078 - 2013: Year of the X

I decided at the end of last year that I would be retiring my current Masters from competitive play in 2013. That means no Pandora or Seamus, and probably no Neverborn at all. They've served me faithfully (although not particularly effectively recently), but it's time for a change, and they'll be missed.

I'm therefore left with a tough decision of what to progress for the rest of the year... Due to a complete lack of focus I've managed to get several projects half completed but not enough of anything to make a complete crew. My choices basically boil down to:

1) Gremlins
I'd intended to get a Gremlin crew completed for the GT 2011 (I know!!), but it didn't materialise and 18 months later most of my Gremlin models are still unpainted. I did dabble in the green-stuff at the start of last year, and even took Ophelia to a tournament (where she got total 3 pastings out of 4 games, but let's not go in to that again) back in March, but never got around to finishing the faction off.

2) Guild
I'd had a Perdita boxed set knocking around for quite a while, and finally got it painted last year, along with a couple of additional minions, but I've only ever used them in games once or twice. A couple of reinforcements would be all it would take to get them tournament ready, and the skeleton of an Ortega crew is fully painted already, so I have a base to build from.

Latest work-in-progress

3) Arcanists
I've wanted to get a Rasputina crew done for a long time, and I painted an Ice Gamin as a test piece recently, and really enjoyed it. I have most of the crew bought and assembled, but there's a lot of painting to slog through before they're tournament ready. Mei Feng and Kaeris are also appealing, giving me some nice expansion options.

Complete except for the hands, and snow on the base

After ruminating, cogitating and digesting the above for a while, I've decided to set myself the following goals:

A) Get the Guild tournament-ready in time for an event in March. There are two tourneys happening relatively locally (one Harrogate, one Sheffield), and I'll be able to get to just one of them, and I'm hoping to be able to paint enough additional minions for Perdita to be a viable Master choice

B) Post-March, get to work on Rasputina's crew, with a view to taking her to a tournament in the summer. There's a lot of work to do, and I've decided to really pull out the stops on the crew painting-wise, so this could be a challenging goal.

C) Take the Gremlins to the GT, or another tournament towards the end of the year. This is another large project, but I really do want to give the little greenies the table time they deserve.

Three crews in a year I hear you say? It can't be done! (Well, apart from those of you who paint a crew a week. Or 5 crews in a week....). It might be a little unfocused, but what was it they say about the "spice of life"...?

077 - Vassal-faux (aka "Guild Riflemen are broken")

At the end of last year, Wyrd launched an official Malifaux module for Vassal, enabling everybody to play online games of Malifaux in their underpants from the comfort of their computer chair. Naturally, enthusiasm for this new way of playing the game is high, and organising a game of Malifaux is now as easy as popping onto Twitter and requesting somebody to join you in a Skype call. No need to drive to the local club or further away, and no pesky models required!

 

Last week I got my first look at the new toy that everybody is raving about and I have to say I'm impressed. I spectated in a game first to get the hang of what all the buttons do, and a couple of evenings later got a chance to try it out myself.

 

Following my game, here's the pros and cons of Vassal-faux as I see them:

 

Pros

 

a) No models required

This manifests in several ways. You can now test out new additions for your existing crews without having to buy the models first, and decide whether you really need them or not. You can try out a completely new crew every game if you like, making Vassal an ideal toybox to play about in. If you're not big on the hobby side of the game, you can even play without needing to paint a single figure.

 

b) Battle report friendly

Vassal allows you to save screenshots of the battlefield, making reporting on the battle afterwards so much easier. I took screenshots at the end of each turn in my game, and you'll find a short summary of the game, largely in picture form, at the end of this post. I realise you could do the same thing with a real game using a camera, but it's not nearly as easy, or as clear for the reader to follow.

 

c) Pausability

Need to go to tend to an emergency? No problem! Save the game and continue another time once disaster has been averted.

 

d) Accessibility

Possibly the biggest pro, is that with Vassal you're not limited to playing the same bunch of local players, but can instead challenge people anywhere in the world. Yes that's right! All that international trash-talk from both sides of the pond now has an outlet!

