pulse at the end of the turn. This killed one of the Witchlings, who detonated for another two damage in another pulse, which then detonated the second Witchling for even more damage! Ophelia was reduced to a pile of smoking boots, and Sonnia herself was weakened badly enough for Rami to pick her off in my next activation.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table, Papa Loco had charged into Pere Ravage. Casting "Take Ya With Me" for 6Dg and killing Pere, who then detonated through "Ka-Blooey" for a 5Dg explosion, which killed Papa Ortega in return, who then went "Boom!" for another big bang! It's a good job that nobody else was stood nearby, as that amount of damage would have floored any model in the game! The crater caused by this series of explosions would easily be visible from space!

Needless to say, there were very few survivors after that had all played out. I think I finished the game with just one model left after finishing off one final Witchling, which was enough to give me a narrow victory.

In my game against Hamelin, I wasn't expecting much, given that I couldn't target Hamelin and that killing rats would be ineffectual. My strategy was Claim Jump, but I'd be unable to establish a presence around the objective that couldn't be easily dispersed by James standing Hamelin on top. I was lucky though, because he played the crew a little too conservatively, and Hamelin didn't really get stuck into the action as much as he could have given that he could attack my models with impunity once Pere Ravage had been Obedienced into blowing himself up. By taking Kill Protoge on Nix as a scheme (the only model I could effectively attack!), I knew I'd be able to get a couple of VPs, and I managed to prevent James' schemes and bring the game to a 2-2 draw.

In the 35ss game I added in some Bayou Gremlins and used what I think will be my crew throughout the tournament on Sunday. The volume of firepower was intimidating, and I managed to shoot down many of Adam's crew before they had change to do anything. Sonnia herself fell when I won a crucial initiative and companioned 3 of my Kin to ping her full of lead. Adam's derisory defense flips didn't help her either to be honest, and so he had to burn almost his entire hand and his whole soulstone cache trying to keep her standing. The final result was Ophelia and Rami standing on the claim marker having obliterated every Guild model that tried to approach. The gremlins had suffered heavy losses, but my weight of numbers meant I had models left at the end of the game.

Worth noting too that we played this game on Adam's new Buildings of Malifaux Terraclips set combined with rubber cobblestone roll mats, and it made for a great setting.

Learning points so far:

Reckless is a difficult ability to manage well. I'm always tempted to push for the extra AP, but after a turn or two it results in a crew where every model is damaged to half Wds, and nobody in the crew has enough Wds to not be concerned by the loss of just one or two.

Ophelia is pretty destructive, and can kill most minions in a single activation if she's willing to burn a soulstone to do it. I need to remember to use her (0) action buffs before attacking though.

Rami scares the enemy, mainly due to his long range, but he isn't especially damaging. If you go for his Dumb Luck trigger, he doesn't really have enough Wds to sustain himself for long afterwards.

Raphael perhaps isn't as bad as I've been led to believe, but maybe I've just been lucky with him. I found Francois to be the least effective of the crew so far. Or perhaps Pere Ravage - I haven't yet worked out how to use him pro-actively.

Young LaCroix are awesome. Plenty of bodies on the table that can all cast Ophelia's damaging spell. It's very painful though if Ophelia dies and you have to remove 4 models from the table!

I need to remember the Bayou Gremlin's "Oops" ability and plan accordingly. In my third game I forgot it even existed (I assure you this was innocent - I'm just not used to there being consequences for my models failing a duel!). I may write this down somewhere, or at least warn my opponent to remind me during the next few games.

Enjoying the crew so far - but I fully expect to get ripped a new one on Sunday when they have to face up to some very experienced players.

028 - "Never Happen...."

Firstly - apologies for the lack of posting recently. I moved house a few weeks back and I've only just this week gotten my shiny new broadband connection up and running.

Now onto business. A couple of weeks ago I entered the Iron Owl painting competition at Leeds Wargaming Center. I'd been working on something special for a while, and although I didn't win anything (the standard was very very high), I was really happy with how my entry turned out and gave me a great opportunity to develop some basic conversion skills.

One of the more amusing Malifaux abilities is called "Never Happen..." and is found on the Gremlin Hog Whisperer. Basically, it gives all friendly pigs within 12" the ability of Flight. To me this was crying out for a comically customised model, so I decided I was going to give my first Warpig some wings. Here's the final result:

I figured it'd be worthwhile showing everyone how he was made in case other people decide to do something similar.

The hardest part of the conversion was the legs so this was the part I tackled first. The Warpig comes in two halves, and the rear leg on each side is what he usually stands on, with his front legs raised off the ground as though he's charging or pouncing.

I quickly realised that if I was to raise him into a flying pose, the back legs would look totally wrong, as he would still be in a standing position with his feet flat as though they were on solid ground. I therefore decided to cut off the back legs with my trusty hacksaw, and alter their position so as to look like they were hanging down naturally when he was up in the air. I had to take a pretty big chunk out of the back of each side of the model in order to get these legs off, including destroying most of the muscles in the rear end, but I planned to resculpt them back on later. Admittedly I was quite worried after seeing my new model cut into small chunks!

On the pigs left flank, the leg turned and re-attached easily enough in it's new position without needing modification to the leg itself.


Unfortunately the right hind leg is sculpted in a bent position and needed some further work to get it to look natural. I cut into the leg at the knee joint and again at the ankle to split it into three pieces, which were rearranged into a completely new shape. Both legs were pinned back onto the body for extra strength.


The rest of the pig was assembled normally. Regrettably this model is one of those that never fits together very well, and there were loads gaps around the head and tail that needed plenty of green-stuff to fill in.

The crucial addition to my Warpig would be the wings, and I searched for a long time to find the right ones. At one point I was leaning towards the large feathered wings from Micro Art Studio, but they looked heavy and I wasn't sure they would be the right size. I toyed with the idea of stealing the wings from a GW Bretonnian Pegasus Knight, and tried to find these parts on some Bitz websites, but they appeared to be the most popular part of the kit and were always out of stock.

Despairing that my porcine friend would never be able to get airborne, I stopped by my local GW and told a staff member that I wasn't as familiar with the current range as I used to be and did he have any ideas? On their in-shop painting station they had some WIP new Dark Eldar Scourges and I knew right away I'd found my wings! I snapped up a box there and then and luckily, after choosing the right pair of wings for me (I definitely didn't want the bat wings) managed to sell the rest of the models on to Darren at the local club who wanted them for his Dark Eldar army. Win-win!

GW still make the best plastic miniatures around - hands down

The wings had a few cables and mechanical looking parts that needed carefully scraping off with a craft knife, following which I did my best to resculpt some feathers where the damage had been done. All that remained was to drill a hole for a 2mm brass rod in the base of the pig and mount him to a Wyrd Bayou 50mm base insert.

You can see at this point I had the wings in a different position. Thankfully my girlfriend convinced me to raise them up and outstretched which I realise now is a far better pose.

I got a big carried away at this point and forgot to take a picture of the model after I'd re-sculpted the hind leg muscles, but you can see the results in the final photos below.

As one of my first real conversion efforts I'm incredibly pleased with the final result, and I hope I've inspired someone to try something similar with their own pigs.

Until next time... oink oink!

Mike