Hamelin's Two Games

I managed to get two games in last night, both using Hamelin. I’ve been trying to get better with him and get a grasp on how he works. Playing him can take a long time and I want to get better with it.

My first game came against Josh, a good Viktoria player who was also thinking of picking up Hamelin at some point in the future. The second one was against Dan and his Rasputina list as he’s trying to get better with his Archanists.

Since I am still trying to get the hang of Hamelin, I wanted to try using something new that I hadn't used before from his plethora of abilities. So these games, I tried concentrating on using his Pipes to Obey and make models Insignificant.


Battle Report – Hamelin vs. Viktoria, 35 stones

(me) Hamelin, Obedient Wretch, Stolen x3, Malifaux Rat x4, Nix, Rat Catcher, 4 stones
(Josh) Viktoria, Von Schill, Taelor, Freikorps Trapper, Freikorps Specialist, Freikorpsman, 3 stones

Strategy: Hamelin (Destroy the Evidence), Viktoria (Distract)
Schemes: Hamelin (Bodyguard, Breakthrough), Viktoria (Bodyguard – Viktorias, Hold Out)



The game essentially hinged upon me getting Hamelin into his deployment zone and staying alive. I would have Bodyguard and probably Breakthrough (given how few Significant models he’d likely have left), and he’d get nothing from Distract and he’d lose Hold Out. From the get-go, I decided Destroy the Evidence was just something I was going to get if I had the opportunity along the way. Hamelin crossing the field was the most important part.


TURN ONE
Most of the first turn was pretty standard. The Trapper deployed on one flank where he could start taking shots on my army as it moved up the field. I kept my Stolen hidden as well as I could, and moved up the rest of my army in essentially one big ball. Von Schill took to the middle of the board, shooting one of my Stolen down on the first turn, while the rest of Viki’s crew moved up in a line, trying to block Hamelin from heading through to get to his deployment zone. With the last activation, Hamelin moved up twice and then hit the sword Viktoria with Understand the Soulless, cheating in a high card and stoning another 10+ putting it out of reach for her. One threat made Insignificant.

TURN TWO
I won the initiative and started with Hamelin. He tossed a Stolen up near Viki’s line, then used Understand the Soulless twice, killing the Stolen and then the Rat to make the second Viktoria and Taelor Insignificant. The Viktorias went at the same time and catapulted one of them forward to beat the tar out of Nix. My rats swarmed around the Sword Viktoria, doing a point of damage and adding a Blight Token. Von Schill moved up and took two shots on the Rat Catcher, killing him. My new rat moved up and sacrificed himself and two others to make a new Rat Catcher. The Trapper tried to take a shot at a Stolen, but missed, and he didn’t want to cheat and give me a high card back. My Rat Catcher killed all the Rats, and the new Rats put another three damage on Viktoria and gave her another Blight token. Meanwhile, Taelor rushed back to protect one of the Destroy the Evidence points and the Freikorpsman and Specialist moved up to support the Viktorias.

TURN THREE
I won initiative again and moved up with Hamelin, pulling into range of the Specialist. Hamelin used his (0) to get rid of any (-) or (+) flips in his next action, then attacked the Specialist with his staff. I hit and cheated in a Severe damage, killing the Specialist with 9 wounds, which then blew up killing the Sword Viktoria and hurting the other one. A few rats got caught, as did Hamelin, but I was okay with that. Hamelin used his last action to use his Pipes on Von Schill, making him Insignificant, though I did not get the Obey off because there wasn't really anything to do with it. At this point, the game was essentially over. The Rats swarmed around the Freikorpsman, doing some damage to him, and I set up to get another round of Rat attacks when we called the game. From here on out, only the Trapper would be able to hurt Hamelin (assuming the Freikorpsman died) and Hamelin was just going to run for Josh’s deployment zone, bringing in new Stolen along the way.




Battle Report – Hamelin vs. Rasputina, 35 stones

(me) Hamelin, Obedient Wretch, Stolen x3, Malifaux Rat x4, Nix, Rat Catcher, 4 stones
(Dan) Rasputina, Essence of Power, Ice Gamin x2, Silent One x2, 7 stones

Strategy: Hamelin (Plant Evidence), Rasputina (Contain Power)
Schemes: Hamelin (Bodyguard, Hold Out), Rasputina (Sabotage, Kill Protégé - Nix)



Dan was a bit unlucky in pulling Contain Power against Hamelin. I almost didn’t take Bodyguard, not wanting to put all my eggs in one basket, but decided that I wanted to see if I could keep Hamelin alive while Dan was gunning for him. Either way, it seemed like the game would largely come down to whether he could kill off Hamelin and keep him dead.


