Endure Not

 A 50ss game of Malifaux on Vassal.

Strategy: Standard Plant Explosives

Schemes: Ensnare, Take the Highground, Grave Robbing

My list:

McMourning, Insanitary & Corpse Curator
Sebastian
Rogue Necromancy
Leftovers
Oskar
Kentauroi
2x Dapperling

Pool: 3

Opponent had:

Clampetts, Ballyhoo Bucket & Judd&Honey
Uncle Boggs
Aunty Mel
Sir Vantes
Mossbeard
3x Buckaroo

Pool: 1

Turn 1: 
Experimental Ensnare, Anglers Take the Highground

Resurrectionists were being cagey with their activations, activating both Dapperlings first and McMourning walking and spamming graft tokens on Leftovers, Kentauroi and Sebastian. But eventually I had to open up my game, and Oskar activated to move Rogue Necromancy a little forward via actions and triggers, and he walked and scaled to a height 3 terrain.

Aaand that's when hell started raining on Oskar. Aunty Mel, Judd and Honey and Sir Vantes went to attack him. Thanks to some luck, Oskar ended the turn with seven hit points... and he was in cover against all of the attacks.

However, eventually Bayou activated Clampetts to go and place a strategy marker past the centerline. This opened up Leftovers to leap to Mossbeard and place a couple of scheme markers to get at least one point from Ensnare, enabled by Corpse Curator.

One Buckaroo to the left placed a strategy marker, and Clampetts had placed another. Obnoxious Rogue Necromancy took a soulstone leap, interacted a strategy marker and charged the Buckaroo. Didn't hit, though.

Kentauroi dragged McMourning to centerline and placed its strategy marker, while Sebastian walked to centerline, dropped explosive and graft-leaped to a Buckaroo. 

Anglers had plenty of spaces to get two points from their scheme, while Experimental could take just one. They did, however, tie the score by scoring strategy alone for a 2-2.

Turn 2:
Experimental picks Search the Area, Anglers Make It Look Like an Accident

Right of the bat Anglers took a point from their scheme by making Oskar fall from the rocky terrain. Oskar took flight right after, trying to hide behind the height 3 terrain. In the end this did not work out, as Judd & Honey were able to climb on top of the terrain and shoot Oskar below fifty percent.

Rogue Necromancy botched it's activation, trying to eat a Buckaroo that escaped with two health remaining. Two other Buckaroos ran into or near my deployment, and there was little I could do to prevent that.

Corpse Curator went to place a scheme marker to my deployment zone for next turn's possible Breakthrough, and then went to scale on top of a cover terrain. After being mauled by Clampetts. 

McMourning and Sebastian had to wait to almost last activations to push four scheme markers to a forest half inside enemy deployment to get Search the Area. 

Leftovers were beaten to a pulp after dropping their explosives, then healed, and right after that beaten down to three hit points once again. 

Anglers took two points from scheme, but so did Experimentals, while maintaining upper hand in strategy for a 5-4 lead. 

Turn 3:
Both crews attempt a breakthrough.

Anglers spammed strategy markers to Experimental deployment zone easily enough thanks to Buckaroos, and one of them even denied full points from Breakthrough. So that caused Resurrectionists to pick up only one point from scheme. However, Anglers sufficed for one point for their own as well.

Clampetts killed a Dapperling, making it drop its explosive charge. 

I had completely misread the strategy extra points, and thought that the thing was to place two scheme markers to enemy deployment zone. So I wasted Sebastian's activation completely to that, not to mention not getting an extra point either. Oh well.

Uncle Bogg started slicing up Leftovers, eventually even dissecting a bisection.

I had pretty much lost the center and my own rear, Anglers having free reign over my side of the board. They were able to catch up with the strategy, despite Resurrectionists having six strategy markers past the centerline.

So, Anglers scored both strategy and extra point from strategy, plus their one point from Breakthrough as well. Experimentals just got one point from strategy and one from scheme. This tied the scores at 7-7.

Turn 4:
Experimental Assassination of Mossbeard, and Anglers picked Frame Job on Sir Vantes.

Another absurd case of lack of attention. I somehow thought I needed only one point from Assassination to score maximum points from schemes... which was, well, not true at all.

