Blessed of February

 A 50ss game of Malifaux.

Strategy: Wedge Cursed Objects

Schemes: Set the Trap, Assassinate, Hidden Martyrs, Spread Them Out, In Your Face

My list:

Kirai with The Whisper & Ikiryo
Datsue Ba
Lost Love
Carrion Effigy
Shikome
Bone Pile with Grave Spirit Touch
Drowned
Seishin

Pool: 7
Schemes: Hidden Martyrs (Carrion Effigy & Bone Pile), Spread Them Out

Opponent had:

Rasputina & Wendigo
Snow Storm
Blessed of December
2x December Acolyte
Silent One
Ice Dancer
Hoardcat

Pool: 2
Schemes: Hidden Martyrs (Hoarcat & Silent One), In Your Face

Turn 1:

Well, that was one of the more brutal turn ones in recent memory.

At one point we counted almost a total of forty points of damage having been done in total, and yet there were models left to activate.

December Acolytes started the slaughter with shooting Ikiryo down to one health remaining, and scoring some odd points to Drowned. 

Lost Love healed Ikiryo back to four, and Ikiryo launched herself at an Acolyte in an attempt to soften one up for Cursed Object points.

Rasputina placed some pillars and shot a blast at Carrion Effigy, clipping Kirai and Lost Love in the process. She pushed Blessed of December and Silent One with her bonus a bit forward. 

Kirai summoned a Goryo and barraged Silent One with spirits. Goryo was able to charge Silent One and kill her, not knowing I had just killed one of Rasputina's hidden martyrs. 

Hoarcat and Blessed of December maul at the Goryo, leaving the angry ghost at one health remaining or so. 

I had brought Drowned into melee with Ice Dancer, which might have been a reasonable match-up, but then the dancer was joined by Snow Storm. Drowned didn't die, but there wasn't much left to drown any more either.

Seishin gave a walk for Shikome, and then Datsue Ba gave walk for Seishin. Shikome went to place my first scheme marker for Spread Them Out.

Turn 2:

Rasputina was quick to activate after winning initiative. She walked forward and killed the Goryo, securing Cursed Objects for Arcanists. She also placed additional ice pillars as you'd expect.

Ikiryo manages to do the same against Acolyte of December when she scores onslaught from her first melee attack. She even has the activation point to place a scheme marker. 

Wendigo copied Rasputina's healing shockwave, which was annoying since I had already planned to move Carrion Effigy forward to deny heals. Well, it did that anyway but without much of an effect. Even trying to lure somebody to kill it failed when Blessed of December was not able to kill Carrion Effigy for my Hidden Martyrs.

Seishin managed to give an extra walk for Shikome, who was then able to go and place a scheme marker close to opponents table edge. 

Datsue Ba was trying to weigh Blessed of December's sins, and when I take a look at the pictures I'm not sure if I even activated Lost Love that turn. If I did, it probably just tried to heal Kirai.

Kirai summoned a Goryo, who then tried to kill a Hoarcat, failing at that.  Ice Dancer and Wendigo had beaten this additional Goryo within easy kill range for next turn.

Bone Pile took a double walk, trying to figure out what to do other than to leave Carrion Effigy to martyrdom.

Points go 2-2 when both players get strategy, Resurrectionists had Spread Them Out and Arcanists In Your Face. 

Turn 3:

Seems like I have forgotten to take a picture from this round. 

Blessed of December is finally able to kill Carrion Effigy, and uses pouncing strike to engage Datsue Ba. Bone Pile needed only to survive now, so it just walked a bit further away from action and placed a scheme marker. 

Hoarcat charged back into melee with Goryo, and I don't quite remember who killed what, but the end result was at least Ice Dancer and Wendigo dead, Goryo gone and a re-summoned Ikiryo engaging Hoarcat. 

Datsue Ba and Seishin were able to almost kill Blessed of December - in fact Datsue Ba could have probably done it, but I wanted to save the kill for next turn. 