TURN ONE
This turn was pretty basic. I knew I had to get to four pieces of terrain on his side, and keep Hamelin alive. The Essence of Power put up a pair of Ice Pillars that Rasputina could hide behind and have her other minions act as Mirrors for her spells. Meanwhile, Von Schill charged off to the side of the board to chase down one of my Stolen, wanting to clear all the Stolen out at some point to get at Hamelin. Hamelin headed up for his first turn and summoned a new Stolen near some of the terrain pieces he could activate.

TURN TWO
He won initiative and one of the Silent Ones killed my forward Stolen, summoning a Rat next to it and in base contact with a terrain piece. My Rat Catcher moved up and brought a few of his Rats with him. Von Schill took the opportunity to take aim at the Stolen. He shot and missed, then shot again and hit, but flipped the Black Joker for damage doing nothing. Dan cursed his luck (it was pretty bad) and I tried to hide a smile. Dan’s plans of trying to kill off Hamelin this turn were dashed as no one else could get close enough to my Stolen near Von Schill.

Hamelin, realizing how dangerous his position was, summoned a new Stolen back in his deployment zone as a safety net, then moved up and tagged a Silent One with his Pipes, turning him Insignificant and doing some damage to him. My Rats all activated and tagged two of the points I needed for my mission, while Nix moved off to one side. Rasputina saw her chance and tossed Overpowered spells into him, killing the dog and netting him his Kill Protégé.



TURN THREE – FOUR
The turns are kinda blending together now, so I’m trying to put things where I remember them happening. I’m sure there was a lot more maneuvering around and the like, but here’s the gist.

Von Schill would not be foiled two turns in a row and killed off the Stolen. My Rat would spend the rest of the game chasing him, but was woefully inadequate at the task. Hamelin moved up to the other side of the ice pillars and smashed the Significant Silent One with his staff, killing her outright. The Ice Gamin attacked Hamelin and only after all the damage was done did I remember that he couldn’t have targeted Hamelin since he was Ht 1. My Rats went next and tagged my last two objective points – my only plans left were to keep Hamelin alive and keep him out of my deployment zone. Rasputina had other plans. She blasted into the melee and killed a Rat Catcher and the Ice Gamin. The Ice Gamin exploded and killed a bunch of Rats and finished off Hamelin. Ouch! At the end of the turn, Hamelin appeared back in my deployment zone where the safety net Stolen was.

TURN FIVE – SIX
A Silent One and Von Schill rushed towards the Sabotage point, but I wasn’t having any of that. Hamelin tagged Von Schill with the Pipes, Obeying him to attack and kill the Silent One, and triggering him to become Insignificant. Hamelin then backed away and brought up a new Stolen even further back. My few remaining Rats moved around annoyingly and the last Ice Gamin moved up to the Sabotage point, but Dan had misplaced Von Schill who stood in the Ice Gamin’s way and he wasn’t able to tag the objective point yet. We flipped to see if the game would go on and it didn’t – Rasputina pulled in two points for her Kill Protégé and Hamelin took home the full eight.

The Ladies

Laura just finished painting up the Colette box I bought for her a while ago. Here they are. I love all the different colors in the dresses. She told me I had to find her more models to paint, so I guess we'll be expanding the crew a bit.


In the meantime, I went through and painted up the Miss Pack I had lying around.

Hamelin vs. Viktoria

Battle Report – Hamelin vs. Viktoria, 35 stones

Last night I headed to the store and got a game in against a local who I haven't played in about a year. It was great to see him out again. I have been playing Outcasts up until the Blood Shaman and Nekima are released in a couple weeks, and I know Tim plays Outcasts too, so I asked him if he was planning on the Viktorias. He was, so I picked Hamelin instead so we wouldn't have a mirror match.

It was Tim's first time facing Hamelin since he was released, so he was still a little rusty on what all Hamelin could do. I tried to explain as much of it as I could, and he did a decent job at mitigating a lot of what I could do by keeping himself out of LOS on the way up.

