A hopeful prospect

 So I did a demo game of Malifaux. Will this city get its third Malifaux player? Only time will tell...

I wanted to use only official models, so for myself I had a team of:

Philip & the Nanny
2x Crooligan
Shikome

Demo group was:

Sebastian
Flesh Construct
2x Guild Autopsy

We had a simple scenario of "gain 1 point for each killed model" and one chosen scheme from a group of four, played revealed. Choices were: Assassinate, Breakthrough, Leave a Message, Dig Their Graves.

(Too late I realized how terrible Dig Their Graves was for this matchup - 100% of team Experimental was able to remove corpse markers!)

I picked Breakthrough while opponent took Leave a Message. 

Fortunately the game itself presented exciting situations and cinematic moments, like Guild Autopsy red jokering Philip & Nanny on the first round, and Flesh Construct triggering Swallow You Whole on a Crooligan just as it had reached one health.

It was around fourth turn when round began with Philip & the Nanny and last remaining Crooligan at one health remaining while Experimentals had Sebastian and both Guild Autopsies around. Points were 3-1 for Experimental. 

Alptraum-a

 Strategy: Break the Line, Wedge deployment
Scheme pool: Assassinate, Vendetta, Claim Jump, Catch & Release, Let Them Bleed

My list:

Jack Daw & Lady Ligeia
Montresor
Hans (Vendetta on Serena Bowman)
Hanged (Catch & Release)
3x Guilty
Prospector

Pool: 4
Schemes: Vendetta, Catch & Release

Opponent had:
Dreamer & Lord Chompy Bits
Serena Bowman
Vasilisa (Claim jumpee)
Daydream
Alp
Stitched Together (Vendetta on Prospector)
2x Insidious Madness

Pool: 6
Schemes: Vendetta, Claim Jump

Turn 1:

Opponent has Dreamer, Chompy Bits, Serena, an Alp and Insidious Madness positioned middle-left, contesting two strategy markers. From my side, a Prospector and two Guilty are trying to challenge those markers, perhaps at least lobbing them back to mid-line.

Dreamer summons an Alp and twists Guilty's reality - then Alp removes my closest Guilty from play. A terrible game opening, but at least Hans on a vantage point shot Insidious Madness down to one or two health remaining or so, and Jack Daw managed to land his upgrade on Lord Chompy Bits. 

Opponent has Vasilisa, another Insidious Madness, Daydream and Stitched Together positioned mid-right. Only one Guilty was coming at the rightmost strategy marker while Jack Daw, Montresor, Hanged and Lady Ligeia were in a nice blob coming at a strategy marker that only had Insidious Madness around.

Turn 2:

Stitched Together and Guilty start playing football with the rightmost strategy marker. Alp and Prospector might have done the same with leftmost marker had not Prospector been so far from the action. So Neverborn had pretty much secured one victory point.

Summoned Alp engaged Hans, which was horrible news for me and my schemes. Fortunately Jack Daw, Lady Ligeia and Guilty manage to remove that pesky critter and get the Guilty back that it had eaten.

Hans was then quickly becoming my MVP of the match when he shot Insidious Madness and scored Vendetta against Serena Bowman. Summoned Guilty charged Lord Chompy Bits that had tried to punch another Guilty behind forest dead. Obviously these weren't doing much damage to Chompy Bits, and whatever they did, Serena healed up. But Hanged was scoring Catch & Release now.

Insidious Madness on the mid-right closer to middle marker started tossing strategy tossing contest with my 9-point henchman, Montresor. 

When Serena had thrown the mid-left closer to middle marker to forest on my side, I had two difficult to remove markers buggering me now.

Neverborn scores strategy, Outcasts score both schemes for 1-2.

Turn 3:

Stitched Together throws strategy marker far-right inside a building, so there went my that flank. Stitched then charged Guilty and they started slapping each other furiously.

Far-left Prospector managed to throw strategy marker back to middle line, and Alp proceeds to attack him instead. Dreamer comes to help, but neither scores a kill.

Lord Chompy Bits tries to chomp Hanged, but doesn't succeed. Hanged then flies past the totem and moves to Daydream that was still hanging near by Neverborn deployment zone. 

Hans kills Serena Bowman and deals some damage in to Alp on the left. Both Guiltys in the middle just move and concentrate for a bit as they are afraid of failing terrifying check against Lord Chompy Bits, that would have summoned some nightmares on the table. 

