Charged Walk

A 50 soul stone game of Malifaux.

My list:

Molly + Necrotic Construct
Philip & Nanny with Grave Spirit Touch (Claim Jump)
2x Rabble Riser with Killer Instinct
Crooligan
Mourner
Gravedigger
Dead Dandy

Soulstone Pool: 2

Schemes: Claim Jump, Detonate Charges

Opponent had:

Asami Tanaka + Amanjaku
Shadow Emissary
2x Obsidian Oni
Jorogumo
2x Akaname

Soulstone pool: 9

Schemes: Deliver a message, Dig their graves.

Turns 1-2

Strategy was Turf War with Flank deployment.

In other games it feels like players had started much closer to each other, but less so in this deployment. Of course I messed my deployment - I had made a nice blob of resurrectionists to get focused for nearly all of my models via Blasphemous Ritual, but blocked any meaningful way for Gravedigger's movement. The ritual was performed by Philip instead, but this left quite a few models unaffected.

I had deployed Crooligan to one of the quarters near enemy, but when the Shadow Emissary came around, the Crooligan was kind of spooked. He hadn't the time to turn the turf marker for resurrectionists, thanks to not being able to interact on turn one. Anyway, I got a nasty charge against the Shadow Emissary with a Rabble Riser, who dealt something like eight points of damage. Although Rabble Riser overperformed, I was still surprised how easily even the big models can go down... or so I thought.

Originally my plan was to move ahead with gravedigger, have a corpse, and then have two rabble risers giving me two soulstones with Killer Instinct, but yeah. That only happens if you actually plan your pathing algorithms correctly.

I scored two points on turn two, one from Detonate Charges with movement shenanigans I'm proud of. That involved gravedigger tossing corpse aside, Dead Dandy switching a scheme marker into corpse marker, and Mourner using her Mourn the Dead ability first time in a meaningful way.

Turns 3-5

Crooligan teleported into safety from the clutches of Shadow Emissary - only to be shot to pieces by Obsidian Onis. Tough luck, little one. At least he depleted activations from both onis. I decided to do the same for the Emissary, but both Molly and Mourner managed to bring it only down to one hit point remaining. From three. Hard to Kill is a real ability. It was probably turn four when Mourner finally ate all sorrows from Emissary - who died as a consequence.

Here was a clever way to circumvent Lethe's Caress in action - you declare a move and a charge towards no-one. Coming from three editions of Warmachine, this struck me as really odd. That you can charge without a target.

Dead Dandy was troubled with a summoned Akaname when he wanted to claim a turf from enemy board edge. He did succeed to disengage on turn 4 and do the thing on turn 5, while trying to insult a hideous demon who disgorges all manner of filth and corpses, and then eats them back again. Turns out it's... difficult to insult a creature like that.

One middle board had cleared, Philip and Nanny were able to score Claim Jump.

Molly had been left behind from my other troops, and was immediately harassed by Obsidian Onis, who delivered a message to Molly who had burning +4 by then. Message taken, I guess. Or not. For what, two? turns Molly spent all her actions trying to ask one more question what this message was really about. She managed to have two schemes out from those questions, which I would have wanted to use for End condition of Detonate Charges. But turns out (again) that Molly has no melee range and can be walked by without trouble. The Obsidian Oni she had engaged stood in stoic silence while the dead news reporter was repeating what she did while alive - questions, questions. When the oni cracked off its ear and symbolically threw it to the ground as a scheme marker, opponent scored end condition for Deliver a Message. Perhaps Molly finally understood.

One of those damn monkeys had appeared once more, and this time threw poo over my plans legally - using the flicker teleportation and bonus actions and all the shiny things to kill Gravedigger and claim the middle turf.

Game had been really close fought. I think scores were 2-3 for resurrectionists on turn five. And had opponent activated one Akaname before another, scores would've been 5-5. Necrotic Construct was able to block last point from Ten Thunders, and so it was very narrow victory for resurrectionists.

From all Malifaux games I've played until now, this was probably my favorite. Sure, it's only eight or so. But still amazes me that the games feel fresh and different from each other even with same factions and same masters we have played earlier.