Its new and scary

I had two games of Warmachine with the most recent rules update, both with Brawlmachine format.

Lists were same in both games. My list:

Master Necrotech Mortenebra [+28]
 - Malice [13]
 - Ripjaw [6]
- Slayer [10]
Bloat Thrall [2]
Misery Cage [2]
Pistol Wraith [4]
Soulhunters (max) [16]

Opponent had:

Cygnar

Major Beth Maddox [+30]

 - Charger [9]

 - Defender [14]

 - Firefly [7]

Arcane Tempest Rifleman [3]

Black 13th Strike Force [7]

Stormguard Infantry (max) [15]

Scenario was Syzygy. 

Both games played out very similarly. Cryx scored their flag twice, Malice broke enemy objective and either middle zone or flag was scored third time again. Cygnar wasn't able to contest Cryx flag reliably while Soulhunters contested Cygnar flag.

I kind of wonder if Syzygy is a functioning scenario. It seems to boil down to "who can contest enemy flag longest", where ultra fast difficult-to-remove units naturally have advantage. Maybe Soulhunters were a "hard counter" for the entire scenario. But that's not all.

Had we played with the old rules, my list would have been a whopping 12 points less, while opponent would have played only 5 points down. That was seven "extra" points for me, which is a crazy number for this point size. Well, time will tell if the point cost adjustments were spot on but it certainly felt like cheating in these games.

Martyrs, martyrs everywhere

 A 50 soul stone game of Malifaux.

Turf War with Flank deployment. Scheme pool: Vendetta, Claim Jump, Hidden Martyrs, Let Them Bleed, Research Mission

My list was:

Seamus & Copycat Killer
Madame Sybelle
Grave Golem
Dead Doxy (Vendetta on Obsidian Oni)
Mourner with Grave Spirit Touch (Martyr)
Rotten Belle (Martyr)
Gravedigger

Pool: 6
Schemes: Hidden Martyrs, Vendetta

Opponent had:

Asami Tanaka & Amanjaku
Ama No Zako
Shadow Emissary
2x Yokai (Hidden martyrs)
Obsidian Oni
Akaname (Claim Jump)

Pool: 7
Schemes: Hidden Martyrs, Claim Jump

Turn 1:

Ten Thunders brought their both scary models on high vantage points. Obsidian Oni and Yokai near the middle, and one additional Obsidian Oni is summoned by Asami as a hand grenade. It sets up Dead Doxy, Grave Golem and Mourner on fire. Akaname interacts with closest marker to Ten Thunders. The second Yokai speeds up to charge Rotten Belle that had arrived in base contact with strategy marker on the bottom left. Amanjaku follows Yokai around. 

Gravedigger and Mourner both do Blasphemous Rituals, and hand out focus +2 to both Grave Golem and Madame Sybelle. Resurrectionists had made a nice little blob of three models in the middle. Grave Golem tried to look menacing and distract-ey, while Dead Doxy was aiming to get a strike at her vendetta target.

Gravedigger interacted with my closest strategy marker. Copycat Killer and Seamus do their movement shenanigans and interact with top-right strategy marker. Then Seamus thought it would be a good idea to draw the attention of Shadow Emissary by taking a random weak damage shot at it.

Turn 2:

Resurrectionists gain initiative, and first to activate is Madame Sybelle who goes to take a swing at Obsidian Oni. I had overestimated their durability, and she hit the thing for five points of damage in. That meant Dead Doxy might ruin my Vendetta with a moderate damage as Obsidian Oni had two health remaining. This was especially worrisome, as my lowest card in hand was 6. However, Doxy scores only weak damage and scores Vendetta.

Loud bang of the flintlock had indeed aroused the ire of Shadow Emissary. When the mauling ceased, Seamus was at around half of his health remaining, plus me having three stones less. Time to escape! Copycat Killer took a random shot at Yokai that did some damage in. Then he switched places with Seamus. 

And that's when Ama No Zako charged to my master. Great. What's even better - after the Ten Thunders henchman had activated, I had zero soul stones left and Seamus was down to one wound remaining. And that was only because Hard-to-Kill.

Seamus Terrorizes Ama No Zako away from him and heals a bit. Then he takes a shot at Yokai engaging Rotten Belle, killing the oni. 

Obsidian Oni takes a swing at at Dead Doxy and she dies. But it's notthe exotic axe/maul/mace-thingy that had hit her, oh no. It was the horrible stench caused by Akaname. Doxy was at two health remaining, burning, and then poisoned.

Asami summons Katashiro, which flaps furiously at Madame Sybelle.

