Never Born Killers

Played my third game of Malifaux.

This time it was 50 soul stones, and a hefty increase of 15 stones did lengthen the game quite a bit.

However, my list was:

Seamus + Copycat Killer
Madame Sybelle
Mortimer
Bete Noire
2x Rotten Belle
Mourner with Grave Spirit Touch
Schemes: Breakthrough, Search the Ruins

Opponent had an assortment of Neverborn, which would also have been my second choice as a faction, pfft...

Anyway, opponent had:

Dreamer with Ancient Pact + Lord Chompy Bits with Inhuman Reflexes
Coppelius
Teddy with Inhuman Reflexes
Doppelganger
3x Daydreams
Schemes: Breakthrough, Search the Ruins

Strategy was Plant the Explosives.

I wanted to make a combo with Blasphemous Ritual to get Focused condition to my whole crew. Well, this was nice enough I guess, but it clumped my forces so that I felt like I had a slow start. When I aimed for a fast start.

It wasn't only a feeling, though. Or maybe Neverborn were absurdly fast. I don't know. However the case, they started scoring points right on turn two, both from schemes and strategies. I had to wait for turn three to even get my first point.

I was terrified of Teddy and Lord Chompy Bits. Seamus tried to take a shot against Lord Chompy Bits early in the game but missed. I had hoped to score a lucky kill, but now that I check that monster's stats... Yeah, only severe damage would have done anything useful, as the thing has regeneration. Oh well. Good thing Seamus missed, then.

Most of opponent's forces stormed to my side from east. Doppelganger a was lone approacher from west, or, kind of at least. Next time I know a little better than to summon mindless zombies with willpower of 3 easily within range of bend realities and whatnot.

I got stuck in the middle, and Mortimer nearly died to a charging summoned enemy. Hilariously enough whatever the creature was, it managed to kill itself by using some sort of ability that dealt damage to either my model or back to itself.

Bete Noire tried to do something to Coppelius, but didn't do much. After soaking some enemy attacks, it got buried. This was my plan to get her to enemy side of the board to place the explosives. Woefully late she was.

Seamus climbed up the ruined building, and tried to shoot things from vantage point. He shot a daydream and planted scheme markers. We did measure distance incorrectly, though. Maybe writing this makes me remember it better next time.

I had pretty much given up on my deployment zone. After all, there was only a Rotten Belle and Madame Sybelle holding down Lord Chompy Bits, Dreamer, some summoned beast and Coppelius.

Bete Noire had sprung up from a corpse on opponent's side of the board and managed to score revealed breakthrough after a summoned Alp was killed. As Teddy was nearing in, I thought I'd come and take two flintlock shots at it, when copycat killer switched places with Seamus.

Now, wouldn't that have been grand. Except that something activated and had Bete Noire fail a willpower check and put up one more summoned demon into play. In melee range with Seamus. There went my plan, and I had to waste Cause for Celebration for a melee attack, which did nothing anyway. Seamus then disengaged and... whoops. Placed a scheme marker. Which you cannot do if you have disengaged that activation. Curses.

And Rotten Belle, engaged by a summoned creature, disengaged and picked up Neverborn strategy marker, which she cannot do because she disengaged.

This foils my brilliant move of using Mortimer's ability to move undead models 3" towards target, moving Rotten Belle and then placing a scheme marker with her on opponent's deployment zone.

Well, this didn't cost me a victory. It cost me a draw.

But the game was again very different. Opponent killed one mindless zombie from me, and I killed a daydream, doppelganger and some summoned beasts. Focus was entirely elsewhere than in maximum carnage, which is refreshing in wargames. Regardless of game, if you roll over opposing army it often means you win anyway even if you haven't completed whatever objectives you might have. At least in this scenario, if opponent has scored that one victory point more and you cannot reach to get one or two yourself, you gain nothing even if you wipe off the enemy crew.