(me) Hamelin, Obedient Wretch, Stolen x3, Malifaux Rat x4, Nix, Rat Catcher, 4 stones
(Tim) Viktoria, Student of Conflict, Von Schill, Ronin x2, Freikorps Librarian, 6 stones

Strategy: Hamelin (Reconnoiter), Viktoria (Claim Jump)
Schemes: Hamelin (Bodyguard, Steal Relic), Viktoria (Stake a Claim, Frame for Murder - Librarian)


The Claim Jump marker is set next to the piece of terrain Tim picks for Stake a Claim - pretty standard. If you've got to stand there already, why not get six points for it? Since I knew he was going to come for that spot, I set my army mostly up near the marker and then put a Stolen on each of the flanks, both for Reconnoiter and to help for my Hamelin insurance policies.

TURN ONE
The first turn saw a little bit of action. As usual, I held off on activating Hamelin until near the end so that I could see if anyone presented themselves as a target for my Understand the Soulless early. While my rat swarm moved up around the Claim Jump marker and one of my Stolen moved into position to be sacrificed to Hamelin for Understand the Soulless, Von Schill jumped out, leveled his gun, and shot the poor kid between the eyes. A new rat popped out for my dead kid. Hamelin moved up, brought up a new Stolen, and then promptly sacrificed it to zap Von Schill with Understand the Soulless, making him Insignificant. I was up to six rats now, and Nix made a few of them reposition when the Stolen was sacrificed. The Gun Viktoria moved in on one of the rats that was outside of 6", attacked him and missed, decided it wasn't worth the effort, and then moved away back behind cover.

TURN TWO
I could see the Viktorias moving up slowly but hiding behind terrain a bit on their way forward. I knew they'd be coming in strong at some point, so I wanted to mitigate as much of their attack as I could. Fortunately they were split up so they could not companion. There was a little positioning going on as Tim was trying to force me to activate some of my other models first, but I was going with my out-of-the-way Stolen to make him come at me. Finally a Ronin came in on the Malifaux Rat out in the middle with no support. He flipped low but was hitting, so I cheated a low card to make sure he missed me. There was a 12 or so on the top of my discard pile, so if he cheated, he knew I was getting a high card in my hand. He decided the Rat wasn't worth it and called it a miss. The Rat went next, attacked, hit the Ronin, then flipped the Red Joker and a Moderate for damage, dealing 4 damage, giving her Rabies, and a Blight Token. Not bad for a little throw-away.

Von Schill moved up and took a shot at the Rat Catcher, knocking him down by three. The Rat Swarm took its turn and moved up on Von Schill and just started gnawing on him. By the first go around, he had been hit three times for three Blight Counters, five damage, and Rabies. Gun Viki moved up and bounced the Sword Viki up near Hamelin. Hamelin went, summoned a Stolen, then sacrificed the Stolen to try to Understand the Soulless on the Sword Viki. He stoned to resist. Nix used his (0) from the Stolen being sacrificed to pull the rats back to the Rat Catcher. Hamelin's second use of Understand the Soulless worked and Sword Viki was made insignificant. She killed some Rats to draw some cards at that point. The new Rats activated and did a little more damage, and then the Rat Catcher killed them all, bringing in new ones. They swarmed in again and killed Von Schill and started working on the Sword Viki. Nix rushed in and tried to hit the Sword Viktoria, but missed. Oh, and one of my rats managed to steal the Relic from Gun Viktoria. Ha!

TURN THREE
The Viktorias got the initiative and both of them went first. The Sword Viktoria cast Sisters in Battle for the extra flip, killed Nix, and brought the Gun Viktoria up next to Hamelin. She went and started swinging, Whirlwinding into the Rat Catcher, then back into Hamelin, then hitting Hamelin twice more to kill him. The rats all went and killed the Sword Viktoria and started working on the Gun Viktoria. A ronin rushed in and killed the Rat with the Relic while a second one moved in on the building for Stake a Claim. The Rat Catcher killed all the Rats to heal up and brought up a new swarm. I activated that swarm, sacrificed three of my nine rats for a new Rat Catcher, and the others started working on the Gun Viktoria and Ronin. We called the game there as I was going to kill both of them this turn, leaving him with only the Librarian left.