Lost Love moved closer to melee between Datsue Ba and Blessed of December. 

But when it came to end phase, Blessed used deadly pursuit to push into melee with Lost Love.

Scores go 3-4 for Resurrectionists when both get strategy and Resurrectionists also Hidden Martyrs.

Turn 4:

Blessed of December starts the turn, kills Lost Love with one strike, eats his corpse to heal and then charges Seishin dead, essentially healing back to full. That just happened. At least this maneuver spent most of opponent's hand, so remainder of the turn I had easier time with connecting my attacks. 

Ikiryo was able to kill Hoarcat for Cursed Objects points and charged to engage Rasputina.

Rasputina starts spamming Ice Pillars to no end. Snow Storm can't quite finish Ikiryo.

I realized I had ran out of easy kills for last Cursed Objects points, so I tried to soften up Blessed of December as much as I could. But neither a summoned Goryo or Datsue Ba did enough. 

Bone Pile and Shikome had placed ample supply of scheme markers on the opponent's table half. 

Scores go 5-5 when opponent reveals he had Hoarcat as a martyr, and both players got strategy.

Turn 5:

Opponent won the initiative and pushed Snow Storm to my deployment zone with Rasputina and killed Ikiryo. 

I had my chance to kill Blessed of December and charged with Goryo. Blessed of December had Adversary so I thought I had a pretty good chance of scoring last Cursed Object point. But it turns out opponent had two 13's and Red Joker in hand.  /table flip

Blessed of December then ran to farthest corner where was no way I could reach... unless I summoned a Goryo at maximum distance and landed Mark of Vengeance with masks on it.

But, when Kirai activated, The Whisper revealed two sixes and Black Joker coming up. 

Datsue Ba almost killed Snow Storm, although she mostly just wanted to keep Snow Storm in place so Bone Pile would be able to run to get engaged. 

So, it was a closely fought 7-7 draw when opponent got Cursed Objects and In Your Face with Snowstorm, and Resurrectionists received end condition of both schemes. 

First and the Last

 Had a Warmachine Mk4 game.

My list:

Scaverous
- 2x Corruptor
Bane Warriors + attachment
Bane Lord Tartarus
Pistol Wraith
2x Necrotech

Opponent had:

Bane Witch Agathia
- Desecrator
- Reaper
- Deathripper
2x Bane Warriors
Bane Riders

Scenario was one from Steamroller document.

Scaverous started game and rushed forward. Agathia used her feat right at the start and gave stealth to almost her entire army, so on my second turn there was little to do. My warjacks lined up behind long wall in the middle, while Bane Warriors went to flank from the right. Pistol Wraith was sitting in the forest with Skarlock behind the secret gathering of trees. 

I did, however, manage to take a shot at Bane Rider in cover with Corruptor, and kill a single Bane Warrior with burster attack. 

Agathia repositions with all of her army to the circular zone, leaving a massive advantage for me in scenario.

Bane Riders went to punish Pistol Wraith, getting in range thanks to vengeance. Magical weapons came from a command card. 

Desecrator managed to snipe one of the Necrotechs dead with boosted blast damage roll. 

One unit of Bane Warriors ran to make a wall between Corruptor and Reaper, which had run to the zone as well.

On my next turn one of my Corruptors uses the unstoppable command card and charges Bane Riders. That activation was... less than ideal. I thought Corruptor would smack the rider dead and spend remainder of its focus bursting some Bane Warriors too, but all it managed to do was three points of damage to Bane Rider. 

Scaverous uses feat and casts Feast of Worms over Reaper. Second Corruptor removes some Bane Warriors with a ranged attack, which was far more effective than melee. I mean... it killed two models!

At least Bane Lord Tartarus did anything useful that turn - he single handedly, dual attackedly, wrecked Reaper. Skarlock also finishes with Excarnate what a Corruptor couldn't in melee with three focus... Removed that Bane Rider.

 My Bane Warriors ran to engage Desecrator.

Agathia removed Bane Lord Tartarus and a Corruptor and Bane Warrior Officer, but did nothing to contest scenario. 