 

Cons

 

a) No models required

Yes, this is also down as a pro, but to me, playing Malifaux (or any wargame) without figures seems a pointless endeavour. A large part of my enjoyment of the game comes from seeing scenes and conflicts playing out in front of me, and small circles with names written on them does not have the same appeal as fully painted crews on evocative terrain.

 

b) Range

Viewing the game in 2D form takes away the players' natural ability to judge distance, potentially penalising some actions. On the flip side, there's no way of preventing your opponent pre-measuring anything they like by putting a ruler up against the screen.

 

c) Too many windows

With separate windows for the game board, the two fate decks, the side board and the chat window, the screen can get very cluttered. If you have two monitors you'll be fine, but for the rest of us that don't you either have to keep clicking between the various windows, or set up your screen in such a way that things are zoomed out and you can squeeze everything on. I managed the squeeze, but was frustrated to find that the configuation settings would not remember my set-up and that I'd have to resize everything afresh every time I used the program

 

Battle Report -Shared Supply Wagon

Me - Perdita, Nino, Santiago, Francisco, Guardian, Austringer (Stake a Claim, Assassinate)

vs

Adam - Lady Justice + Avatar, Executioner, 3 Guild Riflemen, 5 Guild Hounds (Stake a Claim, Breakthrough)

 

Adam's plan was clearly to group up the dogs and run them all into my deployment zone to ensure they were significant and claim his two schemes. I figured that Justice would have to come at me, and that with concentrated effort I could take her down easily enough. My stake a claim was the cactus in the centre, close to where the Supply Wagons would both be ending up. Santiago and the accompanying Guardian had escort duties, and I was trying the Guardian for the first time after reading that they could be an effective pairing. 

 

The pictures below show the position at the end of each turn.

 

Turn 1

 

My Austringer took up position hiding in my building, and Francisco moved to cover the right flank from the approaching dogs. Everything else shuffled forwards.

 

 

Turn 2

 

I advanced Santiago and the Guardian, but in my inexperience missed out on switching on the +Armour buff. Lady Justice dived in, and with a hand full of masks managed to put out at least 6 attacks through Onslaught that killed both models without breaking a sweat. So much for trying out the pair! She was also in easy striking range to take out Nino next turn. The Austringer sniped one of the Riflemen, and Francisco became embroiled in a melee with two dogs.

 

 

 

Turn 3

 

Lady Justice layed down the smack on Nino, but this left her exposed to Perdita who took 9 of her 12 wounds in a soulstoned fuel round of shooting. Francisco took down one of the Hounds, while another three dogs sneaked around on my left flank. At the end of the turn, the Executioner charged Perdita, but was unable to damage her.

 

 

 

 

Turn 4

Winning initiative, I took a chance and moved Perdita into melee with Justice. Luckily she was able to finish the job and put down Adam's master. Francisco continued to face down the remaining dog, and the Austringer also found himself facing canines in the form of three sneaky Hounds who surrounded him and prevented him escaping. The surviving Guild Rifleman fired into the melee between Perdita and the Executioner. Perdita's high defense was enough to protect her from the first shot, but the second shot hit the Executioner, and using the trigger "Two Birds..", he was able to do a splash damage onto Perdita for 3 wounds, bypassing her defense altogether!

 

 

 

Turn 5

Perdita and Francisco both finished off their melee opponents, as the Executioner and Hound finally succumbed. The Austinger fell to the very first Hound attack, and the group separated - two advanced to claim both of Adam's schemes, and the other moved to protect the now vulnerable wagon. Francisco ran back towards my deployment zone, hoping for an extra turn to be able to stop the hounds that were currently scoring Adam 4 points.

