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.

Getting Brined

Had a 50 point game of Warmachine. Scenario was from main rulebook, to kill as many enemy units in six rounds as possible.

My list:

Lord Exhumator Scaverous [+27]
- Nightwretch [7]
 - Reaper [11]
 - Seether [12]
 - Stalker [8]
 - Satyxis Blood Priestess [4]
Misery Cage [2]
Pistol Wraith [4]
Saxon Orrik [4]
Warwitch Siren [3]
Bile Thralls (min) [6]
 - Skarlock Commander [3]
Mechanithralls (max) [9]
 - Brute Thrall (2) [4]

Opponent had:

Baldur the Stonecleaver [+31]

 - Feral Warpwolf [14]

 - Woldwarden [13]

 - Woldwatcher [8]

Rorsh [14]

Gatorman Posse (max) [13]

Shifting Stones [3]

Warpborn Skinwalkers (max) [13]

 - Warpborn Skinwalker Alpha [3]

Woldwatcher and Feral Warpwolf used building in the middle to their advantage. Baldur's forest-on-demand combined nicely with that building to create a large swathe of LoS block.

Gatormen and Rorsh were directly opposed by Cryxian infantry and Pistol Wraith. My heavy warjacks were trying to haul themselves past a rubble. Woldwarden and Skinwalkers looked like they'd be coming their way.

Circle was advancing cautiously and did not commit, so I had to launch the offensive. I used Scaverous' feat on turn 2, which resulted in one dead Woldwarden and Icy Gripped Skinwalkers. Mechanithralls and Bile Thralls tried to flood Gatormen and remaining warbeasts.

Baldur used his feat in response and sniped Pistol Wraith dead with Earth Spikes. Gatormen and warbeasts decimated six Mechanithralls, which is quite acceptable considering that it took the activations of two beasts and pricey unit. 

Bigger loss was when a lucky strike from Skinwalker did blow up Nightwretch's arc node.

Next, Stalker and Seether removed half of Skinwalkers, which was not nearly enough. Mechanithralls killed one Gatorman. As far as turns go it wasn't too bad - at least it looked like opponent wouldn't be able to inflict heavy casualties on me on their turn.

But then those remaining Skinwalkers managed to compromise movement system from both Seether and Stalker as well as killing every and all Mechanithralls. 

With my buffer gone, I tried to drag somewhat injured Feral Warpwolf to Reaper to get it away from Baldur's control zone and maybe even kill it. But as it happened, harpoon missed. At least all Skinwalkers were gone next.

Scaverous moves a bit forward so he'd be more relevant next turn.

I failed to take into account the terrifying threat range of Brine... soon enough the heavy pig beast was next to Lord Exhumator and even scored critical knockdown... twice. Scaverous had the warbeast re-roll its attack roll. 

Two focus points weren't enough. Victory for Circle.

Undivided Attention

Had a 50ss game of Malifaux on Vassal.

Strategy: Turf War Corner Deployment
Schemes: Outflank, Detonate Charges, Research Mission, Let Them Bleed, Bait and Switch.

My list:

Seamus with the Whisper & Copycat Killer
Madame Sybelle
Mortimer
Bete Noire
Jaakuna Ubume
Rotten Belle
Dead Dandy

SS: 5

Schemes: Detonate Charges, Bait and Switch (Kitty Dumont)

Opponent had:

Jakob Lynch & Hungering Darkness
Mr Graves
Kitty Dumont
Illuminated (2)
Beckoner (2)
Tanuki

SS:4

Schemes: Detonate Charges, Research Mission

Turn 1:

No real interaction between crews happened on first turn. Dead Dandy and Tanuki tagged their closest strategy markers. Ten Thunders had a scary bunch of models in the middle - Illuminated, Lynch, Mr. Graves, Beckoner and even Kitty Dumont were all easily directed to centermost strategy marker. Another Illuminated, Hungering Darkness and Beckoner were coming from bottom-right.

