Weekend Tournament

It has been about six months since my last tournament.  I have been having a very busy time at work these last few weeks, and this past Saturday was the first day off I had in over two weeks.  I figured I'd sleep as long as I wanted, and if I woke up in time for Bill's tournament, I'd head out for it.  Well, I woke up in time.  Still exhausted, but I have a hard time falling back to sleep in the mornings.

I couldn't figure out what crew to bring.  I had Guild and 10T that I had been playing a lot recently.  I figured it would be fun to try something different, so they both sat home.  I considered going back to Neverborn and taking a mix of just Lilith and Jakob, but I wanted to bring my travel pack and the Hungering Darkness was too big to fit in that bag.  Same for my attempt to bring Izamu.  So I decided on Von Schill (which quickly turned in to the Viktorias when I realized I did not have enough models to field Von Schill alone at 30 or 35 points... where's the Strongarm Suit when you need it!).

So I packed my bag and headed out to Huzzah Hobbies for the tournament.  Chris, the store owner, pulled me aside and told me there would be a lot of ridicule if our store failed to win the "Best Store in NoVA" trophy and the "Best Store on the East Coast" plaque.

When I walked in the store, Dan was happy to see I made it, then asked what I picked to play.  "Viki

There were a lot of people showing up - 19 total.  We lined up for pairings as Bill read them out.

ROUND ONE - NAYTE (Victory Comics), 35 Stones
VIKTORIAS vs. aMcMOURNING, SHARED LINE IN THE SAND (new version)
 
I started at table 7 with Nayte from Victory Comics, a friend of mine I haven't played in months.  He set the tone for this being a casual tournament (which is exactly what I was hoping for - the bug of competition in Malifaux has been waning) by asking me if there was any Resser master I wanted to see or didn't want to see.  I told him I'd love to see Yan Lo since I hadn't played him much, but he seemed a little hesitant.  He had very little experience with the old man.  So I revised to say "no Kirai".  I was tired of playing her.  Not that I felt like I couldn't take her down (the Vikis are a great matchup against her), but I didn't feel like going through the slog.

So out came Avatar McMourning - a model I've seen played but never with the same skill that Nayte has with him.  I pulled out my basic 35 stone Viktoria crew and we were off.

My Crew: Viktorias, Student of Conflict, Von Schill, Freikorps Trapper, Convict Gunslinger, Ronin, 7 stones
My Schemes: First Blood (Viki-specific), Stake a Claim

Nayte's Crew: McMourning w/ Avatar, Chihuahua, Canine Remains x2, Belle x2, Crooked Man x2, Night Terror x2, Sebastian, 6 stones
Nayte's Schemes: Stake a Claim, A Piece for Me (McMourning-specific)

Before I go on, this games was something of a hilarity.  I was barely able to talk straight due to being exhausted and asleep on my feet.  Nayte, on the other hand, was jittery with several cups of coffee in him already.  I couldn't work up energy for the life of me, and he couldn't keep still.

Nayte was able to out-activate me early on in the game, but that would not last forever as he farmed his own dogs for body parts.  Having played as and against McMourning, I was pretty confident that First Blood would be easy to get.  Even if he forced me to fight for it by killing only one of his dogs early, I had enough guns to get the second kill quickly, I figured.

Sure enough, he killed off both dogs early, netting me my First Blood scheme, and then started going after the Line in the Sand markers.  I was in a spot of bother being outnumbered as much as I was.  I sent a Ronin after one of the markers opposite a Crooked Man, sent my Trapper after the Night Terrors (I figured shooting and then Repositioning forward would get me up the field, but in the first two rounds he missed all four shots, so I ended up just having him run up the field to get objectives).  Von Schill, the Convict and the Vikis held the center pretty well.  Von Schill got an early Red Joker kill off on a Belle, and soon the activation order was swinging my way.  Still, he managed to grab the Strategy points on turns 2, 3 and 4, giving him a 3-2 lead at that point.

During turns 3 and 4, I popped as many shots on McMourning as I could.  I didn't want the Avatar to hit the table, and I certainly wanted to deny him his scheme points since he had the advantage in Strategy.  While my Ronin was killing Sebastian (and getting knocked down to 1 wound remaining herself, though her DF8 was able to keep her alive the rest of the game), Von Schill and the Convict killed the summoned Rouge Necromancy while the Viktorias charged down the fleeing McMourning, pasting him.

Outnumbered now, my crew flipped the dynamite markers to the correct side and I gained points on turns 5 and 6 while I chased down and killed off his last two models.  Final score: 6-3.

ROUND TWO - ALEX (North Carolina), 30 Stones
VIKTORIAS vs. LEVITICUS, SHARED RECONNOITER (new version)

After a victory, I ended up on the second table.  I looked down the line and saw that the first table was Outcast vs. Outcast (Vikis vs. Hamelin - both of them had played Leviticus the first game).  The second table was Outcast vs. Outcast (Vikis vs. Leviticus).  The third table was Outcasts vs. Archanists (Gremlins) and the fourth table was Outcasts vs. Ressers (Gremlins again).  Neverborn overpowered?  I don't think so.

Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that only one Neverborn player was at the tournament, and there were seven Outcasts.

My Crew: Viktorias, Student of Conflict, Von Schill, Freikorps Trapper, Convict Gunslinger, 7 stones
My Schemes: Holdout, Bodyguard

Alex's Crew: Leviticus, Canine Remains, Collodi, Marionette x4, Wicked Doll, Watcher, 6 stones
Alex's Schemes: Soulless Life (Leviticus-specific), Breakthrough

Alex and I bantered a little and I learned that I have a new power in tournaments: being on a podcast can be used to intimidate other players.  (Well, only the ones that don't know me personally - once they figure out I don't know as much about the game as I pretend to, the intimidation factor drops to about zero.)  We were playing Reconnoiter and I could see my crew was starting out outnumbered 10-6 (after the Waif was placed on the board).

My goal was simple: kill either Collodi or Leviticus.  I figured with one of those two down, I could handle the rest of the crew.

