RRRRRAMPAGE

 A 50ss game of Malifaux

Strategy: Corner Covert Operation

Schemes: Assassinate, Sabotage, Public Demonstration, Hidden Martyrs, Catch and Release

My list:

Dr. McMourning, Insanitary & Zombie Chihuahua
Sebastian
Rogue Necromancy
Corpse Curator
Kentauroi
Nurse
Guild Autopsy
Little Gasser

Pool: 3
Schemes: Hidden Martyrs (Nurse & Little Gasser), Catch and Release (Kentauroi)

Opponent had:

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

Pool: 4
Schemes: Public Demonstration (Hoarcats and Blessed of December), Assassinate

Turn 1:

At first I had glanced that finally not so agonizing pool of schemes. But then when I had to actually pick them, I realized how bad it was. I had no reliable tools to get Assassinate when opponent had way to deal with big hits, and I hadn't paid attention how badly my side of the table favored Sabotage. And picking two from the remaining three schemes would mean a big chunk of my weakest models were important for victory points.

So, I ended up with Catch and Release and Hidden Martyrs. This way I only had three important low cost or minion models instead four to five. 

Since I didn't have reliable corpses on board after deployment, I activated McMourning first and took a leg off of Rogue Necromancy, then built it a new and improved leg. And yet there was still enough organic matter left from the initial amputation, that Sebastian was able to craft a Canine Remains of it. And yet there was enough left from the Canine Remains, that Canine Remains picked its own remains and dropped them somewhere nearby. 

It was quite not five loaves of bread and two fish, but it was close.

Rasputina blasted some damage to McMourning and Canine Remains, so I relocated Nurse to offer some assistance if need be. I got scared with all the ice pillars and potential blasts, so Little Gasser took a double walk towards bottom-right strategy marker, hugging the table edge and hiding behind a hill.

Corpse Curator, Guild Autopsy and Rogue Necromancy were hauling their slow and undead bulk through a forest. I figured top-left strategy marker would be way out of my reach unless I brought my fasted model, Kentauroi, to that flank. It rode for a bit with Sebastian, and continued to walk behind a batch of destructible terrain.

Acolyte had taken a vantage point from top of a small building. One Hoarcat was running towards each corner strategy markers.

Blessed of December was at center-left strategy marker with Snow Storm and Wendigo a little behind. 

Ice Dancer was in the opposing forest, with Silent One being silent a little further back. 

Turn 2:

Rasputina slows McMourning and kills Canine Remains before it is able to activate and spam more corpses. 

Acolyte of December opens fire twice on Kentauroi, dealing weak damage with each shot. This was... troublesome, since there were two victory points tied to that model. So I figured that I try to put some poison on it and heal with Sebastian's Blood Poisoning. The horse-thing was also Slowed, which would require some Nurse-shenanigans.

So, Corpse Curator tried to tease Blessed of December a little by dredging up an ice pillar marker and attacking through it, but it didn't do that much.

However, Hoarcat at top-left strategy marker activated early and went into position to claim the spot. This opened up a possibility of getting rid of the destructible terrain and walk-charge-ride-with-me to get there myself, too.

So, Guild Autopsy went to slam the terrain to death. 

This was all fine and dandy until Snowstorm made an ice tornado that also slowed McMourning and Rogue Necromancy. So there was quite a few models suffering from Slow now.

McMourning activated and pushed Nurse forward with Desperate Plot, giving her an extra leg, and summoned a Flesh Construct. 

I had waited far too long with my plans, and Blessed of December decided to jump out of its position and decidedly killed my Catch and Release model. Yeaaaaaah.

Nurse decided to remove slow from Rogue Necromancy, and the thing along with summoned Flesh Construct charged Snow Storm and Wendigo, just tickling Wendigo a little.

'Sebastian went to toss off some formaldehyde, because he was out of reach to charge Blessed of December. I didn't have high enough cards in my hand for Sebastian to call for another Man's Best Friend. 

Silent One healed Wendigo and Ice Dancer shuffled some pillars around. 

Since opponent clearly didn't let me activate Little Gasser after Hoarcat on the right had activated, I had to fly the gas balloon to center-right strategy marker to have a claim this turn.

By then situation didn't look good. Only McMourning would be able to bottom-right strategy marker next round, as center-left marker was quite contested. 

Scores go 1-1, both points from scenario.

Turn 3:

Since all sorts of gamins pop up when enough elemental or other kind of energy have high enough of a concentration, this turn should have seen a Carnage Gamin appear. 

Sebastian charges Blessed of December, as he was in range now that Blessed had used deadly pursuit to come closer to corpse marker. First attack hit and dealt some damage. I was wondering if I should turn the Kentauroi's corpse into a dog, but decided against it. Weak damage and Blood Poisoning would be enough to kill the enforcer. Also second attack hit - this time dealing weak+critical strike damage. However, the Blood Poisoning obviously failed.