After my turn I would have been at four victory points. So I don't know why I opted to killing Desecrator... But so I did. Scaverous moved into position to make a nice thresher attack, cast Feast of Worms and then failed to hit Desecrator. Yeah, not good. 

So I go into a kind of panic mode and want to make sure the warjack is gone from next to my warcaster. 

Bane Warriors run to give some Dark Shroud for Desecrator, and surely enough Corruptor kills last heavy jack from Agathia. But now that my Banes were not engaging enemy Banes, Scaverous had to sweat through five charging Bane Warriors - a terrifying prospect when Agathia hits Parasite on my caster. 

Scaverous has a focus point to blocking damage, but still takes eight damage in from the very first attack. Three Bane Warriors proceed to miss so I start to get a little hopeful - but nope, not today. Last Bane Warrior hits Scaverous and 4d6-1 didn't come out 7 or less. 

Maybe this was a lesson for me. I just needed one point.

The Joy of Markers

 I guess I'm kind of a sucker for effect markers.

And since it's been well over a year since last painting post, now might be the time.

Aura of Decay, Loose Bowels and Cursed Sludge are the ones I recently finished. Other markers are mostly from last year. For now, I think I'm missing only Drowning Aura, Urban Legend and Into Mist.

Although now looking at the picture I notice I have misremembered Remember the Lost and got Remember the Fallen instead. Whoops. Need to fix that right away. 

Here we have from left to right Remember the Fallen Lost, 2x Annoying (although its damn rare to get to use even one...), Aura of Decay in front, 2x Malifaux Mining Law behind Aura of Decay and 2x Negation Aura behind laws. 

Loose Bowels is there about in the middle, Rancid Smell, 2x Too Greedy to Die and last one on the right, Cursed Sludge. 

I left out Boring Conversation, Undivided Attention and Entropic Curse because those are old, old markers and these are new, shiny markers. 

Sad Fate of Sebastian's Kennel

 A 50ss game of Malifaux on Vassal.

Strategy: Wedge Plant Explosives

Scheme pool: Assassinate, Deliver a Message, Breakthrough, Take Prisoner, Hold Up Their Forces

My list:

McMourning, Insanitary & Zombie Chihuahua
Sebastian
Corpse Curator
Carrion Effigy
Kentauroi
Bone Pile
Little Gasser
Canine Remains

Stones: 5
Schemes: Hold Up Their Forces, Deliver a Message

Opponent had:

Youko Hamasaki &  Chiyo Hamasaki
Bill Algren
Shojo
2x Kabuki Warrior
Bunraku
Tanuki
Geisha

Stones: 4
Schemes: Take Prisoner (Nurse), Deliver a Message

Turn 1:

The tip of my wedge had a tractor that divided my crew. Below was Nurse, Bone Pile, Carrion Effigy and Zombie Chihuahua. Above, the rest within 1" of a 30mm marker. 

Slowly building up corpses started with Canine Remains taking a bite out of Corpse Curator. Sebastian made a new Canine Remains from that corpse, which duplicated its own corpse in turn. That mechanic is just silly. Flask of formaldehyde poisoned most of the crew.

McMourning's plan had been to walk for a bit, then use Desperate Pace first on Sebastian to make him chatty, and then Kentauroi for absurd speed boost. I may have been a little extravagant managing my hand, and was left without proper cards for Desperate Paces. I had to give Sebastian a spare head, because he was blocking Kentauroi's push anyway.

Kentauroi and Little Gasser began speeding top, although Little Gasser was lured in to a bad position by Kabuki Warrior, who had Bill Algren and Shojo as his buddies. 

The massive blob of Canine Remains, Sebastians, Corpse Curators and McMournings were greeted by Youko, another Kabuki Warrior and Tanuki. Youko landed a traumatizing riddle on the Insanitary, dealing three damage as by that time I didn't have cards in my hand.  