I deployed with my Convict and Trapper on one side of the board, my Vikis on the other with my Student, and Von Schill ready to support either way.  I wanted to take out the Watcher first because it was the most autonomous model in his crew and I didn't want it to lock down his Breakthrough and deny my Holdout.  So the Trapper killed it, and then Von Schill killed the Steam-thing that Leviticus summoned out of it.

Collodi and his dolls started coming around the side of the board and on turn three, they launched themselves into my Sword Viki.  I had seven soulstones, and by the end of the massive onslaught, I was down to a hand of only 3 4's, 3 soulstones, and had taken 3 wounds.  My Viktorias responded in turn.  The Student of Conflict gave Fast to the Gun Viki.  The Gun Viki gave the Sisters a (+) flip to hit (with all the Marionettes out there, two of them Filled with Stones, I wanted to get as many Whirlwind attacks as I could).  She killed off a Marionette and knocked one with stones in it down to 1 wound.  The Sword Viki then went and killed off the other Marionettes, then sapped a few Soulstones from Collodi.

Meanwhile, Von Schill forced Leviticus back by killing the advance Waif after Levi killed my Convict Gunslinger.

The next turn, Leviticus got initiative.  Collodi activated first, making a new Marionette to get him out of dodge.  My Viktorias activated and killed off Collodi and the Marionette.  Levi went after my Gun Viki, but I burned my soulstones to keep her alive.  With Leviticus dead and a good hand of cards, it was my chance to take out Levi too.  My Trapper moved forward and shot one Waif through a window, killing her.  Von Schill jet-packed down the field and got one shot off on the second Waif, killing it too.  Collodi down, Leviticus down.  Over the next few turns I racked up the Reconnoiter points and pulled a win, 8-0.

ROUND THREE - DAN (Huzzah Hobbies), 25 Stones
VON SCHILL vs. VIKTORIAS, SHARED KING OF THE HILL (new version)

The final round had four players still undefeated.  The top two undefeated players faced for first place, and the bottom two undefeated players faced for second place.  Since we both brought the same crew, we decided to make the game a little more fun than just a mirror match.  We agreed to split the gift certificate no matter who won, and then made a deal for crew creation: since he had not brought all his Von Schill stuff, he would play Vikis with no Freikorps, and I would play Von Schill.

Of course, this meant I had no choice but to play his box set - the only Freikorps models I owned.  Still, it would be great to have a game that didn't come down to "who got the initiative".

My Crew: Von Schill, Freikorps Specialist, Freikorps Librarian, Freikorps Trapper, Freikorpsman x2, 3 stones
My Schemes: Breakthrough, Kill Protege (Convict Gunslinger)

Dan's Crew: Viktorias, Student of Conflict, Ronin x2, Convict Gunslinger, 7 stones
Dan's Schemes: Bodyguard, Eye for an Eye

Unfortunately, the game did come down to "who got the initiative" anyway, and Dan flipped a 13 on that one.  The round before, I had moved Von Schill up, taken a shot on one of the Vikis, and dropped 8 wounds on her.  She prevented 2 of them leaving her still alive.  She charged me and tried to kill me, but couldn't quite pull it off.  And my Librarian (and my fate hand) never saw a Ram after the first turn, so no healing.  Three stones are not much against an onslaught of Vikis.

Von Schill fell, then his Sword Viki fell.  His Gun Viki came in to kill a Freikorpsman, and my other one charged her (Red Joker in hand for damage that would kill her), got to the straight flip, and then flipped the Black Joker on damage.

It was mostly cleanup by then.  My Trapper managed to kill the Student of Conflict and Gunslinger.  Both Ronin were dropped to 1 wound, and then one sacrificed itself for two Soulstones which Viki used to create a new Viki out of the other one.

Overall, there were about six flips that I needed probably two or three to go my way during the game.  I got one of them (the Red Joker damage on the Viki with Von Schill) and it wasn't quite enough to push the game in my favor.

Still, seeing Von Schill's box set take the game that close against a tailored Viki crew was pretty awesome.  I think the Strongarm Suit is going to be a big help for the crew - giving them a melee option, finally.  I would have probably dropped the Specialist in favor of the Suit.  While the Specialist spilled out a lot of wounds when he detonated his pack, none of those wounds actually mattered since they didn't kill anyone, and I had pretty much no one left to capitalize on the wounded models.

Final score: 8-4


FINAL THOUGHTS

After not being sure I was going to go to the tournament and making a last-minute decision to go, and then picking up a crew that I hadn't touched in six months, I figure I did pretty well.  I went 2-1 with 18 total Victory Points and a +7 VP Differential.

Congrats to Dan on his victory!  He led the Huzzah Hobbies crew in keeping both the Northern Virginia and East Coast prizes in Huzzah.  We'll be working on another tournament in the near future to give other stores another chance to wrest the prize from our hands.

Huzzah's August Tuesday Tussle

A week ago, Bill had a fantastic idea: run a Tuesday night Malifaux tournament.  With only a week notice, he still managed to pull out 12 attendees.  Not too shabby.  We had three Neverborn, one Guild, three Ressers, three Outcasts, and two Archanists.

The tournament was a 25-stone, fixed faction, Domination-style format.  Strategies were random Shared.  Schemes were unique through the whole event, and we had 60 minute rounds with 15 minutes in between.  So it was a fairly condensed format.  We had a lot of newer players as well as some of the vets.  Dave, a henchmen from Rochester who has been visiting DC for the summer, was making his last appearance in DC with us.  Slaz, a local Archanist player, came out for his first Malifaux tournament (he likes tourneys even less than I do).

Overall, the tournament did reinforce one thing: I am glad I did not sign up for a tournament at Gencon.  Just playing the three games gave me a headache, and while I enjoyed the whole tournament, it’s not what I’m going to Gencon to do.  Adepticon next year is a different story – I’ll be there for the tournaments, so that’s what I will be playing.

I came with Neverborn, taking Dan’s advice and filling the case I intend to bring to Gencon with the models I intended to bring so I could see how they’d do.

ROUND ONE – ANDREW (MARCUS/KAERIS)

SHARED DESTROY THE EVIDENCE

Andrew is one of the newer players who has been coming for the past few months from Game Parlor Chantilly.  He’s a great opponent – a lot of fun to banter with and someone who legitimately enjoys the game, no matter which way the flips go.

