50 Soulstone Fixed Faction Action at Spring Showdown 2015
Game 1 Arcanists vs Lilith and the Neverborn
Game 2 Arcanists vs Jacob Lynch and the Ten Thunders
Game 3 Arcanists vs Leviticus and the Filthy Outcasts
Game 4 Arcanists vs The Viktorias of the Outcasts
Game 3 vs Leviticus and the Filthy Outcasts
Two games into Spring Showdown, and I was on one point. But, somehow, I still appeared to be playing someone who knew what they were doing - my master plan of sliding down to the bottom of the pond was crumbling to dust! In keeping with the other two games, this matchup was against another new Master - Leviticus. I know nothing at all about him, so I picked the crew that I'd not yet used, Marcus and the Beasts.
This wasn't entirely random - the main Strategy was Squatters Rights, in which you need to fight over some markers along the middle line of the table - and I had played with Marcus in the same strategy before, using the Waldgeist to sit on top of some markers and prevent the enemy interacting with them, and a very over-hyped Cojo to just do his monkey business and push everyone else off of the markers too. This had been fun - so hopefully I could repeat it in competition.
There is lot's more of this stuff on my Malifaux pages
Kong vs Godzilla - the Spanish-language Rap Battle!
(why wouldn't you..?)
My crew contained almost the textbook selection of models, no Silurids because I don't yet own them, and probably the wrong upgrades.
My 50SS Game 3 List
The table was a drunken child's bedroom floor (that's not a model in Malifaux, just a description) with regular blocks, and even some books blended into the terrain. The key feature was a river that me and my opponent agreed should count as Difficult terrain, and which ran diagonally across the board - and with Corner deployment, pretty much all of the markers we would be fighting over would be sat in the river. Nasty. Cojo and his boys (and girls this time) ambled up, wondering what Leviticus would be able to do to them...
The scheme pool here was Squatters Rights, Protect Territory, Deliver a Message, Murder Protoge and Distract - with Squatters Rights likely to drag stuff into the middle, and a hard-to-cross river on table I had added Distract and Protect Territory to the hand.
Turf War - 5 markers on center line. (1) interact to claim (or steal/claim) when in base contact. 1VP/turn for 2 or more claimed.
Protect Territory - 1VP per scheme marker 6" from own deployment with non-outnumbered friendly model in 2". +1 if revealed and 2 scored
Distract - (1) interact to give enemy distract, can be removed with (2) interact, 1 VP for each turn with 2 enemies with Distract
The blocky terrain was giving some cover from the enemy Super-sniper Hans, who had been deployed on top of one of the blocks - but the box-fresh newly made Waldgeist bamboo rapid growing obscuring terrain pieces were soon out on table as well - partly to obscure the Germanic master-sniper from getting in an easy shot, but mainly to embarass the chap from Game 1 into upgrading his collection of blank circle crazy-voodoo-forest markers by buying his own Bamboo Trees from China via the eBay shop on at the other end of link. Mwahahaah!
The sneaky Outcasts were racing across the table like lightning - something nasty had already started leaping across the river in the top corner and was about to take control of a marker when the second Waldgeist comedy forest sprung into action to try and slow it down. I had Myranda and a Waldgeist heading north too, and various creatures inching cautiously to the middle of the board taking heavy fire from the rather ridiculous Leviticus and his ability to gain multiple positive flips by taking wounds to kill himself, after which he would then kill my models, and then he would regenerate at the end of the turn bu feasting on the corpse of one of his (I think free..?) own models. Nice. And that was before super-pot-shot Hans joined in as well... Perhaps this idea of agreeing that the river in the middle of the table was difficult not entirely going to work in my favour.
Malifaux Hint - Levi does this odd thing in which he trades his own wounds for increased firepower each turn. This can / does kill him (yoiks!) but at the end of the turn he can ressurect himself in exchange for an otherwise rather rubbish Hollow Waif model. Incomprehensible I know, but if you do play a game with undead gothic punk zombie ninja cowboys, what do you expect?
Hans and Levi are a deadly combination, and Cojo discovered this to his cost, being one-shotted off the table ... the strategy I had to take control over the middle of the board was now not merely in tatters, it was basically - like Cojo - back in the box. My great theory of slowing down the enemy and pushing them away faster than they could advance (a "push" - which Cojo is good at - moves a model in a way which ignores terrain effects) had been unhinged by their abillity to kill me from a distance, and with nothing in my crew which could really leap across the table and engage the thousands of Hollow Waifs that Levis was burning up to do his deadly shooting I had already realised that I had picked the wrong models to do much more than lose ungracefully
I seemed to be losing a model a turn to the deadly fire from the other side of the river - this soon started to eat into my ability to actually contest the markers, which increased further as the well-read eneky started sitting on them. By now I had totally forgotten my other two schemes and was only concentrating on retaining enough models to at least try and get hold of some of the Squatters Rights markers - although in a flash of revelation the otherwise pointless Arcane Effigy handed over a Distract to some woman in tight trousers on the opposing team
By now Myranda had turned into the Cerberus and was leaping around trying to clear up enemy markers, and her accompanying Waldgeist found itself in the rather odd position o having to try and kill something to get it off a marker - not with any great success, as each turn most of my good cards were being burnt in fending off attacks from Levi and Hans.