Nurse failed to heal McMourning, so Zombie Chihuahua repositioned itself to stink fourth point of Poison for McMourning.

Bone Pile sniped a critical javelin through Tanuki as is only proper. Carrion Effigy healed the lost bone.

Below, Qi and Gong had sent Chiyo and Bunraku. And Geisha I suppose, although she was hardly out of Ten Thunders deployment zone. 

Turn 2:

Ten Thunders won initiative, and Kabuki Warrior charged the poor little Gasser, killing it with charge attack, so he still had plenty of action points to plant first explosive.

I was somewhat afraid of Bill engaging Kentauroi, so to secure a strategy point for me, the equestrian monstrosity rode with itself, walked and planted an explosive into forest.

In the middle, another Kabuki Warrior charged into fray, engaging Bone Pile and Nurse. 

Nurse disengaged from Kabuki, assisted distracted away from McMourning by solving the dreaded riddle and then charged back to Kabuki Warrior in an attempt to stun him. No such luck.

Shojo gets to forest near the middle and starts Boring Conversations, getting both Canine Remains and McMourning under the area. At least McMourning is able to navigate through such discussions by summoning a Flesh Construct to block LoS. He gives Sebastian's bone saw for a Canine Remains and pushes Bone Pile away from melee and Flesh Construct next to Shojo. Corpse Curator is given a spare head. That's quite a few actions there, but one came from quick reflexes. 

Bill kills a puppy, but Sebastian is there to make a new one.

A surprise for the round came from Canine Remains who had rusty bone saw - it charged Shojo just for giggles, and giggle it did with successful boring conversation check, successful attack flip and double severes even with accuracy penalties. With blast damage to boot, which spilled to Kabuki Warrior. I wish Sebastian was as proficient using his saw.

Bunraku had placed a strategy marker and charged Bone Pile. Chiyo felt safe enough to run past Bunraku's and Bone Pile's squabbling. Carrion Effigy just healed whatever Bone Pile had suffered, and Bone Pile scraped one point of damage in to the puppet.

At least Corpse Curator did something useful down below by conjuring its first sludge marker for the game. 

Youko, Tanuki and Geisha were hanging around the tip of Ten Thunders' deployment zone, lifting spirits and asking riddles. I think Shojo created three pass tokens in total from this round.

Most useful activation of the turn was when Zombie Chihuahua charged Kabuki Warrior in the middle, accomplishing only foul odor and blocking McMourning's path to enemy strategy marker. 

Scores go 1-2 for Resurrectionists when I reluctantly reveal Hold Up Their Forces. 

Turn 3:

Qi and Gong starts the turn with ten pass tokens with still more to come. And what a brutal turn it was.

Shojo put up boring conversation, which turned out to be a hideous ability when combined with Distraction aura from Kabuki Warriors. Well, of course willpower 3-4 on my models highlighted the problem... 

While I still had the chance, Carrion Effigy went to place a strategy marker so that I'd gain a point this round.

Bill Algren charged Sebastian, severing off his extra head and leaving him with four wounds remaining.

Kentauroi had to come and charge Kabuki Warrior that was sitting dancing near Shojo to block his charge to Sebastian. Stampede dealt a point of damage to both models, but this model was no miraculous Canine Remains and failed Boring Conversation check.

Kabuki Warrior? Killed the Kentauroi in two clean swipes. 

Sebastian summoned a Canine Remains and walked within 1" of Bill.

Youko forced Carrion Effigy to pick up the strategy marker it had placed earlier, so I had to figure out a way to get strategy marker past the centerline. Opponent didn't have such worries as Ten Thunders had already three markers placed. 

My plan was to poison Bunraku and then leave melee with Bone Pile in Cursed Sludge. So, Corpse Curator managed to land another sludge marker with a red joker, placing it under Chiyo. I would have been happy for just one point of damage to guarantee Chiyo's eventual death, but second attempt with Dredge Up dealt severe damage despite negative modifiers. 