Early on Sebastian went to charge and sepsis Mossbeard for the point. Later one of the Last Bites even threw some dirt on Mossbeard, bringing him down to one remaining plus poisoned.

Mossbeard was moved by someone, then dropped an explosive and tried to heal himself. And look at that, a most unfortunate Black Joker if there ever was one.

Now, Anglers still had Judd & Honey available for heals. But it was disturbingly easy to go and plant that single point of damage in to Mossbeard with Rogue Necromancy's leap action.

That alone brought Resurrectionists to 9 points. While it looked like Anglers would get the strategy point this turn, we ended the game anyway since Anglers had their Frame Job on Sir Vantes, who at that point had no nearby models that had any inclination to attack him.

A 9-8 victory for McMourning. 

Worst Pinata Indeed

 A 50ss game of Malifaux 4th edition.

Strategy: Flank Collapsing Mines

Schemes: Assassinate, Breakthrough, Frame Job

My list:

McMourning, Insanitary & Corpse Curator
Sebastian
Rogue Necromancy
Rafkin
Kentauroi
2x Flesh Construct
2x Little Gasser

Pool: 4
Starting scheme: Breakthrough

Opponent had:

Jakob Lynch, Wildcard & Hungering Darkness
Gwyneth Maddox
Kitty Dumont
Mr. Graves
Mr. Tannen
2x Illuminated
Beckoner

Pool: 3
Starting Scheme: Frame Job on an Illuminated

Turn 1:

Well, I enjoyed grafting immensely. They're a fun, unique-feeling mechanic. Based just on one games for both titles, the crew upgrade system works really well in changing the entire crew. 

McMourning flipped top-right strategy marker to Resurrectionists, grafted two Flesh Constructs and end-of-activation graft went to Sebastian. One Flesh Construct lobbed a scheme marker 4" into deployment zone (with by Corpse Curator I think), walked and charged to Mr. Tannen at bottom-right strategy marker and tossed off his graft again as a scheme marker - to centerline, this time.

Mr. Tannen and Mr. Graves were both guarding the strategy marker, so Flesh Construct needed some real muscle to deal with the pair. Little Gasser flew in as a reinforcement.

Okay, Rogue Necromancy was on the lower half of my flank, but that one had... plans. Namely, the plan was to wait threatening models to activate, then take a double leap and an interact to drop a scheme marker to enemy deployment. Sure, that cost me two soulstones, but yikes that mobility is, again, utterly crazy. 

Honeypot wake up to the situation a tad too late, and Resurrectionists were able to score double Breakthrough.. An Illuminated eventually came to challenge Rogue, but points were already scored.

Center, though.

Lynch and Illuminated went together to the centerpoint, flipping the marker there for Ten Thunders. I decided to use Sebastian's graft to leap between Lynch and Illuminated, poisoning them. He injured Illuminated somewhat - enough that opponent revealed Frame Job. Oh well.

Soon after there were Gwyneth and Kitty at the center too. After they were done, Sebastian was still alive, but only barely. Two health. That was not ideal for a Big Gasser explosion, so the little guy that Sebastian had sawed off of Illuminated exploded, catching only Illuminated in radius. Instead of Sebastian, Illuminated, Kitty, Gwyneth and Lynch.

Illuminated died to the blast, after having been dealt damage by medically experimenting Rafkin. Flesh Construct was able to leap, walk and flip center strategy marker back to neutral.

Kentauroi was going to top-left, flipping the marker to Resurrectionists. However, Beckoner and Hungering Darkness walked to dominate the place, neutralizing the mine.

Scores went 3-2 for Resurrectionists, which meant top-right mine collapsed right away.

Turn 2:

After breaking through, McMourning found it imperative to take the high ground. Which probably wouldn't be too hard, provided Rogue Necromancy was already on one that was way past centerline.

Starting from bottom, Flesh Construct failed to land a hit on Mr. Tannen, and decided to screw the attempt and prepared Shielded for himself. I thought survival would be the best option here to contest strategy marker, but yeah, there was this Delirium thing that walked Flesh Construct effortlessly away with very first action Mr. Graves directed at it.

I don't quite remember what Mr. Tannen did, I suppose his actions weren't that successful then. One of them was to drop a scheme marker on centerline. Delirium triggered though, this time on Rogue Necromancy, falling the beast from top of terrain.

