Guilty Dreams

 A Christmas game of Malifaux with 50 soul stones. Without pictures this time, because a) horrifying proxy terrain, b) 75% unpainted models, c) 40% unassembled models and d) no camera.

Standard deployment Break the Line.
Scheme pool: Bait & Switch, Research Mission, Let Them Bleed, Hidden Martyrs, Outflank.

My list:

Jack Daw (outcast) & Ligeia
Montresor
2x Guilty (one of them was martyr)
Hanged with Servant of Dark power (martyr)
Drowned
Prospector

Pool: 2
Schemes: Bait & Switch (Guardian), Hidden Martyrs

Opponent:

Hoffman & Attendant
Melissa K.O.R.E
Guardian
3x Hunter
Riotbreaker

Pool: 2
Schemes: Let Them Bleed, Research Mission

Turn 1:

I have Prospector far on the right, trying to sneak to one strategy marker. A little closer to middle are Hanged, Guilty and Montresor. In the middle of board is Jack Daw, Lady Ligeia and Drowned. Guilty and Johan Creedy are handling the left.

A big blob of Hoffman, Guardian, Mechanical Attendant and Hunter approach from the middle. Left has just one Hunter, and a little on the right we have last Hunter and Riotbreaker, plus Melissa far right.

I try to bring Jack Daw to give Guardian an upgrade, but fails to deliver. Hanged does better job, and middle Hunter received Forbidden Knowledge, while interacting with a strategy marker after Montresor stared it to walk twice.

Turn 2:

On the left Guilty activates first and interacts with strategy marker, charging Hunter afterwards. Jack Daw gives upgrades to Guardian and Mechanical Attendant. 

Hoffman charges Hanged, Guardian and Hunter mauls Jack Daw, and Mechanical Attendant tries to shoot Lady Ligeia. Terrifying, -1 willpower from Jack and Lady Ligeia's betrayal ruin Guild's capability to deal damage in the middle. And I had been a little worried about the safety of Jack on turn 1...

Prospector interacts with marker. Hunter on right deals moderate damage to Guilty with two negatives, but this happened to be to my advantage. Last attack by Hunter I won, but cheated to fail - minimum damage killed my guilty martyr.

And right next Montresor comes to execute the Hunter, bringing me a more or less fresh Guilty on board.

Last, Johan Creedy Red Jokers the Hunter on left dead. 

Situation was grim for Guild, when points went 2-0 for Resurrectionists.

Turn 3:

After Jack Daw executed Guardian, Hunter and Mechanical Attendant, we called the game done.

So, yeah... it was a brutal match-up for Hoffman. Maybe even one of the worst match-ups available in Malifaux? I do not know, but for certain I feel a little...

... Guilty.

End of a chapter

I was visiting family and friends back in Kuhmo, and there we had an "epic" conclusion to our Touch of Evil campaign.

 It's been seven and a half years since the campaign began. 

Our mission was to fight and win every villain there is - from all the expansion as well as the web exclusives. If heroes died in showdowns, they were out for the rest of the campaign.

So, Shadow Witch it was with our last remaining heroes, Abigail the occultist and Captain Hawkins.

And then, after two turns Shadow Track was already almost half gone. Way to end a seven year campaign. Or?

Once more elders were dying left and right, spawning Spectres as they went. Situation would have been hopeless if it wasn't for the loyal militia of Captain Hawkins. Many a lives were lost... but at least Spectres disappeared as fast as they emerged.

Heroes also seemed to figure out themselves how to "game" Shadow Witch. Subsequent two draws from mystery deck were Traitor's Blood, which has a hero kill off an elder. I guess it went something like "You can't believe how sorry I am, but this is for the best for the community."

Soon enough there were only two elders left that had highest honor, so that was a lot of pressure off from the shoulder of heroes.

Once Captain got the militia engine running, and Abigail got Sacred Chalice, Shadow Track stopped in its... well, tracks. It was as if heroes had some hope. Captain even managed to buy musket and silver bullets. 

It wasn't all fun and games, though, because constant struggling against the odds kept heroes away from securing clues against the final showdown.

Which soon had to happen. When Sacred Chalice emptied, Shadow Track was at it again.

Heroes barely got to start the showdown. Shadow track was at one.

Strangely enough, Captain Hawkins blows half of Shadow Witch's wounds away with first attack - and survived the 13 or so fight dice attack. Abigail scored no wounds, but was saved by Hawkins with Honorable Gesture.

Then Captain shoots the villain down to one wound remaining, but was KO'd after his feat. Just one wound, Abigal, please! She was able to do five dices worth of attacks, none of which was a 5+.

Next something miraculous happened. Shadow Witch failed to KO Abigail, so she still had the chance to make this a victory. But that needed a 5+ on two dice.

...

Throughout the showdown, Abigail had made 10 dice worth of attacks. None of which was a 5+.

Maybe Abigail was the Shadow Witch all along...

Thus ended the Touch of Evil campaign.