Jack Daw walks into forest and gets himself next to Insidious Madness to spread misery throughout the middle. With Drawn to Betrayal he moves Montresor into contact with strategy marker. He then throws the marker and charges Insidious Madness, failing terrifying and bringing an Alp on the table. Alp attacked Montresor, not doing much. 

Since situation started to look possibly a bit lethal towards Jack Daw, I ran at least Lady Ligeia to cover Insidious Madness, Alp and Daydream. 

Then Insidious Madness uses Scatter, pushing Lady Ligeia, Jack and Montresor. Now Jack was irredeemably separated from my crew. Vasilisa comes to fray and tosses strategy marker back on the middle line.

So that's second victory point for Neverborn from strategy. 2-2.

Turn 4:

Hans shoots Alp dead and damages Vasilisa.

I don't remember if Jack Daw killed Insidious Madness or Alp, but whichever it was, the other one engaged Montresor. The henchman lands a hit and flips enough to deal damage with negative fate modifier. I say jokingly: two severes. And them they were. He was now able to walk into contact with strategy marker.

Vasilisa starts speeding (well, as speedy as you can get with staggered) towards middle board, which raises some suspicions if Claim Jump might be involved. 

Stitched Together kills the Guilty and tries to become relevant with the strategy marker mid-right.

Dreamer charges Prospector and kill him with the cricket bat. Then he walks to strategy marker and throws it to my side. 

Chompy Bits doesn't do much, but neither do Guiltys. The non-summoned Guilty disengages and comes into contact with a strategy marker, the one that was third on my side.

Score goes 3-2 for Neverborn.

Turn 5: 

Jack Daw staggers Stitched Together, and Montresor throws a strategy marker to opponent's side of the board. I had now all but secured myself three points - one from both of my schemes, and this strategy marker. Looking pretty good.

Then, Dreamer activates and comes to display Hans his nightmare - Lord Chompy Bits transferred next to him! Oh wait, Lord is staggered, can't do that... but still, Hans failed his willpower check, which summoned an Alp. 

When that Alp was activating, Hans still had around four damage boxes. He just might survive. But nope, not today. There went my point for Vendetta.

When the end phase came, opponent revealed Vendetta with Stiched Together on Prospector.

A tough 4-4 draw.

Where's Tesla?

Scenario seven of Rise of Fenris, the Scythe campaign.

Four player combinations were: Militant Togawa Shogunate, Agricultural Fenris, Industrial Albion and Mechanical Vesna. 

Much to my dismay, scenario didn't have a victory condition for maximum workers. That was terrible, as I had easy combo of getting all eight workers on turn 3. This meant I would not have time to get a column filled on the final victory track. 

Bah. Humbug! To make everyone suffer from the iniquity I faced I blew up the factory. 

Then Togawa exploded some sort of a juggernaut into bits of scrap metal all over the board. This was a bit too much, and to alleviate the situation I had everyone sign a demilitarization pact. 

Having learned from the last game we played, Togawa Shogunate rushed to the #3 special encounter space in Rasputin's leap-frog line. 

Vesna had drawn submerge as one of their mech abilities, which meant they were rather adept in gathering special encounters that were required for victory. 

In my military endeavors I had messed up my logistics (sounds eerily topical...) and was losing gold on my activations. Because of this I just tried to rush all five special encounters, and I did get to four but my plans were thwarted by Vesna, who parked a mech to a location I would have picked next after purposefully losing a fight against Albion to teleport Rasputin back to home base.

Vesna was also at four encounters, but decided to end the game in old fashioned way to get more money as a reward.

Thus, nobody found Tesla. Where is he? 

Mechanical Vesna 89pts
Industrial Albion 68pts
Agricultural Fenris 64pts
Militant Togawa 53pts

Heads won't roll

Few days ago I had a game of Guillotine with five players. It was certainly simple enough casual experience for total strangers. 

I had two "draw two nobles" cards and various "+1 points for a particular color noble" in my hand, but received only trash nobles or didn't get to use my cards at all. When I finally landed my +1 points for each blue noble, I had only one such. In the aftermath I placed last. 

But hey, at least I can virtue signal with my obvious selective opposition to capital punishment.