Blessed of December had the option to either leap away or eat the corpse and butcher someone to heal even more. Blessed chose violence, too, but was just as successful as Sebastian. Guild Autopsy was left with two health remaining.

December Acolyte took a shot at Guild Autopsy and killed it despite friendly fire and cover. And with the next shot, down went the Zombie Chihuahua. 

Corpse Curator needed to land one point of damage to secure kill on Blessed of December with poison. Much to everyone's surprise, it dealt two! Hooray. And even got to place a toxic sludge marker with bonus action.

In the middle Rasputina had activated earlier in the turn, pushing Rogue Necromancy and Flesh Construct a little back before putting pillars in front of them, making it impossible to charge Snow Storm or Wendigo. Or herself, for that matter. 

McMourning took a walk, gave Rogue Necromancy's attack for Flesh Construct and pushed the summon to an ice pillar, giving it excess fat upgrade. 

Snow Storm charged Flesh Construct right after, and beat it down to two health remaining, upgrade being taken down with the first hit. 

So Flesh Construct activated and took a point of damage. And did what was most likely one of the most absurd activations I have ever witnessed. First attack on Snow Storm? Severe damage, that was reduced by a couple of points with a soulstone. Second attack was Pouncing Strike, so Flesh Construct declared that, dealt some damage again to Snow Storm and killed Wendigo with one savage bite. Last action was also Pouncing Strike, and damage killed Snow Storm and Flesh Construct jumped to Rasputina, dealing three damage that was actually zero because of an ice pillar. 

Silent One comes to try to remove Flesh Construct but fails at that. Little Gasser walks and charges Silent One and even flails frantically a couple of damage points.

Nurse went to claim center-left marker, but to my surprise Hoarcat from unclaimed top-left strategy marker walked and charged her and left her with one health remaining. 

Hoarcat at bottom-right was biding its time, just concentrating. Ice Dancer skated about and blocked Rogue Necromancy from reaching her with direct charge.

So instead Rogue Necromancy had to make an indirect charge, walking first. Nurse's chance to claim was neutralized by the Hoarcat, so Rogue Necromancy just needed to engage Ice Dancer. Too late, way too late I remembered about the Butterfly Jump. This meant Rogue Necromancy had to kill the dancer with just one strike. 

And, uh, it kind of did. Charge Through and focus made for a lot of plus modifiers for damage and surely enough it came up as severe, with Infect. 

So that was a brutal turn to the extreme. 

Scores go 1-1, since everyone was too busy bashing each others' heads to the concrete instead of scoring points.

Turn 4:

Nurse was fortunate enough to survive December's first activation - most likely because Rasputina was a little busy handling the Flesh Construct - which surely enough died. Nurse was able to heal herself a little and even got Shielded +1 for a little extra survivability. Walking and poking Hoarcat with surgical instruments, however, amounted to nothing.

It did take all of my good cards from hand, but Nurse survived Hoarcat's activation, again back at one health remaining. 

Rogue Necromancy walked and charged to Hoarcat at bottom-right strategy marker. Idea was to wait until Hoarcat activates and push Rogue Necromancy away from it with Desperate Pace. Instead, Hoarcat disengaged and went to purr at McMourning. McMourning wanted to pat the fine cat, but unfortunately he did it with rusty tools, three times no less. Cat was dead at that point. 

December Acolyte ran to collect a point from top-left strategy marker while Sebastian was running towards it too. 

Little Gasser continued to flail frantically: "Why are you not killing me?? I'm the Hidden Martyr!" Yeah... enemy didn't consider that thing enough of a threat to kill casually. 

Anyway, Corpse Curator was able to creep to claim center-left strategy marker, meaning I had third point pretty much secured thanks to Rogue Necromancy.

Turn 5:

Silent One started to shoot McMourning rather successfully through ice pillars, which lead me to suspect Assassinate. So instead of contributing meaningfully to anything else, the good doctor fled the scene with all of his action points. 

Rasputina wasn't able to accomplish much, so Nurse got to activate and heal herself again for a little. Hoarcat failed to kill her, and even December Acolyte missed its shot. I even cheated to save the Nurse. 

Here the joke is on me, since not protecting her that much would have given me the Hidden Martyr point. I had been completely fixated on letting Little Gasser be the one who does the dying, and keeping Nurse denying the center-left marker from being claimed by Hoarcat.

However, both Corpse Curator and Sebastian could have easily gone to engage the kitty. Although if I had done it with Sebastian, result would have been catastrophic since I would have just given opponent the Public Demonstration. 

Also Little Gasser was four points, Silent One six. So that's one half checked from Hidden Martyrs end condition. But thanks to no melee range Silent One was not engaging the Gasser. 

So... we had a game where zero points were scored from schemes.

However, it was a close 2-3 victory for Resurrectionists as Rogue Necromancy was able to claim third marker, while opponent got none.