Fine Art of Deployment

 Had a 50ss game of Malifaux. Here I have almost no pictures since my earlier camera broke and I needed to use manual settings on an unfamiliar SLR camera. I really do hope that new micro-SD memory card fixes the previous camera... because...

Anyway, the game.

Strategy: Break the Line with Wedge deployment

Schemes: Assassinate, Claim Jump, Outflank, Breakthrough, Vendetta

My list:

Molly & Necrotic Machine
Philip & Nanny
Forgotten Marshal with The Whisper
Hanged with Grave Spirit Touch
2x Crooligans
Night Terror
Rabble Riser

Pool:3
Schemes: Outflank, Breakthrough

Opponent:

Asami & Amanjaku
Ama No Zako
Fuhatsu
Lone Swordsman
Samurai with Trained Ninja (Claim Jump)
Akaname

Pool: 8
Schemes: Assassinate, Claim Jump

Turn 1:

As a fun fact, we had to flip for initiative four times because of even results. 

I was the defending player, so I placed my strategy markers on the furthest points of the middle line, right next to table edge. Along with Crooligans. Another two markers were in the middle where you'd expect.

Well then... there was this Obsidian grenade launcher called Asami on the other side of the Wedge deployment zone. With essentially three gatling gun attacks. 

So maybe I'll deploy as a hugeish blob in the middle of the board? What could possibly go wrong?

Looking back, I should have scrapped the idea of contesting middle of the board completely, and focused on the edges. But that's not what I did, and as a result Rabble Riser was at two health remaining, on fire. Philip and the Nanny at half hit points remaining, on fire. Night Terror and Molly, a couple of points in and Night Terror on fire, plus no soul stones remaining. Not to mention needing to waste three actions points to remove the Obsidian Oni before it activated.

Lone Swordsman was nearing my Crooligan on the left. Ama No Zako used double-walk and Dark Bargained itself to make an interact on a strategy marker on middle-right. Necrotic Machine ran towards marker on middle-left, because apparently there were no viable targets for Emergency Syrette and its heal...

Well, at least Molly had given Rabble Riser another activation, who charged Fuhatsu and Hanged managed to land its upgrade on Fuhatsu.

Turn 2:

Lone Swordsman butchers Crooligan with just one action point, and thus manages to lob strategy marker on the left towards my side of the board.

I jump at my chance to possibly kill Fuhatsu - Hanged places its anti-healing aura on, and lands a moderate wound to the henchman despite being on a negative damage flip. Fuhatsu is at three wounds now and unable to reliably heal!

Well, except that then the gunner hit Hanged with Daze trigger, and uses Scatter to place the aura well beyond 4" range. Fuhatsu is at five!

Rabble Riser (now at one health and burning) charged Fuhatsu and after attacking three times. After all the stones and whatnot, Fuhatsu is at three!

Molly then does a double walk and kills the henchman by telling him a real disturbing story.

All good, although Molly was now in the middle of board.

At least Ama No Zako had been busy with killing another Rabble Riser that Forgotten Marshal had summoned earlier, and Night Terror. 

Asami used her hair strike on Philip and Nanny, pulling them away from a strategy marker they were hugging. Then a gigantic arachnotaur appeared behind Molly and in-between the aforementioned strategy marker. 

Thus robbed of their meaningful target, Philip and Nanny charges Asami that had no Protected targets nearby. After all I had Red Joker in my hand, and while I had an inkling that I should have saved the card for something else, at least Asami was at five wounds remaining after Pram Ram.

Jorogumo then removes Philip & Nanny from the equation.

Both players score strategy, and Ten Thunders reveal Assassinate. Scores are 2-1 for Ten Thunders.

Turn 3:

Because I'm kind of worried Molly might soon kick the bucket, she has one last chance to start asking questions from Asami. Irreducible damage would have been nice, but opponent was at full hand. Asami gets to one health remaining from Molly's unending stream of questions, which incidentally was the same amount of health Molly had.

I still had one chance to kill Asami, and that was using By Your Side on Crooligan and delivering the killing blow. It was the heat of the moment that told me Asami would die to minimum damage. Yeah, sure, but that didn't count for soulstones...

Because of that miss-step I lost my chance to get a point off from Outflank this turn. 

Forgotten Marshal and Hanged were busy delivering strategy marker deeper into enemy lines, and because of that Resurrectionists scored their second point from strategy. Ten Thunders did, too, and revealed Claim Jump on Samurai.

Turn 4:

Starts with three models on my side, with Resurrectionists two points behind and opponent 100% scoring two end conditions, and 90% scoring full strategies. No point to continue. Victory for Ten Thunders.

I think it would have been a tough game for Molly even if I hadn't screwed up deployment so bad. My lack of hitting power didn't mesh well with an assortment of Armor +1-2, hard-to-would and hard-to-kill models.

In this particular game Grave Spirit Touch on Hanged was just dead weight - Fuhatsu didn't care about the Terrifying, and the thing didn't actually need regeneration either.

The Whisper on Forgotten Marshal was kind of dead weight too, but that was just because of pure chance - not once there was a high enough Crows coming up to do summoning.