With Shared Destroy the Evidence, I took Zoraida, Collodi, Four Marionettes, and the Doppelganger.  Collodi was there to get the objective markers, Zoraida was there to survive and help out with her movement if need be, and the Doppelganger was there to get me initiative on the first turn.  Andrew took Marcus, Kaeris, and three Silurids.  I had Bodyguard (Zoraida) and Stake a Claim for my schemes, and he had Power Ritual and Bodyguard (Marcus).

I won initiative on the first turn and was able to use Collodi and the Marionettes to grab the middle objective marker as well as one of my farther-forward objectives on the first activation.  He came in and killed off a Marionette, failing to kill two of them with an ill-timed Black Joker on the damage.  My Doppelganger, Voodoo Doll (on a Silurid) and Zoraida stuck around the back to hold off against the tide of Archanists that would be trying to destroy all his Evidence markers.

By the end of the game, my Voodoo Doll and Doppelganger (with Zoraida’s Obeys) were able to kill off the Silurids before they finished their job.  He managed to use Marcus to grab a second Objective Marker to get 1 point, got a point out of Power Ritual, and succeeded in Bodyguard, while I swept the markers and got my two schemes as well.  I advanced with an 8-4 victory giving me 3/+4/8 (TP/Diff/VP).

ROUND TWO – CJ (McMOURNING)

SHARED DESTROY THE EVIDENCE

CJ is another newer player, though he has become very good over the last few months.  Since we had the same strategy as before, I took the same crew, figuring on getting a bunch of VPs and trying to win that way.  CJ took McMourning, Dead Rider, Chihuahua, two Dogs, and three Night Terrors.  I took Kidnap on the three dogs (two Canine Remains and Chihuahua) and Steal Relic.  He took Kill Protégé on my Doppelganger and Breakthrough.

I won initiative on the first turn and Collodi did his thing, grabbing the middle objective and then withdrawing to safety.  I dropped a Voodoo Doll on the Chihuahua on the first turn, and he killed off his own dogs for Body Parts, so I was able to grab Kidnap pretty quick.  It was the last time any of his models would die.  I dropped Zoraida by McMourning and tried to steal the relic, but failed.  He Dissected her for 10, and I prevented two of the wounds.

The next turn I won initiative and Zoraida won the Steal Relic, then ran away as a Raven.  Meanwhile, Collodi was gathering all the Objectives for me while the bats were gathering all them for him.

Soon thereafter, though, McMourning killed off Collodi and the Marionettes after he finished off the Doppelganger, leaving me with only Zoraida.  He also summoned a Rouge Necromancy and the rest of the game he tried to chase down Zoraida, but she survived to the end.  We both got our schemes, and I got the center objective marker giving me a narrow 8-7 win.  I was now at 6/+5/16 (TP/Diff/VP).

I figured at this point I would be the bottom of the undefeated players (there were three of us) with my Differential being low at +5.  It turned out the other two, Dave with his Neverborn and Slaz with his Archanists, were both at +4.  I would end up facing one of them.

ROUND THREE – DAVE (ZORAIDA)

SHARED DISTRACT

Dave chuckled as he lined up against me, saying that I knew his crew better than he did.  I finally moved off of Zoraida and opted for Pandora this time around.  I knew he had Lilith and Zoraida as his options, and thumbing through my options, Pandora seemed the safest given the mission.  Zoraida… I was kinda done with her for the night, so she didn’t really fit in.  And Lilith was a toss-up if he pulled Lilith too.  Having played that matchup in the finals at NoVA Open, I didn’t want to risk losing it this time around.

So Dave had Zoraida, Tuco, Lelu and Lilitu (he played down a stone) and I took Pandora, Tuco, Coppelius, Primordial Magic, and a Stitched Together.  My schemes were Kill Protégé on Lelu, and Eye for an Eye.  He took Reclaim Malifaux and Steal Relic.

On the first turn he grabbed five of his Reclaim Malifaux points while I moved up the board in a line, trying to find a good target (hopefully Lelu).  On the second turn I was able to get Pandora around to Lelu and killed him with a series of Self Loathings.  I had to start spreading my crew out a little, not wanting my Stitched Together within 6” of one of my own models, and not wanting Coppelius within 2” of one of my own models because I didn’t want to get Obeyed to hurt my own crew.

I managed to get my Stitched around the corner to Lilitu and kill her off after he had brought his Reclaim Malifaux total up to 7.  Pandora lined up against a Zoraida that had just stolen the relic and blasted her with a (-) flip to DF.  I cheated a 13 of crows, and stoned a 12.  He flipped the Black Joker on resist and couldn’t stop it, so he double-moved back to his board edge.  Coppelius moved in and tried to Paralyze her but failed to do so.

On the next turn, I got initiative and Coppelius channeled his spell to make Zoraida flee.  I cheated the Red Joker to cast it, and Zoraida was out of stones.  The only card that could save her was the Red Joker, and it didn’t come up so she ran off the table.  I brought my crew up together, killed off his Tuco, and then sacrificed my crew for stones to get to Eye for an Eye while moving Pandora into the deployment zone.  Final score here, 8-2 as he got a point each for Steal Relic and Reclaim Malifaux.  My final score came out to 9/+11/24 meaning for Slaz to beat me out for first, he would have to win 8-0.

FINAL RESULTS

Slaz ended up playing to a bizarre 0-0 tie against CJ on the next table over, putting him in second place with 7 Tournament Points and securing my lead.  The final standings ended up being:

Mike (9/+11/24) – Neverborn

Slaz (7/+4/12) – Archanists

Dan (6/+6/19) – Ressers

Dave dropped into 4th place with his loss.  There was also a painting contest in which Slaz took the prize with his Kaeris model.

King of NoVA Tournament

Saturday was the King of NoVA tournament at Victory Comics, the first Malifaux tournament that they ran out there.  The tournament was a couple towns over from where I live, so it would not be a long drive.  However, my wife was flying back from a week away that day, so I wasn't completely sure I would make it.