Rogue and Illuminated duked it out, neither managing to do anything useful to either. But Rogue Necromancy did leap back to the tent. 

In the center Sebastian died in two attacks by Gwyneth.

Rafkin did shenanigans, charging Flesh Construct and giving it poison and pushing Rafkin himself to engage Gwyneth and Kitty. All of the enemy models there had poison token, so Cloud of Fumes looked real nice right there.

I guess it could have been nice if enemy did any attacks. Which they didn't. Lynch may have attempted something, but the important bits were Lynch and Gwyneth dropping schemes on the centerline late in the turn. 

McMourning was throwing grafts left and right, and was doing so from top of a Sz3 tower. What a sight it must have been. Because of those Flesh Construct had been able to leap and interact with center vault, tagging it for Resurrectionists. 

On top Kentauroi flipped strategy marker back to green team and charged Hungering Darkness. It managed to deal respectable damage in to the totem before being obliterated by the target. Neutral marker, again. And now I had only Little Gasser contesting top-left quarter. 

That was until Beckoner flipped top-left marker for Ten Thunders and touched Little Gasser dead. Well it exploded sure enough.

Looked like I would need to sacrifice Corpse Curator to score strategy this turn. It attempted Control Graft on itself to make a free leap to top-left marker and yeah, it was no other than Black Joker that turned up. Such is the price of greed - should have just ditched that graft and double interact the strategy marker. 

Instead, Curator did graft control to Rafkin, who did a sepsis on Gwyneth. 

At least scores evened out to 5-5, so no more mines went missing. Ten Thunders had scored strategy and double Harness Ley Lines. Although now as I'm writing this I see that the scheme markers needed to have no enemy models within 2", but yeah, new rules and all that.

Turn 3: MURDER

McMourning had a breakthrough, and now he had the high ground. Time to assassinate Kitty. I even had the first activation. Rafkin used graft token to leap to Kitty, tagging Gwyneth again with poison. Flesh Construct also took a dose, but Rafkin tried to remedy that with a couple medical procedures performed on Kitty Dumont. Only one of them was a success, though, so Kitty was left with one health and Poison in hazardous terrain. Since crows came up during the procedure that hit, there was also a Little Gasser now. 

Lynch blasted Rafkin off the table with  a couple of Ante Up's, and had actions to spare to kill Flesh Construct too. 

Little Gasser exploded all over Gwyneth and Kitty, killing my assassination target, after which Mr. Graves removed the second Flesh Construct. 

Enraged at the destruction of all of his creations, McMourning climbed down from his high ground, charged Gwyneth and killed her. 

So many people dying. Let's have a breather. Hungering Darkness heals for a bit and takes a double walk to get on top of McMourning's earlier tower.

... and the killing continued. Corpse Curator gave itself a leap next to Beckoner, killed her with Ancient Injectors and flipped strategy marker to neutral. 

Whoa. Six models just gone like that. Or seven if we count the Little Gasser, and of course we do.

But finally the killing ended. Not for lack of trying, though. Rogue Necromancy wanted to leap to enemy strategy marker bottom-left, but since it would not have been able to interact at all, it instead tried to eat the Illuminated. Only one bit hit, but at least it delivered poison so that during end phase Illuminated was at one health remaining.

Mr. Tannen walked on top of a tent thing in bottom-right corner, and thus claiming double points from Take the High Ground. Resurrectionists got no strategy because of Don't Turn Your Back, so the scores went 8-6 for Ten Thunders, which prompted another mine collapse next to Mr. Graves.

Turn 4:

Mr. Graves attempted valiantly to go and mess up McMourning's activations, but that just wasn't enough. Graft tokens proved too versatile, and last turn's carnage too great. Resurrectionists were able to secure all three remaining strategy markers, and game ended in a  8-8 draw.

Second game thoughts? Well McMourning's crew cards certainly make a difference in play styles, which is great. But as of now the graft tokens do seem a little too versatile, but their concept is awesome. 

Honeypot as an adversary didn't feel like the Honeypot I used to know. Maybe they have lost some crew identity, as Gwyneth seemed to be the only model that actually affected the deck. But still, this was an interesting and hard fought game nonetheless.