Dreamer and Seamus Pow-wow

After almost a month of not playing, and over a month of not playing any normal games of Malifaux, I finally got the itch to play again. Over the holidays and through January I hadn't really been feeling it. I don't know if it was knowing that new rules were coming out soon, or that the models were eventually going to be revised, or what. I tend to think it's because my collection finally grew beyond its initial small case, and I hate having to carry around an extra piece of foam. But whatever the reason, yesterday I finally got another game back in.

Dan and I picked up our new cards from Bill (thanks Bill!) and then set about getting our game on. I had already divided out all my new cards from my old ones and wanted to play with only cards that were laminated and correct. That meant I had to play the Dreamer. Dan just took all his masters, put them face down, and randomly picked one of them. He got Seamus.

Lists and objectives:

Dreamer, Coppelius, Teddy, Stitched Together x2, Day Dream, 5 Stones; Slaughter; Kidnap (one Necropunk, Belle, Sybelle) and Bodyguard

Seamus, Sybelle, Belle, Bette, Necropunk x2, Grave Spirit, 6 Stones; Deliver the Message; Kill Protege (Teddy) and Frame for Murder (Seamus, though I did not know at the time)

Turn one: All basic stuff. I moved up. He moved up.

Turn two: He went first bringing up the Belle to lure my Day Dream into the open. I considered a while, then decided to move my Day Dream up even further, putting an attack on one of his models. His Necropunk jumped up and killed the Day Dream which dropped out Teddy. Teddy whacked the Necropunk, and Bette popped out. I had forgotten that Teddy was the Kill Protege target, but fortunately Bette left Teddy with three life left. That bear is a tough guy to take down! The Dreamer went, spawned a new Daydream, then dropped all his nightmares out in the open, including Lord Chompy Bits. LCB killed Bette, triggering All Done, and Coppelius managed to flip three terrible attacks, doing absolutely nothing to anyone. Seamus had popped the anti-willpower ability of his and we didn't realize until after this turn that it did not do anything to Nightmares since they weren't living, so instead of doing their Willpower shenanagens, the Stitched Togethers just attacked Seamus and did nothing. Dan moved his second Necropunk up next to the Dreamer so he was surrounded by both the Necropunk and Seamus. Poor kid.

Turn three: I won initiative and realized the only way out of him getting his Deliver the Message was to flee entirely with the Dreamer, which essentially left him out in the open and the rest of my crew exposed. In retrospect, maybe I should have buried my crew and done some movement tricks to get out of the way, but it would have left me on my back foot for another turn and a half. I decided that I'd conceed the four points and just know I had to play a perfect game otherwise. I started with a Stitched Together who gambled and forced Dan to ditch a card so I could draw two. Then he Gambled his Life with Seamus and lost, and Seamus flipped a severe damage, killing him in one shot. Reactivate to that Stitched. Seamus went, Alpha-struck (forgot Seamus could do that or Coppelius would have been paralyzing the Belle and Sybelle instead), delivered the message and did something else. Sybelle went and whacked Coppelius. The Belle went and whacked Coppelius. He managed to take only six wounds. The other Sititched Together went, bled his hand a little more, and then got whacked by Seamus in a second severe flip of damage in the Gamble Your Life ability. Coppelius went and paralyzed Sybelle and the Belle. The two Stitched Togethers bled Dan's hand some more and replenished mine back to full with some halfway decent cards. They put a few damage into Seamus. The Dreamer went, turned into Lord Chompy Bits, and knocked Seamus down to three life, then turned back into the Dreamer. My Day Dream then went, buried my Teddy and respawned him further down the track in melee with Seamus. He went, Flurried, and killed Seamus with three solid hits. Bette popped out from there and killed off the bear. I think Bette died this turn too somewhere, so I may be a little off on the whole order of things. Dan already had six victory points - the max he could get since Seamus had not been killed by my master.

Turn four: Dan got the initiative again, sadly. He killed off Coppelius with his Necropunk, and since it had Slow to Die (or whatever keeps him alive with one wound), Coppelius' wounds back to him didn't kill him. Lord Chompy Bits went ahead and killed Sybelle.

Turn five: Dan got the initiative again and his Necropunk fled while Lord Chompy Bits killed off the Belle grabbing my Kidnap.

Turn six: The Necropunk stayed away and I didn't bother to go after him because I could no longer win the game. Best I could hope for was a tie. Even killing the Necropunk would not have gotten me the game.

Tally at the end, a 6-6 tie.

Overall, was a good time. Glad I got another game. After my disappointment with Pulp City, it's nice to play a miniatures game that I enjoyed. Looking forward to getting some more play time in, especially with my new cards and the new book coming out at the end of the month.