The stars aligned, though, and Skill-less Brian and I loaded into the car Saturday morning and drove on out.I had just gotten a Battlefoam Pack Mini and wasn't relishing the idea of hauling around a full pack of models, so I decided to pick a few models to travel with.  Since I had only limited space, my Ressers weren't going to be making it.  Also, since another friend of mine, Josh, was planning on showing up with the Viktorias, I decided to bring my Neverborn.

I asked Second Generation Awesome Dan who he thought I should bring and he told me "Collodi!"  I asked him "With who?" and he said, "No.  Just Collodi!"  I had two new Effigy Dolls I had not put on the table yet and wanted to field, so I figured, why not.  He sent a list idea (which was just about everything Collodi could take at the moment, save Wicked Dolls) and I packed it all up.  I panicked a little thinking I might get bored with one crew and packed Zoraida, a pair of Twins, Tuco, Baby Kade, the Voodoo Doll, and her Avatar form, but by the end of the four rounds, they never saw the table.  As Dan (and then the TO) suggested, I stuck with Collodi and the same list all four rounds.


The list was:
Collodi +6 soulstones
- Marionette x4
- Stitched Together x3
- Carrion Effigy
- Brutal Effigy

The tournament was a 30 soulstone affair with random Extended Schemes.  The only wrinkle to the plan was that Aaron added an additional step after you flip your Strategy but before you choose your crew: you have to announce your Master.

There were three prizes being fought over: the King of NoVA trophy which would go to the person who won overall (with TP being the most important); the Best Store in NoVA trophy which would tally the scores of the people who came from the various local Northern Virginia stores and determine which of them won - they would get the trophy to display until the next NoVA tournament when another store could win it away from them; and the Best Store on the Eastern US plaque, which was a similar idea but could travel beyond NoVA since the TO did not pay a lot of money for it.  I believe the plaque was donated to the tournament by another Henchman, so it was cool to see some support and rivalry being brought up from around the area.

Twelve players showed up, primarily from Huzzah Hobbies (my store) and Victory Comics (the store that was hosting).  We did have a few players from Pennsylvania, I believe, and Guy in Suit (winner of Adepticon) arrived from New York.


ROUND ONE - COLLODI (Supply Wagon) vs. aNICODEM (Treasure Hunt)
SECOND GENERATION AWESOME DAN
So Round One arrived and Aaron announced the pairings.  To no one's surprise, for the third tournament in a row, Second Generation Awesome Dan and I were paired off against each other.  After some grumbling on our part (facing him essentially meant that one of the two of us was knocked out of the tournament very early in the day), we picked our table and quickly became "That table" to the TO, calling him over to accuse Dan of cheating when he drew his hand before deploying his models (accidentally - he wasn't thinking), and then asking what the large piece of terrain that looked like a Stargate did if my models interacted with it.  After some random joking and Aaron threatening to toss us out of the store (again, good-naturedly), we buckled down and got our game on.

Dan was playing Avatar Nicodem (who looks fantastic, by the way) and I pulled out a very familiar crew to him.  He laughed a little when he saw I actually was using the Carrion Effigy until we both realized that he could allow my crew to eat his zombies since they counted as corpse tokens (at least until he avatared and they lost that rule).

I remember the least about this game since it was early in the day, but I do remember that the terrain created a small bottleneck to get to the treasure in the middle of the board.  I started out strong by killing off his Crooked Men and a summoned Flesh Construct.  He had killed off my Carrion Effigy.  When I killed one of his Crooked Men with a Gamble Your Life, he Slow-to-Die cast a Cave In at one of my Stitched Togethers.  I cheated so it would be a (-) flip, and he still managed to flip double-severe, knocking all my Marionettes down to 1 wound remaining.  A Decay that randomized off his own model onto mine later, he wiped out Collodi's Marionettes, turning the game around completely.

I was able to kill off his Dead Rider and put pressure on him enough that his crew was held back from the center of the table away from the treasure marker.  Finally on turn 6 he managed to pick it up as he had a few Punk Zombies, Avatar Nicodem, and a bunch of Mindless Zombies around versus my Collodi.  The game did not go on, however, and I squeaked out a 6-4 victory as my Supply Wagon reached the middle and Kidnap got the Crooked Man and Canine Remains.

My score so far was (3 TP/+2 Diff/6 VPs) putting me at the upper side of the middle of the pack.


ROUND TWO - COLLODI (Shared Line in the Sand) vs. SOM'ER (Shared Line in the Sand)
MUSTACHE MATT

A few of my buddies have played against Mustache Matt over the last couple months and all came away saying it was a fun game and he was a great guy to play against.  This was my first opportunity to play against him and I have to say, he really is a top-notch opponent.  It was my most entertaining game, mostly because of his attitude and jokes.

We flipped to see who would be the attacker and who the defender and I got the choice.  Naturally, I took attacker.  Shared Line in the Sand is such a terrible strategy.  The attacker gains such an advantage over the defender, but when given the choice, I couldn't pass on the disparity.

Matt had the Easter Rooster painted up for one of his pigs, and his crew was absolutely gorgeous.  We were all playing with painted crews (it was in the rules to do so), but Matt's were the best I would see throughout the tournament.

The game began with the Rooster and two Piglets popping throughout my mass of models, killing Marionettes left and right.  But Gremlins against WP 8 Gamble Your Life from my stitched were just not going to stand up, and pretty quickly I had run him out of his first wave.  I grabbed 4 of the dynamite markers pretty quick and started moving in on his gremlin firing line, needing to Steal a Relic from Som'er and needing to Assassinate him.  By turn 5 I was able to do just that, having a Marionette grab his Relic and then finish him off.

Meanwhile, my Carrion Effigy was working on holding off one flank.  He managed to flip a dynamite marker, kill a Piglet, and later kill another Gremlin.  Granted I needed a Red Joker to kill the Piglet and the Gremlin had only a wound or two remaining, but still - the Carrion Effigy was on fire!!

The game ended with me wiping him out on turn 6 and grabbing the last dynamite marker for a solid 8-0 win.  Added bonus, this game counted for the Best Store in NoVA trophy, so it was a nice boost for our store.