 

 

 

Turn 6

Left with a difficult choice, I activated Perdita first. The hound was protected by the Supply Wagon, so she had to move to kill it (preventing it from attacking my wagon, which was on 1 Wound), and then move to claim my Stake a Claim objective. Unfortunately this left her no spare AP to attack Adam's wagon. The Guild Rifleman stood nearby then proceeded to pull out his knife, and gut Perdita (I Black Jokered the defense flip, and she took 5 wounds!) My hand full of high cards proved useless in saving her, and she was out of Soulstones from her duels with Justice and the Executioner, so down she went - the Rifleman had killed her single handedly.

 

Turn 6 proved to be the last turn, so we tallied up to find that Adam had won the game 6-2.

 

 

Closing Thoughts

 

I think my mistake was in not addressing the group of 3 Hounds earlier, but this was largely down to being activation starved. The three models (Santiago, Guardian, Nino) that I lost to Lady J early in the game were intended to tie up the centre, and without them Perdita was forced to do the job herself. rather than being able to run around doing what needed to be done. She performed admirably, but she wasn't able to track down the dogs as I'd first intended - I'd have only needed to kill two of the three to prevent them being able to claim the objective, and Francisco did a great job of holding up my right flank and stopping any dogs getting through. Oh and Guild Riflemen are filth. Nuff Said.

076 - 2012 Resolutions Review

So, time to see how I measured up to the resolutions I set myself at the start of 2012…. Brace yourself for disappointment!

 
1)       Paint 60% of my Malifaux collection – FAIL

Currently I’m sitting at 46% painted, which is less than I had this time last year! I’ve drastically neglected the painting side of the hobby in 2012, and I’d be surprised if I painted more than 20 models all year. This has to change.

 
2)       a) Keep Objectives front of mind, b) Make every activation count, c) Keep a record of all games – SEMI-FAIL

My performance in the Rankings in 2012 left a lot to be desired. This was partially down to attending only two ranked events, and partially down to performing poorly in both of them. I don’t feel that my ability at the game has improved over the last year. I’m still making silly errors that usually cost me the game, and I’m starting to realise that at a competitive level these errors are reliably exploited by my opponents. I have tried to apply a) and b), but I don’t feel that they have led to an improved performance. As for c), I do have a full record of all my games which shows me that for the year I have 19/2/23 W/D/L record. Winning almost half my games gives one picture, but my main two Masters for the year, Pandora and Seamus, have only a 31% and 33% win record respectively.

3)       Complete construction of a gaming table & terrain collection and use it to run demos at an event – FAIL

My scenery project stalled early in the year, but I did attempt to revive it shortly before Christmas. I didn’t manage to run any demo games in 2012, but I have signed up to run a demo table at Vapartnak in a fortnight (albeit not on my own board)

4)       Blog Progress – FAIL

I’ve neglected this blog for two long stretches in 2012, which is partially due to reduced play time. Without getting regular gaming and painting time in, my motivation to come here and post has taken a hit. My web-browsing time/attention has also been eaten into by other interests that have developed in 2012. Also completely lacking has been progress update blog posts, which I put down to increased participation on Twitter in 2012, where progress photos and feedback come much more naturally. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think I could use the two formats in combination in a more effective way.

 
My 2013 Resolutions are along the same lines.

 1)       I’m going to be retiring my current main crews for 2013, so this will drive me to *have to* paint a lot more this year. I’m therefore going to take another stab at my 60% goal by the end of the year. I also want to win a painting prize this year. My current work in progress crews are probably my best work to date, and I've been told that I usually miss out on Best Painted awards by only one or two votes. This year I'm really going to push the boat out.

 2)       My gaming resolution will be to take three different Masters to tournaments in 2013. And by different I mean completely new Masters I haven’t used in a competitive setting before. I’ll be aiming for mid-table placings, rather than the lower positions I’ve been achieving recently, with a stretch goal of finishing in the top 5 for at least one event. I believe this to be a realistic and achievable aim.

 3)       I *will* finish my gaming board this year! Blog posts will follow soon to show the progress I’ve made so far.

 4)       I’m going to put aside some designated time every week to work on this blog, which will hopefully mean that there won’t be the same long gaps in posting from time to time. On Twitter, I will aim to post something with the #MiniatureMonday tag on a weekly basis. They may not be finished models (although it’d be nice if they were!), but at least they’ll be work in progress pieces. This should tie back to my painting resolution and improve my motivation to get through my pile of models.