I only had Madame Sybelle in the middle, but Seamus and Bete Noire were relatively nearby when they were going to greet Hungering Darkness. Seamus had dropped a scheme marker just in case. Top-left had Copycat Killer, Mortimer and Jaakuna Ubume, although they were too far from anything. I 

Turn 2:

Resurrectionists win initiative, so Bete Noire is able to go and interact with bottom-right marker. Beckoner then lures her closer for Hungering Darkness to charge her. She faded away. Seamus took a shot at Beckoner and managed to kill her right away, switching bottom-left marker to neutral. 

Lynch and Mr. Graves eat three of my soul stones and four of Madame's health. Almost one health and one soul stone per action point. 

Beckoner in the middle lures forward Dead Dandy who had walked forward to plant a scheme. Illuminated charges him, but, well, he is disguised.

Jaakuna takes a walk and projects her voice on Beckoner and Illuminated, dealing three and two damage. But then there was Tanuki to soften the blow on Beckoner. 

Kitty moves upwards, where Mortimer interacts a scheme and finds a zombie from beneath the soil. Copycat Killer just hangs around.

Both score strategy for 1-1

Turn 3:

Madame Sybelle is first to activate and puts on Undivided Attention. 

Hungering Darkness is then able to charge Seamus, and whops him down to five hit points remaining. Luckily Illuminated comes, too, and heals him up a little. 

Lynch and Mr. Graves are at Madame Sybelle again, and thanks to some poor flips she is still standing, albeit Resurrectionists have no more soulstones. Two health.

Mortimer charges Illuminated in the middle and manages to kill it. This opened way for Mindless Zombie to run to engage Beckoner. Tanuki tries to remove Mindless Zombie, but its furry fury is not enough. 

Kitty claims top-left strategy marker. Then Copycat Killer switches places with Seamus. Seamus advances, and it takes two attempts to get terrorizer to succeed on Kitty. Since he still has one action point left, he makes strategy marker neutral.

Bete Noire jumps up from corpse that Beckoner left behind last round, charges and walks to bottom-left strategy marker and makes it neutral.

Dead Dandy makes a scheme marker out of Mindless Zombie.

If Jaakuna had succeeded on first lure against Beckoner, I could have got both schemes this turn. But as it happened, it took two attempts to put Beckoner into position for Detonate Charges.

Scores go 3-1 for Resurrectionists.

Turn 4:

Soon enough things escalated beyond hopelessness for Lynch. When it was certain that Ten Thunders wouldn't score strategy or deny Resurrectionists third scenario point, we called it a game. 

I would have scored Bait and Switch, and opponent could have plausibly scored Research Mission, but that would have still meant 5-2 situation. 

(But no, Madame didn't survive.)

To Fell a Tree

Lantern Year 15 special showdown - Lonely Tree level 2

 Moldonial, Tyypi, Noitatsaved and Fatalia convinced apathetic, twice contractured and dismembered Twix to eat a delicious fruit they had found. Much to everyone's surprise the treat did cheer up Twix! Kind of, because he died.

 This showdown revealed how, how do they say - dope? Synchronized Strike is when fully built with Forbidden Dance and Heart Flute. Fatalia would have been tossed around the board, as well as given 2 bleed tokens for multiple people if the reactions triggers had not been changed to failures. 

People were still drawn over the board, though, but as far as reactions and AI cards go, this was more preferable than getting damage 6 explosions in the face.

When Moldonial was thrown to the corner on turn 1, it was slightly concerning - it wouldn't be until two rounds had passed when he'd be able to deliver those bites and punches to the tree. Tyypi with her Vespertine bow and +1 speed and +1 accuracy was quite adept in missing shots and rolling four or below when wounding. But her main purpose was to check the hit locations with Cat Eye Circlet anyway.

Noitatsaved was also missing all her Rib Blade attacks. So an unlikely hero appears. Fatalia with one missing eye actually scores most wounds to the monster with Counter-Weighted Axe. But Tyypi and Moldonial want to steal their share of glory, when Moldonial finally arrives at the scene and delivers three wounds, leaving the tree with one AI card remaining. Tyypi activates, walks next to the tree and uses Heroic fighting art with Bone Axe, which was a proper thing to do. 

Fatalia did six wounds, Tyypi four, Moldonial three and the tree itself had two moods in play. 

Settlement receives five resources from the fruits, as well as Blistering Plasma Fruit. 