My score at this point was (6 TP/+10 Diff/14 VPs) putting me as one of three remaining undefeated players (aside Gamers' Lounge Bill and GuyinSuit Andrew).


ROUND THREE - COLLODI (Supply Wagon) vs. VIKTORIAS (Escape and Survive)
GUY IN SUIT ANDREW

Andrew had just come off of winning Adepticon and had already won two decisive games, so I knew this was going to be a challenge.  I stared at my Zoraida model sitting in my case longingly, but finally decided that no, I was going to win or lose the tournament based solely on Collodi.

Andrew had never faced the Effigy Dolls yet, so I quickly gave him an explanation of what they did: the Brutal had a heal and could hit for a lot of damage.  The Carrion didn't do much other than fly around.

He pulled out a very familiar Viktoria crew - the Vikis, Student of Conflict, Convict Gunslinger, Von Schill, and Trapper.  I felt a little swell of validation to see that the list I always use was also being taken by other good players.

We started off our game and he killed off two of my models in quick succession to get his First Blood scheme from Von Schill, Gun Viki and the Trapper taking shots at my Marionettes.  Soon thereafter, the Sword Viki was in my lines cutting down my Marionettes faster than Collodi could resummon them.  My Stitched knocked out Sword Viki, and the next turn did the same to Gun Viki.  I had a Stitched Together knock his Gunslinger down to 1 wound, and then on turn 4, my Brutal Effigy moved to where my Wagon would end and killed off the Gunslinger and Student of Conflict.  His Escape and Survive was blanked, but he was probably going to get his Bodyguard on Von Schill.

I stopped worrying about killing Von Schill and instead went after my VPs.  Keep the Wagon safe, and grab as many spots for Reclaim Malifaux as I could.  Here, the Carrion Effigy was invaluable, grabbing 4 of the 9 spots on the board I needed, and then defending the Wagon on turn 6.  We flipped to see if the game went on and it didn't.  I pulled out a close win, taking a 6-4 victory as I got Reclaim Malifaux and a full Supply Wagon while he got Bodyguard on Von Schill and First Blood.

My score now was (9 TP/+12 Diff/20 VPs) putting me as one of two undefeated players remaining.  My limit of games I could take was rapidly approaching and my head was killing me.  I popped a few Advil and found a nice spot to rest for a little while before the fourth round came up.


ROUND FOUR - COLLODI (Line in the Sand) vs. ZORAIDA (Slaughter)
GAMERS' LOUNGE BILL

It was the last round and Bill and I were the last two undefeated players.  He decided not to play Pandora since all the extra WP to my dolls would prove more difficult to cut through.  Instead he pulled out Zoraida and Collodi against my Collodi crew.

On the first turn, I moved up to the middle of the board and grabbed the dynamite on the bridge with a Marionette.  Bill sent his Collodi and Marionettes up the board at the beginning of the second turn to kill that Marionette and reflip the dynamite.  My WP 8 Stitched Togethers ripped through his Collodi killing him off and losing the Marionettes along with it.  He had two other Stitched Togethers there that I managed to kill, and in return, he killed one of my Stitched Togethers and a Marionette.

By the end of turn three, he was down to Zoraida and a Wicked Doll while I still had Collodi with three Marionettes, two Stitched Togethers, and both Effigies.  Over the next couple turns, I tracked down all the dynamite markers and brought my three Paired Marionettes into melee with Zoraida, killing her off too.

My Carrion Effigy again did pretty well this game by staying entirely away from the fighting.  He grabbed two of the far-away dynamite markers and sat on my Stake a Claim point, helping to max out my points.  The game ended 8-0 as I broke Bodyguard and Extermination.

At the end of the tournament, my score was (12 TP/+20 Diff/28 VPs).


THE END
As the only remaining undefeated player, I got the King of NoVA prize.

We tallied up the NoVA stores and Huzzah Hobbies ended up beating out the other local stores and got to take home the Best Store in NoVA cup.  Bill, Huzzah's Henchman, got to carry it to the store for us.

And the Best Store in the East plaque went to the Warmongers of New York for Andrew's fantastic solo-showing where he schooled just about everyone in Virginia on how Malifaux really works.

Congrats to all, and thanks to Aaron for putting on a great show.

NoVA Open, Part Three

And to finish out the story of the NoVA Open.

I had just successfully defended the top table in round three ending with a score of (9/+14/19) and was waiting on the other games to finish out before I’d find out who my opponent would be. The second table had Dixon facing off with another local of ours, Tim, in a Neverborn vs. Outcasts clash. As time was called, Tim had the lead and won the game in a close match. Dixon dropped out of the top tables and Tim joined me playing for first place.


ROUND FOUR - TIM, SHARED CLAIM JUMP

Tim and I have played each other several times in the past and I’ve always gotten the better of him. I knew his collection of Neverborn wasn’t that large and was pretty certain which master I’d be facing just on how I knew him. I didn’t want to take that into account in how I selected my crew, though – it seemed a little sketchy – so when he suggested that we play a true mirror match, I jumped at the chance. I suggested we add another addendum to that: only play with book 1 models. He liked the idea and we came up with a list we could both agree on.

Our schemes, unfortunately, could not be identical since we both had different schemes left.

Lilith, Primordial Magic, Mature Nephilim, Younger Nephilim, Terror Tots x3, 7 Soulstones

My Schemes: Kill Protégé: Mature Nephilim, Eye for an Eye

His Schemes: Hold Out, Kidnap: Terror Tots

The game was fairly hilarious as far as a mirror match goes. On the first turn, we each killed one of the other’s Terror Tots so we were even on models. On the second turn, I killed a second of his Terror Tots and grew one of my Tots into a Younger and he killed my other Younger, so we were still even on models. Our key pieces – Lilith and the Matures, were still hovering back on the field.

On the end of the second turn, I decided to throw caution to the wind and charged in at his Lilith with mine. I didn’t hit once, though I did drain a few of his stones. His Mature jumped in to the mix but missed my Lilith and I charged his Lilith with my Mature. A whole bunch of nothing happening in the middle, but at least we were all together.