It was the first game I'd seen Hamelin die in, though no surprise given who I was facing. I knew I had to get the Vikis Insignificant as fast as possible, but with their bouncing, I didn't think I'd be able to get them both. In the end, though, the Rats and Hamelin were able to pull it out again.

The Viktorias

Got the Vikis all painted up a little while ago and then just added in the Student of Conflict a couple days ago. My Viktoria crew is pretty much finished. May add some Ronin later on down the road, and I'll be picking up the Desperate Mercenaries when they come out, but for the most part, I can call them done.

Playing Cold City

Last weekend, a bunch of college buddies and I all got together and spent the weekend pretending we were back in the day. We did all the stuff we used to do in college, wife-free and life-free. In other words, we drank beer and played games.

I ended up heading up with a one-shot game of Cold City in mind to run. I have never run it before, and only ran its sister game, Hot War, once (and it was in a very loose interpretation of the system). But as with Hot War, the concept of the world just grabbed me and pulled me in.

Cold City takes place in the 1950s, Berlin. The second World War is over. All the rumors of the Nazis working on supernatural experiments and weird sciences actually did happen, and the allied countries who are now rebuilding have put together a combined organization that is set to find all the remains of these experiments and control or destroy them. Of course this is all played against the backdrop of the rise of the Cold War, so suspicion, backstabbing, spying, espionage, etc. all have their place here.

The players come in as members of different countries who are working together to try to deal with something regarding the war. None of the individual countries trusts the others enough to let them go off on their own after these WWII remnants, so they have to work together. And what better time to spy on the other side than when you’re working together.

I put together three characters for the guys to pick from.

There was Mikhail, the Soviet gunman and military specialist.

There was Bud, the American faceman and thief.

And there was Nigel, the British wheelman and scientist.



Of course, nothing was as it seemed.

Mikhail was actually an undead soldier, the result of Soviets trying to improve upon the sciences that they had recovered from the Nazis. He was what they called the “Perfect Undead”, a man who kept his mind from when he was alive, and maintained his full range of movement and skills. This technology was unknown to the other allied nations, so he had to keep his true nature secret. To make things more complicated, he was ordered by the Soviets to gain information about the American codes used for transmissions

Bud was a new arrival in Berlin. He was ordered to Berlin to try to find and plug a leak within the organization. Evidently information was leaking out of the department (not surprising given how many nationalities there were and how people were spying on each other all the time). But while that was more or less expected, the problem was that some information was leaking to the underground Nazis, the people who escaped the allies after the end of the world war. Additionally, Bud was trying to get access to the Berlin black market and find a way to make some money for himself. His family back home was going through tough times and he needed to get them more cash fast.

Nigel, finally, was given some simple orders from his British government: complete all jobs fast and with minimal funds. Britain was still rebuilding and the more money they could keep out of these projects, the more they could keep in the homeland. Of course, Nigel did not care as much about that. He was a traitor to the allies, and the very leak that Bud was looking for. His current mission was to learn all he could about the Soviet projects with the undead. Whispers had reached the Nazis that the Soviets had improved upon their technology and they wanted to learn what they did.



Over all of this was the actual mission that was presented to the group: they had to find a Nazi code-breaker, a device that would help break the codes on a number of documents the allies had already recovered. To do this, they would end up having to find their way into a nightclub run by a very dangerous man who dealt with drug trafficking, slavery, and information brokering. He had his hand in everything. They were able to get information from him regarding the Nazi scientist who might have been involved and tracked him to an insane asylum. Speaking with him, they learned about where the code breaker was being held and traveled out after it. Along the way, the Nazis learned about this mission and set obstacles in their path.

By the end of the game, I had to declare Nigel the winner. He managed to uncover the truth about Mikhail and keep his own hide safe, all on a shoestring budget! Bud came in second as he was unable to uncover the leak, but did set himself up in the black market and start getting more money coming his way. Finally, poor Mikhail’s secret was let out of the bag (though Nigel kept that to himself), and he failed to get any information on the American codes.

Overall, a fantastic game, and a great one shot. I think it’d be hard to run something with this much paranoia as an ongoing campaign, but as a one-shot, it was definitely worth it.

