I got a game in yesterday against Big Jay of the Gamer’s Lounge (a great podcast – if you don’t listen, head on over and give it a once-over). We used to play Warmachine quite a bit back in the day and while we’ve both been playing Malifaux for a while, we rarely sit down against each other.
The new rulebook has been out for about a week and our group is still slowly digesting it. Several points during the game things popped up where one or the other of us was confused and largely we were able to resolve the rules with a quick look in the book, so that’s a plus. Still, it’s going to take a little time before we’ve got all the rules set away.
Jay was trying out a new list for Guild he’s been wanting to give a whirl and I asked him who he wanted to face. His list, apparently, has a lot of good tools to combat the Dreamer (ways to get rid of Slow and Paralyze, and ways to get bonuses against Morale duels which are my bread and butter when playing the Dreamer) and he wanted to see how the matchup would go, so out came Lord Chompy Bits and the Dreamer.
We played 35 stones.
Dreamer, Daydream x2, Lilitu, Lelu, Coppelius, Stitched Together, 8 stones
Lady Justice, Lucius, Drill Sergeant, Guild Guard Captain x2, Guild Guard x2, 4 stones
We flipped for our scenarios. I got Claim Jump and Jay got Treasure Hunt. For our schemes, I announced Bodyguard and kept Kidnap hidden (with two Guild Guard and the Captain) while he announced both Bodyguard (Lady Justice) and Break Through.
The first turn was mostly maneuvering around and positioning with Jay getting one of his Guild Guards up to the treasure but not yet picking it up. I pulled the trick I learned from Bill, putting Terrifying 13 on all my Nightmares, then burying them so that the turn they pop up they could do some shenanigans.
On turn two, I won the initiative and moved the Dreamer up to pop out my Nightmares. They call came out a couple inches away from the treasure, putting the Guild Guard in melee with Lilitu’s massive reach. As soon as he went, he’d have to worry about that Terrifying 13. Instead, Jay decided to pull a really cool trick. He managed to get three or four models linked together, toss up a bubble that granted bonuses against morale duels, and then flip Lady Justice from his deployment zone all the way up into my line of models. Then she activated, had to ditch a few cards and stones to keep herself from being frightened off a few times, and promptly killed off Lelu. Ouch!
I retaliated by Paralyzing Lady Justice and moving Coppelius into range of several other guildsmen. Lord Chompy Bits came out to play and put a hurting on Lady Justice, but didn’t manage to kill her. My Stitched Together Gambled with her, then Gambled his Life. He failed, and Jay flipped two Severe damage flips on his (-) flip, killing the Stitched Together. Damn! He went again and dropped Lady J down to two life left. All in all, a poor showing from my Nightmares. Though I did have the benefit of scaring away the one Guardsman near the treasure. He was near Coppelius when he fled, so he took enough damage from that to kill himself.
Turn three, I went first. I didn’t realize that Jay could un-paralyze his models (though he had told me earlier in the game – it just slipped my mind) and started with Coppelius instead. He attacked three times and triggered “Remove Eye” twice. One of the Guild Captains ran, but the other and a Guardsman stuck around. Coppelius used one of his eyes to make an Alp. Jay went and strung out a few models again. He had to cheat some more to keep himself from running away from Coppelius and by now his hand was very depleted. I’d say mine was strong, but I had yet to draw a card over a 9 in the game, so while I had a lot in my hand, it wasn’t all that great.
Lady Justice was un-paralyzed and then promptly swung a few times at the Dreamer after moving in such a way as she was only engaging him. I had stones and he did not, and he couldn’t cheat, so I was able to keep Lady J from hitting the Dreamer either time. Lilitu went and finished off Lady Justice, but she was down to 3 life left. She’d be dying pretty soon.
Lucius moved up, started ordering his men around, and ate the fleeing Captain in order to get a reactivate. He reactivated and ordered the Guild Captain to attack again, hurting Coppelius. The Alp went and healed Coppelius, but I only flipped weak and he healed only one life. Lord Chompy Bits, meanwhile, moved up and hit the farther away Guild Guard a little then turned back into the boy while one of the Daydreams buried Lilitu in case I could find use for her later.
Turn four was a clutch turn where things started going better for me. The Guild Captain killed Coppelius with three more attacks, but the wound Coppelius does when you kill him plus the wounds the Alp does when you do Strikes and Walks near him put the Captain near dead. Jay realized he should have moved Lucius closer to sacrifice the Captain to get Reactivate since he probably was not going to survive anyway. The Alp finished off the Captain, the Drill Sergeant killed off the Alp, and Lord Chompy Bits killed the Drill Sergeant and the Guildsman.
At this point on turns five and six, Jay moved up to his treasure while I ran for the Claim Jump. Jay killed one of my two remaining Daydreams and came towards me, but unfortunately just did not have enough models to do everything he needed to win. I had four points already from my schemes and Jay had none. He could take the treasure to my deployment zone to get 4 points (2 for Treasure Hunt and 2 for Break Through), he could take it to his deployment zone to get 4 points (4 for Treasure Hunt), or he could go for my Claim Jump and try to block that with the treasure in hand getting 2 points, but blocking me from getting 4. He opted for the latter and ended up being an inch or so too far away and I won 8-2. If he hadn’t gone for killing one of the Daydreams with one of his actions, he might have been able to pull out a 4-2 game instead. I did try to get Lilitu to lure Lucius away from the treasure, but with the (-) flips, I wasn’t doing so well. I did manage to get an 18 against him but he flipped a 13 and resisted. Oh well.
Anywho, a very close game, and an interesting list by Jay. I look forward to seeing it in play once he’s got a little more practice with it. I can see it being a quite frightening play what with pulling Lady Justice pretty much anywhere near Lucius. Good deal!
You know, reading through your telling of the report, I think that you might not have gotten kidnap. Is it any three minions or three specific minions. I sacked the primed Guild Captain to gain reactivate and he is one of the 3 models you point out to me as the 3 models you killed to get Kidnap. I'm also not convinced you get full points for only 1 model near the objective for claim jump. I still think you need to have 2, need to have double screams needing to have at least 2 to me.
ReplyDeleteBut good game either way.
Kidnap just says that the three minions I chose (the three with red bases) have to not be in play anymore by the end of the game. It's non-specific as to whether I kill them or you sacrifice them or they jump off a cliff and die. They just need to not be in play anymore.
ReplyDeleteI posted the rule question about the claim jump and how many models are needed to gain a full 4 points. So far the consensus is that 1 model of mine is more than twice the number you have if you have zero. The rules marshals have not weighed in, but generally they do not if someone else posts the answer and it's correct and no one else is disagreeing with it.