Turn three started and he won initiative, going with Lilith hitting Defensive Stance. She attacked my Mature, doing some wounds, and then activated his Mature after who finished off mine. Meanwhile I had managed to kill off his Younger and grow a second Younger of my own. Lilith killed off his Mature and he had enough Blood to grow his Tot to a Younger and then to a Mature straight away. Our armies were at Lilith with the Primordial Magic and a Mature (Tim) against Lilith with a Primordial Magic and two Younger (me). Tough spot.



He won initiative again on turn four but I drew a 13 and the Red Joker into my hand, so I was pleased. He had Lilith Defensive Stance again while his Mature went after my Youngers, killing one. I had my Lilith attack his, stoned in and hit her for a straight flip. I dropped the Red Joker and flipped a Weak damage for 9. He prevented 3 of it. My Younger worked on his Mature but didn’t kill it. My Primordial Magic, who was also engaged, decided to get in the fun and attacked for a couple damage himself. Combat 3’s not that bad when he’s only Defense 4.

I finally won initiative on turn five and he was almost out of stones. I started with Lilith and she swung and missed, though it burned out the last of Tim’s stones. Lilith swung a second time and this time killed off Tim’s Lilith. I didn’t have enough room to go after his Mature, so I backed away to the center of the board and the Claim Jump. My Younger went next and brought his Mature down to one. His Mature killed my Younger.

On the last turn, Tim decided he had to risk going after Lilith. I had no stones and if he got a hit with a Red Joker, he’d kill Lilith and win. I cheated the first defense too high so that he got the -2 Combat from my defensive trigger, and the second attack missed. Lilith went and cut the Mature in half, leaving Tim with no models left. I held the center and won, 8-4.

So the tournament ended with me as the lone undefeated player. I ended up at (12/+19/27)


The second table was a Neverborn and Resserectionist player facing off, and the Resser won. On table three, Second Generation Awesome Dan was facing Wyrd Zee in a Resser/Archanist battle. Wyrd Zee pulled out an Archanist win, giving us a Neverborn/Resser/Archanist top three.

My prizes were a plaque (which is good – Chris, the owner of Huzzah Hobbies, said we weren’t allowed back if we didn’t bring back a prize), a Rules Manual, Twisting Fates, a painted Von Schill crew, and a $25 gift card to Battlefoam. I handed off the Rules Manual to one of the players who didn’t have one yet and handed off the Twisting Fates to the guy who took 4th Place, another local who didn’t have it yet. Dan had painted up the Von Schill crew and offered to buy my dinner in exchange for it since he painted it up and wanted to give the Freikorps a try. I already owned them, so I figured it was a good deal. I did finally order a new transport bag from BattleFoam, though. Romeo was there and showed me the new Go PACK – an awesome new backpack bag that was coming out a few days later. He didn’t have any to sell there, but I put one on special order and should be getting my new bag in a week or two.

I called it a day for Malifaux as my head was already starting to hurt. I don’t like playing in tournaments much – my head can’t take too many games in a row. We hit dinner with the Atlanta gang – a great group of guys – headed out to CVS for some medicine, handed in our Friday Achievement League packets and then went home.

The next morning I showed up back at Dan’s place and we headed out. When we arrived, we found out that Dan had won the Ressers Achievement prize for Friday: a Collodi Box set. Fantastic news, since Dan wanted to pick it up for his Leviticus crew, only he had literally just picked it up on the way in to the gaming area as we passed by the WarStore booth. Fortunately Tim also wanted it, so he was able to swap the Collodi box for a Viktoria box set.

Today was going to be mostly casual play. I won’t go into each game I played (mostly because I don’t remember them), but I do remember the basics of what I was facing off against.

My first game was me playing McMourning against Dan’s new Freikorps box set. I had him put together a 25 stone list and we just went to town in the M&SU Bar setup. It was a hilarious game of massive death everywhere. McMourning was finally able to Scalpel Sling Von Schill and carve him up while Mortimer (I think that’s his name) went out to collect all the bodies left behind for him. McMourning ended up with 21 body part tokens and a wicked grin on his face. I went home and painted this guy up – he’s a bundle of fun!



I also played against Zee. He used a Lucius list while I played Zoraida with Collodi in Shared Deliver the Message. I sold out to deliver him the message on turn one and failed by one on my flip and he was able to deliver the message to me on turn two when he won initiative. Even still, my Zoradia and Collodi pair managed to wipe out the entire group of Guild by turn six, and I moved Zoraida into his deployment zone to break his hidden scheme of Holdout. Meanwhile, I managed to nab two points from Deliver the Message, another two from Kill Protégé: Guild Guard Captain, and one from my hidden Holdout to win the game 5-4.

I got a rematch in against Chuck’s Perdita, this time playing with Zoraida and a few Nightmares (no Collodi) and pulled the game out there as Zoraida got near the gunslinger and managed to explode three Wicked Dolls on her to kill her.

eChris pulled out his Colette crew with a very unusual setup – Colette, Cassandra, and three pairs of Performer/Mannequins. He managed to turn three of the Dreamer’s models – Lelu and both Night Terrors (I LOVE those guys, by the way) into Mannequins over the course of the game, but I still hung on tooth and nail to win 6-4.

Finally, I got another game in against Dan, Dreamer against Vikis. I could tell by now my head was not in the game because I kept having to ask Dan what I was supposed to be doing and what he was supposed to be doing. I gave up two points for First Blood because I couldn’t remember what he took, even though it was only turn two. I then dropped Lord Chompy Bits between both Vikis, killed them both, and forgot to bring out the Dreamer so LCB died in return. If it weren’t for a bad flip by Von Schill and his fleeing from Lord Chompy Bits, Dan would have Delivered the Message too. I managed to wipe out his models, but far too slowly as he killed off Lelu for Kill Protégé. He ended up with 4 points, never managing to Deliver the Message after he failed the Terrify check, and I somehow pulled in 6 points, though Dan did have to remind me what I was doing nearly every turn.