Adding to Hamelin's Crew

Last week two new models came out for Hamelin's crew - the Rat Catchers and the Obedient Wretch. I picked up them, another blister of Stolen (to bring me up to 6) and two Insidious Madnesses for my Neverborn. I managed to get the Rat Catchers and Obedient Wretch all painted up.

New Alliances for Firestorm Armada

Spartan Games finally came out with the promised PDF documents for their Firestorm Armada game. If you're at all interested in seeing them, check them out here.



I haven't looked through them in great detail, but what I've seen looks really cool. Each "alliance" gets its own document that talks about how to make mixed fleets. Basically, your Sorylians, Aquans and Terrans are able to work together, and your Dindrenzi, Relthoza and Directorate are all working together.

The Alliance documents tell you how to mix your fleets and use parts of one faction with parts of another. The flexibility in ship choices is countered by losing some of your tactical flexibility with your hand of cards. Basically the more flexible you are in building your fleet, the less flexible you are in what you can do in game with your cards.

In the balance, I think the advantage gained from the Alliance fleets over the pure-faction fleets offsets the disadvantage, and I think Spartan Games wants it that way. It feels like they're encouraging people to expand the game from the small selection of ships each faction has by, instead of increasing each faction, increasing the ships available to each. Probably a good idea given how Spartan Games is very slow in putting out more ships of late. Instead of being excited for a single new ship hitting the store, I can look to the entire Directorate and Relthoza lines to see what they have available.



Another thing they have added are the minor factions for each Alliance. These are groups of 2 and 3 ships that different small groups can bring to the table. These are the systems that could not fight with the big factions alone, but they can join with them to face down larger factions.

A great concept in my eyes. They have a ton of new options for each ship class. Instead of being limited to one type of Escort, you can start attaching other Escorts to your ships to let them get different bonuses. Plus, this brings to the table a bunch of new ship types. Dreadnoughts, Assault Carriers (carry a lot of Assault Points instead of Wings), Leviathans, etc.

My only worry is that, on the whole, I was really excited as I thumbed through one of the faction ships until I realized they were the ones I DIDN'T get to play with my Dindrenzi. Then when I looked at the other faction, I was a little disappointed. On the whole, it looked like the 'good guy' faction had cooler ships than the 'bad guy' faction. Though I'm sure I'm missing a lot of the interactions of these ships. While the good guys have better firepower all around, the bad guys probably have some nice synergy that I just haven't seen yet.



Finally, there is a document of Model Assigned Rules (MARs). These are a whole slew of special abilities, similar to what they have in Dystopian Wars, that get assigned to different ships. Some may have Medical Craft which can launch out and try to regain lost Crew Points from nearby ships. Others are very maneuverable, letting them turn faster. Others are good at working in tandem and get bonuses when linking shots.

Overall, I'd say these documents were very much needed to keep Firestorm Armada going. They offer a ton of great changes and new ships to allow the game to expand. I feel like they're moving from a six-faction game to more of a two-faction game with an s-ton of variety in each faction. It's very easy to play two of the same alliance fleets against each other and have them be completely different builds.

In the end, though, I think it's a matter of too little too late for me. I have only a couple people I could play FSA against at this point, and I don't think any of us want to spend more money on the game, no matter how cool the new stuff looks. Got a lot of games in before, but I'm not about to jump in on the new stuff since I haven't had a game since last October or so. Too bad. If this was the game that was brought out some 8-10 months ago, it would have been awesome.

First Outing with the Viktorias

I headed over to Dan's place yesterday for a quick game of Malifaux. I had just painted up all of the Freikorps and the two Vikis, and Dan had finished of Ryle. Our models had been calling to us, telling us we had to get a game in, so we carved out a couple hours and played a pretty fun game.

Because I was using an entirely new crew, we opted for a 30 stone game.

(me) Viktorias, Von Schill, Freikorps Librarian, Freikorpsman, Convict Gunslinger, 5 stones
(Dan) Leviticus, Ryle, Belle, Rusty Alice, Punk Samurai, Canine Remains, 3 stones

Strategies: Vikis (Claim Jump), Leviticus (Treasure Hunt)
Schemes: Vikis (Bodyguard - Vikis, Stake a Claim), Leviticus (Bodyguard, Kill Protege - Librarian)

I stuck the Claim Jump marker near a building and called that building the Stake a Claim one so that I could hold both points at the same time. Dan made a mistake, he realized a few turns in, when he took Kill Protege on the Librarian since it had Counterspell and he would have to rely on damage from his other models.