Levi's crew were running riot, with total freedom to crap markers all over the table in the absence of any opposition from my mostly dead crew.
The Result was a crushing and demoralising defeat - 3-9.
Post Match Summary from Marcus
In this game I was looking for the bare necessities, just some simple bare necessities - but Levi's shooting filled my world with worries and your strife which I was unable to forget. I did start off with a plan and looked at how Old Mother Nature's recipe for a slow-flowing river might affect the game, but Levi and Hans just took away the bare necessities of victory, which for me involve having at least some of my creatures still full of life
Normally, wherever Cojo wanders, and wherever I roam, neither of us couldn't be fonder of our home in the wilderness - which let me tell you is a very big home. But today in this odd landscape the bullets and magic spells (sorry, "casting") was buzzin' in the trees like bees, and they were making honey just for the enemy. I tried to hide behind the rocks and plants, but everywhere I looked there seemed to be these fancy-ant enemy pieces with ridiculous abilities - I can't even remember if they tried a few, or all of them, but they were all deadly. The bare necessities of victory did definately not come to me.
Normally, when you pick a pawpaw or a prickly pear you might sometimes prick a raw paw... but here it was a world of nasty spikes. So, next time I play against Levi I will beware. I won't try and start focusing on the schemes until I have picked the prickly pear that is the Hollow Waifs, and in picking them I will try to use the three claws of some fast moving Cerberuses or other horrible things.
After all, if a crew of beasts can't find a way to use the claw when we are picking a scheme that has a juicy pear of potential for Levi to out-shoot us, we will end up as the rotten filling of a big pawpaw.
Now I'm the king of the mechanical attendant generating evil masterplan world-dominators, and you my friend might well be somewhat of a jungle VIP. But here I think you appear to have reached the top of your ability (admittedly at very low altitude) and the enemy forced you into a painful and sudden stop. But you know what's botherin' me?
If you wanna be a game-winning man, mancub, and stroll right into downtown just like the other highly regarded Masters you need to stop monkeyin' around!
Oh, oobee doo, you need to try and remember the schemes AND the strategies too-oo-oo. There are always three ways to score points that's true-oo-oo> If you can't remember that your results will be a pile of poo-oo-oo.
You'll see it's true, that if a genius like me can work out that you forgot to drop any of your markers for Protect Territory until really late in the game, and you avoided mentioning in the text that you gave Distract to a model that was sat on a Strat Marker which you then had to subsequently kill, I think that you are a long way from learning some of the basic life skills needed to be classed as human too.
Game 1 vs The Viktorias of the Outcasts
Viktoria - yet another new Master for me.
The scheme pool here was Reconnoitre, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Plant Explosives, Outflank. I chose Bodyguard (on Johan, as he sits at the back normally) and Line in the Sand (as I'd need to drop markers near the middle anyway)
Reconnoitre - 1 VP each turn for controlling 2 or more quarters. Control is having most non-peon models per table quarter. Cannot be within 6" of the centre spot.
Bodyguard - Henchmen/Enforcer. Reveal anytime, 1 VP if alive and +8" from own deployment zone from T4 onwards, +1 if alive by end of game with half wounds
Line in the sand - 2VP for 4 markers on centreline. +1 if revealed and 2+ markers down
With no real idea what the enemy models might be able to do, I had picked Line in the Sand so a gang of hard-as-nails enforcers could just sneak over the half way line and drop some scheme markers, and probably deny someone taking the ever-popular Assassinate. I had also picked Ramos, mostly as I was pretty sure I'd done a bad job of getting the most out of him in the previous game and part of the weekend was about learning him. The ability to generate models would also be a great bonus in Reconnoitre - in theory. I had dropped the Brass Arachnid, on the basis that it had done nothing really in the first game (not enough Tomes in a Ramos crew where Ramos needs them too) to make it's reactivate work that often, and boosted up the big hitters
My 50SS Game 2 List
The Outcasts were a gang of ladies who were teed up against my gang of blokes, and also a few sneaky models who were starting pretty much on the half way line. This chap was some sort of sniper, but with my small number of fairly tough models he really struggled to find any targets early on in the game.