With my brain clearly being mush, the Hurricane threatening to spill torrential rains on us, and me not wanting to stay awake until 5 AM, then drive home and have less than a day to recover before working again, Dan and I decided to clear out. We hung out for a little while longer, then turned in our Achievement sheets and headed out. Got a text from Bill the next day saying I’d won the Neverborn Saturday Achievement prize. Good deal!

Overall, a fantastic weekend. I got in 9 games of Malifaux against some old friends and some people I’d never faced before. Got to meet Zee finally, and won a tournament to boot. I think my only regret was not playing Bunniegod, who I didn’t put together was the guy who won GenCon until I was on the road home chatting with Dan. Evidently people had mentioned that fact several times over the course of the convention, but being deaf and having taken my hearing aids out for the convention (I don’t function well in loud, big areas), I managed to miss it every time someone mentioned that fact. He seemed like a really cool guy, and a lot of fun. I’d like to face him at some point – seems like he’d be a really good challenge.

Thanks to Bill for putting together a great series of events. Hopefully you’ve managed to recover.

Now to wait for my Go PACK to arrive. That thing is awesome! Seriousness, check it out if you haven’t already.

NoVA Open, Part Two

So to continue my tale...

After round two ended, I found myself at first with a score of (6/+7/12). We took a short break and then lined up for our third round. Outcasts and Neverborn seemed to be pulling to the top of the pile.


ROUND THREE - BRAD, SHARED DESTROY THE EVIDENCE

As before, I told my opponent I was playing Neverborn and asked if there was anything with which he was unfamiliar and wanted to avoid seeing. Brad said he didn't want to see Zoraida anymore - evidently she's seeing a lot of face-time in his local area (Maryland, if I remember right) - so I narrowed my choices to the other three masters. I decided against Lilith since I had already played her, and given that the mission was Shared Destroy the Evidence, I decided to go with a fast list: Pandora/Collodi. I wanted to make sure I got the center objective first. I also went for two of the schemes I had been saving, figuring that if I could put this game away well enough, I'd be in great shape to hold one of the top three spots.

Pandora, Primordial Magic, Collodi, Marionettes x4, Stitched Together x2, 7 Soulstones (Kidnap: the Alps, Bodyguard)

Dreamer, Daydream, Coppelius, Alps x3, Stitched Together x2, 5 Soulstones (Eye for an Eye, Holdout)

I love it when people take Holdout against me. Most people look at it as an easy pair of victory points, and I look at it as a fairly simple Scheme to break.

The game started and I flipped and won initiative. After a little conversation, Brad decided it was probably in his best interest to try to stone to win initiative, even though he was aiming to beat an 8. The winner of the initiative flip essentially decided who got the middle objective. He flipped again and still lost initiative.

I started with Collodi and the Marionettes, snaking my way up to the objective, grabbing it, and then pulling Collodi back to safety with my last Marionette. The Dreamer was not too happy with that and he (with a Daydream's help) jumped out to the middle of the board and killed both the Marionettes that had been left up front, but failed to activate "All Done" and failed to summon another Daydream. One of my Stitched Togethers was able to get up near him within Collodi's 4" WP boost and start pounding on the beast with Gamble Your Life until he was down to only a couple of life remaining. The Dreamer's Alps, Coppelius and Stitched Togethers all advanced to catch up to Lord Chompy Bits while Pandora and her crew moved up to try to take down the big guy before he could be brought back to safety.

The next turn he was able to bury LCB and get him away before I could kill him, but he was already out of stones and my Stitched Together ended up killing off Coppelius instead. His two Stitched Togethers split up to go for two of the objective markers while Collodi and his now-three Marionettes moved out to try to sprint towards more of them. A bloody fight went back and forth where I was able to get LCB back on the table and kill him, and then the Dreamer as well, just as the Alps were moving into position around my crew. Pandora and the Stitched took care of them, losing one of my Stitched in the process. I was able to kill one of his with Collodi and his friends, then move on past to get to my objectives. His last Stitched reached his objective marker, ready to tag it with Reactivate, but Pandora managed to make him flee before killing him, meaning he was too far away to reach the objective. Finally, my Collodi group was running out of time so I claimed only two of the three objectives (one in the field and one in the deployment zone, both getting the victory points there and breaking Hold Out).

Final score for the game turned out to be 7-0 in Pandora's favor. My tournament record was at a healthy (9/+14/19) putting me in a resounding first place at the moment. There were several people with two wins and a tie, though, so if I lost and one of them won, I was still out of the running.

NoVA Open, Part One

I was unable to go to GenCon this year, so when Bill (of the Gamers Lounge - if you don't listen to the podcast, check it out) suggested that I head out to NoVA Open this year - that it was going to have a nice-sized Malifaux presence - I took him up on it. I haven't been to a lot of conventions outside of GenCon, so I wasn't sure what exactly to expect. I told my new job I'd be taking Friday off and then woke up early to head out to Dan's place so we could hit the road to NoVA Open.



After stopping for breakfast we made it out to Arlington, Virginia and found our way through the hotel to where we'd be staying. We passed by booths set up by Battlefoam, the Warstore, and Spikey Bits. Picked up our bag of swag which was overloaded with Games Workshop-centric stuff, and headed on in to find the Malifaux space.



Clearly we had to walk a long way just to find the Malifaux tables. We were tucked away in the corner of the gaming space. But it turned out to be just fine - we had about a dozen tables set up for Malifaux games with all manner of varied terrain. A lot of city boards, a desert board, a couple of Terraclips boards. We had a few ruins and outdoor scenes, and then we had Bill's new gaming table of the M&SU Bar - an entirely interior board designed to look like a pub in Malifaux complete with stage, tables, a bar with kegs, etc. It looked pretty awesome. A big shout out to our local, John, who constructed the thing (and a lot of the terrain there, in fact).

Dan and I checked in and received our first achievement packets. Throughout the day, as you accomplished different tasks, you would receive stamps in your packet worth different points, and at the end of the day the top of each faction would win a plaque and a prize.

The area was crowded too - there were a ton of people there. When Bill called for the start to the first tournament - Through the Breach - I think he said we had 22 people signed up for it. The biggest Malifuax tournament I'd played in.