Lantern Year 15 hunt & showdown - Screaming Antelope level 2

Noitatsaved, Tyypi, Fatalia and Twyllaria are the nominated hunters. During hunt Twyllaria continuously loses all her survival. Hunt isn't very exciting as most results just boil down to "and then nothing happened", except that Twyllaria also finds Oda from path of brave during overwhelming darkness.

Showdown started horrendously. After first Vespertine Bow attack from Tyypi, all survivors were knocked down. Now and then Antelope makes for some scary traps. Next few rounds Antelope spends trampling and biting Fatalia, but fortunately she survives with only collapsed lung and being disemboweled.

Fight took far longer than it was supposed to - and this was all because of Infested trait that came up early. The amount of missing-to-wound-by-one was staggering. Also three or four traps wasn't much for help either.

Twyllaria was our dedicated tank, so it was her who wasn't attacked even once, or even trampled over even just one time.

But once survivors got their stuff together and quit the habit of failing hard at everything, the showdown was a pushover.

Lantern Year 16: Weird Dream

We had Hands of Heat on timeline, and since we received 17 resources and had equal amount in storage, we pretty much just got to shuffle around our resources. At least Weird Dream gave a few endeavors for us.

Settlement develops the final missing piece from Screaming armor and Leather Shield.

1: Settlement innovated Bloodletting
2: Love Juice and Augury gives settlement two new babies, Maxaria and Sibmux.
3-4: Failed Forbidden Dances for Sibyllaria and Oda
5-6: Synchronized Strike for Maxaria and Twyllaria
7: Leather for shield crafting.

Next we have Manhunter level 3 coming up. 

Assassination Doubles

A 50ss game of Malifaux.

Strategy: Break the Line with Standard Deployment.
Scheme pool: Assassinate, Outflank, Claim Jump, Research Mission, Breakthrough

 My list:

Hamelin the Piper & 3x Stolen
Benny Wolcomb
Nix
Mad Dog Brackett
Midnight Stalker
Rat Catcher
Prospector
Malifaux Rat

Pool: 1
Schemes: Outflank, Research Mission

Opponent Had:

Asami Tanaka & Amanjaku
Ama No Zako
Fuhatsu
Samurai
Charm Warder (Claim jumper)
Obsidian Oni

Pool: 7
Schemes: Outflank, Claim Jump

Turn 1:

I placed my scheme duo of Midnight Stalker and Mad Dog Brackett far-left to do a strategy, score Research Mission and half of Outflank. They were directly opposed only by Amanjaku, so I had already secured billions of victory points by then. Or so it felt at the time. Then Amanjaku randomly tore half of Mad Dog's health away with just one strike. Bothersome, yes, but it still was only a pesky little insignificant totem. Or so it felt at the time.

Continuing from left to right I had Hamelin hiding behind the forest with kids a little further back. Hamelin didn't do much else than get a summoned Obsidian Oni Stunned. Behind the forest there was Fuhatsu, and and a little closer to middle Obsidian Oni and Asami.

Past midpoint after Hamelin I had a blob of Prospector, Rat Catcher, Benny Wolcomb and a turn 1 created Rat King engaged by the aforementioned Obsidian Oni. Ama No Zako and, less surprisingly, Charm Warder were nearing on them.

Next to this rat machine was Nix, and Samurai was guarding over the rightmost table edge.

Turn 2:

Midnight Stalker moves strategy marker, leaps along with it and interacts a scheme marker.

Amanjaku doesn't do anything useful, but neither is Mad Dog able to remove it from board with just a cigar. But at least he gets the third required marker for Midnight Stalker.

Ama No Zako comes to beat the Piper, and Obsidian Oni has set the ground on fire near the middle, and has placed itself next to strategy marker in the Hamelin's forest. 

Hamelin Obeys the Obsidian Oni back to middle of the board within 4" of unactivated Asami, Charm Warder and Fuhatsu. Then he uses Piper's Influence to stun Fuhatsu in an attempt to minimize possible damage on Midnight Stalker.

Plan was cute, but Fuhatsu just shoots the vampire wannabe dead despite not hitting with every attack. 

Asami pushes Obsidian Oni back to strategy marker and summons a Tengu. 