See you back here again - same time next year!

075 - GT 2012 Round-Up

So after another period of neglect at the end of last year, it seems I’ve got a bit of catching up to do. I’ll try to bash out a few posts in the next couple of weeks and get up to speed with all the recent goings off in the Malifaux world.

 I did start writing an in-depth post about my game results from the GT in November, but only got half way through and now I feel like it’s too long ago to fully remember the remaining games in the same amount of detail. Therefore here’s a condensed tournament report, although it’s probably a bit late for anyone to care any more….!

 
GAME 1
Pandora vs Misaki (Ian Brocklebank) – 25ss Treasure Hunt

My first experience of playing against anything from Storm of Shadows, and Ian was also relatively new to Misaki, so the game progressed slowly. I think we only got to Turn 3 before time was called, and through copious use of the Downburst spell in that final turn, Ian had made sure my models were far enough way from the treasure for Misaki to be able to leap in and pick it up in the final activation. I was disappointed that we didn’t get into subsequent turns, because I felt my crew was in a better position overall (Pandora had taken care of a few minions and Misaki was in the centre relatively unsupported) and later turns might have produced a different result.
Score: Loss 7-2

 
GAME 2
Pandora vs aSonnia (Matt Ledgerwood) – 35ss Slaughter

I made several silly mistakes in this game, starting as early as crew selection, where even though I had a feeling I’d be facing Sonnia, I steadfastly stuck with Pandora (and hired some handy blast-able Sorrows to boot!). Tuco took out a Witchling early on, but ended up getting turned into a Witchling himself who then provided a handy target to bounce further blast markers onto Pandora. When Sonnia fulfilled her manifest requirements (in a single turn!), I realised how much of a hard counter to Pandora she is, and I lost my Master by Turn 4 after getting chased around a bit by some Flame Pyre markers. On the other flank, Lelu & Lilitu were gunned down by two Austringers and several Death Marshalls before they even made contact, despite a terrain heavy board. This will be the last time I underestimate a gun-line crew. Matt played excellently though, and I look forward to another run-in at future events.
Score: Loss 8-0

 
GAME 3
aPandora vs Pandora (Rich Baker) – 40ss Claim Jump

Mirror matches are always interesting to play, because often they mean that your Master’s main advantages are perfectly countered by your opponent. They usually make for very cagey games as nobody wants to make the first move and leave themselves exposed. In the case of Pandora, their competing aura’s meant that even casting Pacify with Pandora was risky, as at the end of the duel *somebody* would be losing a Wd, and it might be you! Rich brought several models that I rarely use myself, including Teddy and Iggy, and both crews pretty much demolished each other piece for piece until there were few survivors left to contest the Claim. Luckily, I’d brought the Avatar of Insanity which comes paired with Candy, an extra significant model, who swung the model count in my favour in the final VP tally.
Score: Win 6-4

GAME 4
Pandora/Collodi vs Zoraida/Collodi (Ade Mills) – 30ss Destroy the Evidence

Another mirror match of sorts – we both chose Collodi and we both chose the same schemes! Neither of us wanted to commit Collodi to capturing objectives too early, as it would open that player up to a hefty retaliation. Ade’s Collodi pounced on my Tuco who was guarding an evidence marker and wiped him from the board, but that allowed Pandora to strike and kill a couple of the Marionettes, hampering his further movement. I kept Pandora back to deal with Collodi (although in my enthusiasm to chase him down I forgot to stand her on an evidence marker which he snagged in the last turn for 2VPs! D’oh!), and sent the rest of my crew forward to try and score Breakthrough. Unluckily for me, Zoraida managed some impressive casting of Repulsive in the final turn which meant that I was forced out of her deployment zone, and with the final cast of the game Ade clinched a narrow victory.
Score: Loss 6-5