The over-excited Howard was keen as mustard in the game, and raced forwards to drop some markers. This apparently unwise move put him within Magic Cheating Range of the Viktorias, allowing them to unlease an ability which meant every lady on the table was able to be picked up and then placed in base contact with the 4-legged Spider man for free, and then immediately unload a full set of APs on attacking the already-moved mechanical monster (and because the movement into combat was not, erm, a "move" they also avoided the usual Horror Duel that anyone moving into attack Howard has to face)
Ouch! The 12-wound model was suddenly exchanged for a scrap marker under a flurry of ladyshave blade action. Big Dutch Johan and a Metal Gamin wondered if they perhaps were a little too close to the Moulinex mixer that was the Viktoria and her girlfriends...
The Ladies who Slice removed the Gamin next - another bonus for Ramos and his spider factory, but not that great for my plan to win the game.
And, why would you not include this.....
This was now an ideal time for Joss to step in, swing the big axe and take the sisterhood down a peg or two. But with so many targets the big boy had only enough swings to down one of the girls before they moved again - they left him battered, bruised... but on one wound he reactivated and had another turn! The sisters had indeed bitten off more than they could chew and the two big lads inched away from the carnage, mindful of the need to keep Johan alive to the end of the game
A veritable posse of lady action then threw itself at Ramos. After checking his aftershave and realising that eau d'engine oil might not be having these aphrodisiac properties, the Spider Engine remembered that Assassinate was right there in the pool.... and so the spider engine was cranked up full speed to try and throw as many small models at the whirlwind of femininity as was inhumanly possible. Even the almost impossible to assemble and even more difficult to store Electrical Creation was pressed into action as a damaging offensive model rather than some easy scrap!
A great result from the boy Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrramos...!
With two markers down I was now scoring... and having beaten off the enemy attack on Ramos by the skin of his metal teeth there was however little in the way of models left to try and achieve superiority in the quadrants of the table this late in the game. Protecting the points I already had took equal preference along with trying to kill something in a game that was going badly wrong
Joss therefore decided to try and take the fight to the enemy and waded forwards. But, with time running out this was not really going to achieve much more.
The Result is another big loss for the Arcanists with some Line in the Sand points not making up for a loss on the other schemes and strats .
Post Match Summary from Ramos
When one voice rules the nation Just because she's got a gang of sword-play-obsessed sisters with her, doesn't always mean her interactions are the most obvious. But when the spiders and the robots are falling on the floor, all our plans and schemes become redundant. They must declare their triggers, but only when they attack, so is there more to a game of Malifaux than pre-planned combos and a deck ?
And the best of all my bad bunch were struggling to score some points above the sound of longswords clashing. On my side the patient minions who I conjured into life expect to run some schemes, drop some markers, play with axes. But without knowing the enemy playbooks, they soon end up in hospital, and in pieces on the bloody ground, and all I had left was two old men swinging axes (and a Relic Hammer)
I planned my schemes and strategies on the things they can rely - lots of Tomes, lots of Stones secret handsigns and the old 3-spider shuffle. For this godless Breach-stained country all things I can justify, above the sound of swords and axes clashing.
Hannibal's Post Event Analysis
Well, what a sobering event that was. After your lucky success in Bristol you were dragged down to the bottom of this table with some speed. If you planned to play 4 new opponents you sort of achieved it, but 'play' may be too generous a description, and in some of the games you were little more than a hinderance to a couple of hours that would have been more fun spent trying to discover nutritional value in the food served at the venue.
In retrospect pretty much all the players spent time pre-planning their lists just as soon as they got the scheme pool at the start of the day, whereas your 'pull it together when you know your opponent and table plan' was just plain hopeless. As a new player you would have benefitted greatly from having the schemes and strats announced in advance, as then you would have been able to formulate a plan and also would havve given your opponents a more enjoyable game rather than the painful to watch incoherent shambles it often turned out to be. This is an interesting topic however, and I have initiated a discussion on the Malifaux Forum about it, which everyone is invited to contribute to
My hearty recommendation would be to invest pre event time in developing a set of lists for each Master that can undertake the key Strategies (the big ones?), and then widening that set of lists to inclue a small, tough killy variant and a numerous fast variant, as those seem to be the main two types of game that get played.
You also failed to realise that there was a painting competition during the horriffic lunch break - even though your stuff is nothing special, it was worth a punt, so as usual, PAY ATTENTION, HAVE A PLAN, and PREPARE!!!!
That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
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Game 1 Arcanists vs Lilith and the Neverborn
Game 2 Arcanists vs Jacob Lynch and the Ten Thunders
Game 3 Arcanists vs Leviticus and the Filthy Outcasts
Game 4 Arcanists vs The Viktorias of the Outcasts
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