The turn 1 summoned Obsidian Oni delays Rat Catcher, Rat King and Benny to a troublesome degree - Rat Catcher disengages and interacts a scheme nearby. My plan was to wait until Oni explodes to gnaw Rat King to scheme marker and toss one of the strategy markers. Had I succeeded this earlier, I could have seized the control of playing football with the marker, Charm Warder needing to throw it back to middle line. Had I succeeded later, Rat King could have started throwing the marker back at middle line. But as it turned out, I didn't succeed at all. Obsidian Oni didn't die until the very last action point of Rat King, thus leaving the strategy marker on my side.

Nix tossed rightmost strategy marker to Ten Thunders side while Samurai shot the dog with everything it got. Prospector was nearing right-side Outflank area.

Neither player reveals schemes, but both score strategy.

Turn 3:

Nix charges Samurai and looses bowels to keep that strategy marker on enemy side. 

Charm Warder manages to draw LoS to Nix and blasts it with four damage from chaos theory action thing. This leaves Nix with just one health remaining. Prospector had come to interact a scheme marker for Outflank, but suddenly felt rather vulnerable when Samurai kicked the rotting ghost puppy dead.

Benny Wolcomb charges Charm Warder, not doing much, but at least opening way for this gnaw-walk-interact shenanigan for Rat King. Although now I wonder if the summon token from Benny's rats would have been inherited by the Rat King after it had been tangled together by the one Malifaux Rat I had bought with soulstones? (answer: yes, they would)

Ama No Zako and Obsidian Oni go full-ape on Hamelin, actually removing not one but two of his Stolen. Such power came with a cost: by now Asami had fallen to three health remaining. 

While Hamelin was still alive, he activated and Obeyed Fuhatsu to shoot Asami. She didn't quite die thanks to soulstones - she was left with one health remaining. Next Hamelin Obeys Rat King, who deals the killing blow. What a shame I had not picked Assassinate. 

However... a lot of my game winning potential was resting on the shoulders of Mad Dog Brackett. And now the blue guy right in front of him received a level up. Soon enough Mad Dog Brackett is sitting with just one health box.

At least Fuhatsu botches his activation, and there is enough of Mad Dog left to disengage and run next to scheme marker, blow-it-to-hell marker, strategy marker and Midnight Stalker's corpse marker.

Tengu takes a double walk and dark bargain to remove my scheme marker, so at least Midnight Stalker had done something useful by dying so embarrassingly - I still had three different types of markers within 4" of Mad Dog Brackett for Research Mission.

Outcasts get Research Mission and Strategy, while Ten Thunders receive no points. Scores go 3-1 for Outcasts.

Turn 4:

While I do my best to damage Charm Warder, it seems impervious to any damage. The Warder, though... With a single of Chaos Theory, the last remaining Stolen and Benny dies, and Rat King is dispatched by melee attack. And the thing also has enough action points to Concentrate on top of that.

Hamelin was at four health points, and after Obsidian Oni had activated he was still going strong at one or two points. But the thing is... Obsidian Oni had counted on killing Outcast master to remove its third flicker token. And as this kind of didn't happen, there may have been a sort of an explosion there. 

Somehow ironic that neither of us had picked Assassinate as their scheme.

My rats were annoying the heck out of opponent by tying up Ama No Zako and Amanjaku, but I suppose those health 2, defense 3, willpower 2 models can only go so far as meatshields. Amanjaku was able to charge Mad Dog Brackett, who had skulked towards Outflank area on left. Fortunately the attack missed.

Samurai fails spectacularly against Prospector. 

Eventhough I had received a crippling blow this turn, I still had plenty of points ahead of Ten Thunders. At least until they revealed Claim Jump on a model I couldn't realistically get to.

But still game was 3-2 in my favor!

Turn 5

Well... still it was me struggling for a draw.

Amanjaku wasn't in base contact with Brackett, and in such a scenario you won't make miracles with a cigar butt against essentially a 10-12 health model. Outflank was out of question.

Only way to get a draw seemed to be to disengage with a single Malifaux Rat from Ama No Zako so that the oni henchman doesn't flip higher than Weak for movement reduction and charge Charm Warder, flipping Red Joker for damage.

Guess what?

That just didn't happen.

Game ended 4-3 for Ten Thunders.