Grave Golem interacts with marker in middle and tries to attack Yokai. Rotten Belle interacts with marker on bottom-left.

Then it's end of turn. Both players score strategy, and opponent reveals Hidden Martyrs on Yokai. I had done my Vendetta earlier, so scores go 2-2.

Turn 3:

Ten Thunders win the initiative. It's beyond me why opponent picked Ama No Zako to activate first. I mean... there was this 12" teleporting, four action point, Def 4 master two weak hits from being dead, and Ama No Zako had essentially 3 action points and stat 6 melee attack. It's beyond me.

Yeah. I lost my master turn 3 before he got to activate.

At least Shadow Emissary fails to kill Copycat Killer thanks to an untimely Black Joker.

Grave Golem kills the remaining Hidden Martyr Yokai.

Madame Sybelle removes the vendetta Obsidian Oni and Katashiro. Then Akaname, and a summoned Jorogume pile in on the undead lady in leather. Akaname would have only needed to land one weak damage on Sybelle for her to die to its stench, but in the end Sybelle was left alive with three health, burning and poisoned.

Mourner takes a couple lucky Feed on Griefs on Akaname, killing it.

Rotten Belle interacts with strategy marker on the bottom-left and charges Ama No Zako, failing right at the Terrifying check.

Resurrectionists score strategy, taking the lead at 3-2.

However, opponent concedes. After all, Ten Thunders had lost all key models for schemes and was behind in points, and likely to kill Rotten Belle.

Where's Vesna?

 Rise of Fenris campaign of Scythe continues with not one, but two episodes. 

Last time around the empires of Europa chose to follow a path of strenuous peace. 

Episode 2 had Innovative Nordic Empire, Industrial Togawa, Agricultural Rusviet and Mechanical Saxons on the board. 

Nordics and Rusviet were the first to forge an alliance, soon followed by Togawa and Saxons. 

My Nordic Empire got a speedy start at least in terms of stars required for victory. I scored my first secret objective on the second round, and continued to churn out those stars from encounters, arriving at the factory et cetera. You know, the peaceful stuff. We were on the path of peace.

However, my second secret objective (control 3 tunnel spaces) didn't turn out so well as my forces were continuously either kicked off those tunnels by Saxons, or opponents had too strong occupying forces on them for me to challenge them or there were some wild cards in form of Togawa traps.

Because of this completely unjustified aggression, my progression and development was undermined. Both Togawa and Saxony controlled huge territories, and Rusviet, well, Rusviet controlled territories. 

Figuring I wouldn't be able to get a victory in this geopolitical climate, I decided to end the game and at least cut opponents' points short of their potential maximum.

Scoreboard was:

Industrial Togawa 72 points (purchased infrastructure mods: Spy, Automachines)
Innovative Nordic 57 points (purchased infrastructure mods: Recruitment Office, Machinery, Assembly Line)
Agricultural Rusviet 57 points (purchased infrastructure mods: Assembly Line, Recruitment Office)
Mechanical Saxony 44 points (purchased infrastructure mods: Cavalry, Machinery)

Episode 3

Second game we had Mechanical Nordic, Industrial Togawa, Patriotic Rusviet and Innovative Saxony. Objective was to find Vesna from factory.

I can't boast with having loads of experience on Scythe, but still I dare say this game was absurd.

Although my Nordics got a decent start thanks to my infrastructure mods, it was nothing compared to Saxony in this game. Those dungeon dwellers were spewing out stars to the score board like they were the Big Bang themselves. Within, like, first six rounds they had brought five of their six required victory stars. Three from secret objectives, one from mechs and one from won battles. 

That formed a sort of a protective shield around Saxony - no-one would dare to attack him, unless losing was impossible as that would have ended game prematurely had Saxoniy won. Saxony as well stomped hard on Togawas, which was important since they had already won two of the campaign episodes.

So, Saxony ends up farming the factory for Vesna with reckless abandon. He gets, what, five influence tokens, while other players got zero. 

After Vesna had been found, they just ended game with a random easy victory. 

In the end, Saxony turns into Vesna faction. Rusviet decided to change their faction to Albion.

Scenario is won by Nordic Empire thanks to tiebreaker.

Scores:

Mechanical Nordic 51 points (purchases Construction infrastructure mod)
Patriotic Rusviet 51 points (forgot to ask about infrastructure mods)
Innovative Saxony 47 points (forgot to ask about infrastructure mods, +3 starting popularity)
Industrial Togawa 34 points (forgot to ask which two infrastructure mods were purchased)