First game of Malifaux

It's been a long time coming. Many years, in fact. I've been intrigued by Malifaux, yet never enough to actually start. There have been no players or no enthusiasm or I've felt other miniature games take too much time from already lessened pool of hobby hours.

But somehow I got tricked into trying.

So I tried.

Resurrectionists looked like a faction I'd enjoy. Unfortunately opponent had already taken the starter box I'd have liked most, so I picked the one that seemed next interesting. I ended up with Seamus and his Redchapel Shadows.

Lucky that I did. Because to me it looked like McMourning played with a tight group of survivable models. Seamus, on the other hand, seemed to be more into absurd movement shenanigans. At least Copycat Killer and Bete Noire gave me such an impression.

We decided beforehand to play Reckoning strategy to keep things as simple as possible. We also decided schemes in advance from randomized group of five.

My team was:
Seamus + Copycat Killer
Rotten Belle
Bete Noire
Madame Sybelle
Mourner

1 soulstone
Schemes: Breakthrough, Search the Ruins

Dr. McMourning + Zombie Chihuahua
Sebastian
Guild Autopsy
Flesh Construct
Nurse

4 soulstones
Schemes: Dig Their Graves, Claim Jump (Flesh Construct)

First round didn't see much action - Seamus tried to take a shot at McMourning but failed miserably, and Flesh Construct attempted to come and score Claim Jump, which didn't happen because of first turn.

Second turn things started happening. Bete Noire was fighting with Flesh Construct, and Mourner took away Ruthless from the construct. Turns out the weeping of this widow is enough to soften the rotten heart of a necrotic construct.

Dr. McMourning charges Madame Sybelle, which opponent mistook for Seamus. Madame used my only soulstone to prevent damage, and managed to survive the onslaught with seven health points remaining.

Then I piled up on McMourning, and damn this doctor was next to impossible to pin down.

I didn't count the damage I dealt, but I think the total combined would have killed Doctor McMourning twice over.

Let's see. The doctor took full wrath of Madame Sybelle twice, Rotten Belle twice, Mourner once, Copycat Killer once and Seamus twice. And even when Seamus took a successful attack with flintlock pistol against McMourning when he had three health remaining (meaning even weak damage would kill him), black joker came up. This might skew my perception on how difficult it is to kill master models.

But finally Seamus deals with the doctor charging in with bag of tools. Truly this was Cause for Celebration which prompted another flintlock attack that dropped Guild Autopsy with one hit.

Bete Noire was a model I enjoyed a lot. She didn't do much damage, but on the other hand she was against Flesh Construct with a hefty stack of poison, so I don't know what should I have expected. Mourner was my first model to go down, so suddenly it was quite a bit more dangerous to stand next to Flesh Construct. However, once models started dying, it opened up options for Bete Noire to get buried and then spring back into action right away.

I suppose that's how I like my specialists. Doing all sorts of fancy stuff, but eventually having negligible presence in game...

Well, except that she was key model in bringing victory for Seamus. There was some confusion in how we resolved winner - there were quite a few ifs and buts, mostly because we realized a bit too late that Zombie Chihuahua just didn't have what it takes to dig up a scheme marker. But speculating last turn did give Seamus a victory with one victory point.

Copycat Killer was an amazing model that enabled Seamus to act as a serious damage dealer exactly where needed as well as putting up scheme markers for Search the Ruins and Breakthrough.