 
GAME 5
aPandora vs Seamus (Wesley Decloedt) – 40ss Recon

It was nice to get another game against another person I’d not met before – Wesley had come from Belgium to attend the tournament. Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding of the terrain rules for woods, his mis-deployed his crew behind a large wood (thinking he could step into the back of the wood and cast Lure through 8 inches of trees, as I believe you can in Warhammer 40K) and it hampered his movement, forcing him to come at me in two waves. Seamus over-extended himself, and got sent packing by Pandora and Lelu, but a timely Copycat Killer swap saved him from dying early. Having placed Kill Protégé on Tuco, Wesley spent most of the game trying to Lure him closer, only for him to Regenerate and run away again every activation. I think Wesley expended a little too much effort trying to nail down Tuco (who eventually fell in Turn 6), but by that point I had spread out enough to claim more quarters than his survivors. Once again, the last minute extra significant model of Avatar Candy came in very useful for an area capture game.
Score: Win 5-3

My final result was therefore 2-0-3, with 6TP and -10VPD, putting me in 40th position out of 54 players. I have to say I was disappointed with my placing, but the score reflects my performance on the day. Too many silly and preventable mistakes!

My game performance aside, it was an excellent weekend, packed full of fun - I got to play Malifaux against a few new people, the extra-curricular activities put on by Jo were top-notch. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the GT2013 to anybody with a weekend to spare!

I should also mention that I was pleased but surprised to win the fancy dress competition against some excellent costumes. Thanks to everyone that shouted loudly for me! It just goes to show that when it comes to fancy dress, having a brilliantly made and accurate costume isnt as important as making yourself look as ridiculous as possible!

074 - Kickstart-onomics

As I write this there are only 8 hours left for Wyrd's kickstarter for their in-development roleplaying game Through the Breach.

I've been on the fence about whether or not to pledge since the project launched at the start of December. The initial rewards were less than overwhelming, and I think overall feeling towards the project in the Malifaux community was lukewarm, but Wyrd have done a pretty good job of adapting, and the last few weeks have seen additional rewards added to all tiers, and a couple of extra stretch goals.

In short, it's a bit more tempting than it was before!

Here's a look at what swag you can get your hands on at each pledge level, roughly converting the dollars into proper money:

£50
2 Softback rulebooks
Fate Deck
Santana Ortega

£100
+ 4 sprues of character models (each will build 3-5 minis)
+ Limited Edition Freikorps model
+ Screen & Character Sheets
+ Hanging Tree boxed set (possibly)

£170
+ Fate Deck
+ Wicked Doll Plushie
+ Hardback double rulebook
+ Hanging Tree

I'd ruled out pledging at the top level from the start - there just isn't enough in there for it to appeal. I'm not interested in the doll, and I don't need additional rulebooks.

The jump from £50 to £100 is interesting though, as you get a fair few extra miniatures. However I still didn't think it worth pledging, for me at this level, because of one of the main extras is a limited edition model that I probably never use.

That changed last week though when a friend agreed to contribute towards the kickstarter if he could have the Freikorps model and one of the plastic sprues. That makes the rest of the stuff in the 2nd tier much more reasonably priced indeed, and as a result I've pledged at that level.

I'm also confident that I'll be able to sell on Santana who, whole being a lovely model and all, is nevertheless unlikely to grace my table if I kept her (I already have Santiago anyway!). She won't be worth as much as she was pre-kickstarter, as the market will be much more saturated come September, but she'll surely be worth at least as much as the other Miss models.

I'm not a roleplayer currently, but I'm willing to give the game itself a try, and even if I only play it a couple of times, the books will be packed full of new fluff, art, and information about the Malifaux world. When you consider they'll probably retail for £45 for the pair, adding another £20 on top in order to get a Fate Deck, a pile of sprues, a possible Hanging Tree, and a Miss Terious (because I pledged $1 early on) isn't unreasonable at all.

It's not the *mountain* of goodies often associated with gaming kickstarters, but it comes in at below retail price if you sell on the limited editions, which surely can't be a bad thing. And on that basis, you have only 8 hours to get involved yourself!

Mike