I set nearly my entire crew along the left flank with the Sword Viki and Convict taking the middle-left of the board. He had a Belle and Punk Zombie opposite the Sword Viki and the rest of his crew around on the far right. Made me happy as the buildings were set that I could have a nice bit of LOS-blocking cover from his ranged as I moved up on the control point, while the Convict would discourage him from making an early rush for the treasure counter. As it was, his army was not particularly fast, so it would take him a while to reach the counter. On the flip side, he was very well set up to support any model that went for the treasure. For me to go out after them, I was going to leave myself out in the open and take a ton of spells and ranged attacks.

On turn one, we all just moved our models forward, setting them into position and grabbing cover that was scattered around the board. The bulk of my crew stayed out of LOS while the Sword Viki and Convict moved up together near the center a bit more cautiously.

On the second turn, my Convict moved out a little and took a shot at the Punk Samurai, doing very little damage. The Rotten Belle Lured the Convict closer, but Von Schill had his back, jumping out and killing the Punk Samurai with a couple of well-placed shots. Ryle busted around the corner and unloaded into the exposed Convict and I cheated a bit to keep him alive at 1 life left, trying to force Leviticus to show his ugly mug if he wanted to finish off the Convict. I knew I couldn't save him from Levi, but I wanted the old man's attention focused elsewhere. True to form, Levi came around the corner and blasted the poor Convict to his demise.

By now, my entire crew save the Sword Viki was near the Claim Jump. I just needed to hold on for four more turns.

Dan won initiative on the next round and Leviticus took a bead on the Sword Viki. We both used two stones and as the dust settled, Viki had taken four damage. Not bad, I figured, all things considered. I wanted to use the Sword Viki to kill the Rotten Belle, but didn't want to risk losing her, so I slid the Gun Viki around near the Librarian and snapped the Sword Viki to her. My Librarian went, dropped a Ram for her cast, and then Furiously Cast heals on Viki, bringing her back to full. Rusty Alice rushed to the center of the board for the treasure and pulled some heavy cover out of her Bag of Tricks. Von Schill and the Freikorpsman killed the Rotten Belle.

The next turn, Von Schill shot Leviticus down to 2 life left with his gun, which would limit the damage the old man could do, then slipped back with Nimble. Rusty Alice held firm and opened fire on the man, dropping him by 8. The Librarian again dropped the Ram and healed him back up by 6, putting him nearly fully healthy again. I kept hidden again for the time being, save my poor Freikorpsman who poked his head around a bit much and earned the wrath of Levi's crew.

On turn five, Rusty Alice grabbed the treasure and booked it back a bit near Ryle. The Vikis went, moving the Gun Viki forward and then snapping the Sword Viki out ahead of her. The Sword Viki immediately charged Ryle, hitting him, Whirlwinding into Alice, and then Whirlwinding back into Ryle. She attacked Ryle again, dropping him to one and Whirlwinding into Alice, dropping her to one. The retaliation was pretty fierce and the Sword Viki was killed, turning into a Steampunk Abomination but it was worth it. Von Schill jumped forward and shot both Rusty Alice and Ryle down.

On turn six, my Librarian and Gun Viki pushed back to protect their VPs. Leviticus came around and zapped at Von Schill, but couldn't kill him and killed himself in the process. I tried to figure out the best thing to do at that point, and when I finally saw it, Dan shook his head - he was hoping I wouldn't catch his mistake. Von Schill jumped over the house into melee with a Waif, killed it, and then shot the second Waif leaving Leviticus with no way to come back.

That was pretty much the end - he had a Steampunk Abomination left and I had Von Schill (slightly crispy - actually only one life remaining) and the Librarian and Gun Viki holding the Claim Jump/Stake a Claims. Final tally, 8-2 (as the Steampunk brought the treasure marker back to his deployment zone).

Not a bad outing for my first time with the Viktorias. The rest of Hamelin's crew should be arriving later this week and I'll be trying to give those two sets a spin for a while. Probably until the beginning of May when Nekima and the Blackblood Shaman hit the stores. I've got plans for those two...