I also wanted to kill Bunraku Bone Pile, so I started to activate Canine Remains to see how the situation develops. I had either Bone Pile or McMourning to drop a strategy marker. Buuut then Bunraku activated, escaped melee with Risky Maneuvers and dealt four points in to Bone Pile, which fortunately still had four more. Opponent scores a second hit, and obviously it had to be Rams that it flipped - meaning critical strike. Moderate damage would now kill Bone Pile. I didn't have high enough cards in my hand to dodge the hit, but at least I managed to score a tie, which meant triple negatives. And look at that... moderate from four cards!

Uh. At least that decided what I had to do with McMourning. Except that Kabuki Warrior in middle had killed Zombie Chihuahua, and a Geisha had lured Bill Algren away from Sebastian - right there to block path for McMourning, who had originally planned to walk to enemy strategy marker, pick it up and then place a marker past centerline.

Instead, he tried to push the Bunraku in to burning hazard, but failed. Last two actions had to be walk and interact. 

One Canine Remains had ran to engage Youko to maybe deliver a message one day.

So, I lost Kentauroi and Bone Pile to less than likely flips. What was a steady game had become a struggle instead.

Ten Thunders doesn't reveal any schemes, so scores go 2-3 for Resurrectionists. 

Turn 4:

Ten Thunders wins initiative, and Bunraku goes to place Bone Pile's explosive marker touching Resurrectionist's deployment zone. 

Flesh Construct jumped at the chance to kill Shojo now that Boring Conversation wasn't up yet, but brought her only down to two health remaining. And then there was that dreaded conversation again with Shojo also healing from it. 

Canine Remains finally delivers a message to Youko Hamasaki, but so does Geisha to McMourning. Nurse had given McMourning some painkillers without succeeding anything else, really. Youko asked her some riddles and then owned her, disengaging and moving to Bunraku. 

I lost all of my Canine Remains this turn, but not before one of them did severe damage in to Bill Algren. It probably shouldn't go like this, but come to think of it - majority of my crews damage came from Canine Remains in this game, with only Flesh Construct coming even close.

While Sebastian was attacked by Bill and Kabuki Warrior, both had had to spend actions on killing puppies. So Sebastian survived, with one health remaining. Fortunately this was all he needed to summon one more Canine Remains.

Kabuki Warrior in the middle had disengaged to engage Carrion Effigy, but didn't score a hit. McMourning managed to disengage by using my last soulstone (Distraction aura + conversation), pick up enemy strategy marker and even use Desperate Pace on Carrion Effigy to push it away from melee.

So, the effigy went to a little safer place to plant a strategy marker.

But my joy was short lived, because in the end phase opponent revealed also Take Prisoner. Scores were 4-5 for Resurrectionists.

Turn 5:

Ten Thunders started killing my un-activated models left and right. Kabuki Warrior started the ordeal by killing Sebastian and luring Shojo from the forest. This was Flesh Construct's chance to shine, and shine it did - finally Shojo was dead. And the construct was engaging a higher cost model that had already activated.

Although Corpse Curator succeeded to place fourth strategy marker for me, Youko was able to remove one. To protect one McMourning had tried to disengage twice from Kabuki Warrior, failing both times with Kabuki Warrior flipping a severe to move reduction. 

So, McMourning just implanted his rusty tools to Nurse, who was in a nasty position. If I wanted points from Hold Up Their Forces, she needed to engage someone of higher cost. However, if she was engaged, Ten Thunders would get their prisoner. I thought it best to leave her next to Bill and Geisha who had already activated that turn.

Bunraku had no trouble in getting a scheme marker next to McMourning, and Kabuki Warrior in the middle even charged to kill Carrion Effigy just for giggles. 

In the end I had lost more models than I had had at the beginning of the game. Five of them were Canine Remains, which is especially impressive since I began the game with just one. 

Even Zombie Chihuahua had been killed, bringing the total of innocent puppies killed to six. Apparently Qi and Gong thought it appropriate to also kill their keeper. I guess no dogs allowed in their holdings. 

Game was a 6-6 draw.