I brought my Neverborn, mostly because that's pretty much what I own. I've been playing them since day one and despite all the whining on the forums that had been getting me down on playing my faction anymore, I decided to say "screw you" to the complainers and play what I enjoyed anyway. The tournament was going to be 30 stone matches, domination style (TP/Diff/VP), no repeating schemes.


ROUND ONE - CHUCK, SHARED SLAUGHTER

My first game was against one of our NoVA locals, Chuck. I asked him if there was anyone he wanted to face or didn't want to face in Neverborn, and he said he had a lot more experience against Lilith than the other masters, so I pulled out Lilith. The mission was Shared Slaughter, so I felt she could do well for me. The board had LOS across almost the entire table with a lot of small ridges and bushes to provide some cover as you crossed. We revealed crews and picked Schemes.

Lilith, Primordial Magic, Mature Nephilim, Younger Nephilim, Terror Tot x3, 7 Soulstones (Breakthrough, Grudge: Francisco)

Perdita, Francisco, Santiago, Nino, Abuela, 6 Soulstones (Assassinate, Frame for Murder: Francisco)

I panicked a little. I would be advancing down an almost completely-open board with barely anything to block LOS against an Ortega gunline. This was going to be interesting. There was no way I'd make it to him with everything.

The first turn went predictably. On my first turn I moved everything up a bit, hiding my Tots (because there was some HT2 terrain on the board) and advancing with my larger models once the Family was all done activating.

On turn two I drew the Red Joker and breathed a sigh of relief. Now I just needed to get Lilith to Perdita. I tried to run one of my Tots around the back of his board, but Francisco leveled his gun and killed him in one shot. Another Tot got taken out by Perdita as he tried to dodge between cover. My Younger jumped behind some small rocks and got nailed by Nino, dropping him to one wound left. He had Santiago left and I had Lilith, the Primordial Magic, and the Mature Nephilim. I had the Mature fly out ahead of Lilith, hiding behind some small trees. Santiago moved out and tried to finish off the Younger Nephilim, but I cheated to keep him alive. The Primordial Magic moved up, used Transposition to switch the Mature with Lilith, and then Lilith charged Perdita. I used a Soulstone to hit, and the Great Sword gave me a straight flip. I cheated in the Red Joker, then added another Severe to the damage, pasting Perdita.



The next turn, my Younger charged Abuela and knocked her down to one life, and the old lady shredded him with her shotgun. My Mature was Transpositioned by the Primordial Magic with my remaining Tot, bringing him back to the front line, and he charged in to Francisco and Nino, killing Francisco and taking Grudge. Lilith charged in to Abuela, killing her, and then moved on Santiago. At that point, the Family was pretty much out of options.

We tallied up points a little too quickly and made a mistake in the scores we reported - I had Breakthrough and Grudge, along with full Slaughter, but we misunderstood Frame for Murder and awarded two points for that, so our game got reported as an 8-2 victory. My score, then, was currently at (3/+6/8).


We took a long break for lunch and went out with a few of the guys from other areas including Wyrd's Zee and GenCon's champion, Bunniegod. After lunch we headed back for our new pairings.


ROUND TWO - RICK, SHARED RECONNOITER

Reconnoiter is one of my least favorite main missions. For whatever reason, I just do terrible at this one.

The board was a Terraclips sewers board with a few buildings, some catwalks, and a large open alley down the center of the board. Unfortunately I was getting so engrossed in my games at this point that I had forgotten to take any pictures again until round four.

I asked Rick if there was anything in Neverborn he didn't want to face and he said he wasn't too keen on seeing Pandora on the table (and maybe the Dreamer too... I couldn't remember) so I picked Zoraida.

Zoraida, Collodi, Marionettes x4, Stitched Together, Lelu, 7 Soulstones (Stake a Claim, Reclaim Malifaux)

Lady Justice, Executioner, Death Marshall x2, Witchling Stalker x2, Guardian, 4 Soulstones (Stake a Claim, Holdout)

Fortunately I had Stake a Claim on a building that touched his deployment zone, so I could break Holdout and grab Stake a Claim with a single model.

The Guild crew busted through some walls in the sewers in order to keep out of LOS of Zoraida as they advanced down the board while a Death Marshall and Stalker advanced down the opposite side to try to grab the quarters. I decided to leave everyone but Zoraida to deal with the massive group of Guild and then sent Zoraida to pick up the last few Reclaim Malifaux points after the end of the second turn. She kept flying around and interacting with terrain to try to grab the objectives while the Stitched, Lelu and Collodi faced down against the Executioner and Lady Justice. I managed to get Lady Justice knocked down to 2 wounds with 2 Poison on her, but the Executioner was still fully healthy as the Guardian was taking all his wounds from the Stitched Together. The Guardian moved up to Lady Justice and tagged himself onto her to make sure he took the wounds from Poison. Lelu attacked her again and killed her and the Guardian, thankfully, before she was able to kill off my crew. The Executioner killed off the Stitched and moved on away after Lelu, knocking the boy down to 1 life left. I was in a tight spot. I could kill the Executioner with Collodi (the Executioner was dropped to one life on the Stitched's reactivate), but then he'd kill Lelu and be fine. I could not get Zoraida over to Hex the Executioner fast enough and even if I was able, I didn't have the time to turn away from Reclaim Malifaux. So Collodi stabbed Lelu, killing him, and spilling Black Blood onto the Executioner. The Executioner attacked Collodi, trying to kill him, but I spent two Soulstones (one on the defense flip and one on the damage prevention) and he survived with one wound.

In turn six, Zoraida flew next to the last Malifaux section and reclaimed it, grabbing 2 for that, 2 for being next to the Stake a Claim, and denying the Holdout. A huge point shift. He managed to bring his last Death Marshall over to kill off Collodi which freed his Witchling Stalker to go after the Claim Jump. Unfortunately, though, he was only able to grab one quarter at that point as Zoraida and the other Stalker were contesting the final one.

Final score, Zoraida wins, 4-3, and my tournament score was now (6/+7/12). This bumped me up into the lead and as one of the games ahead of me ended up in a draw, there were only three undefeated players left.


I'll be back to talk about the final two rounds and the rest of the NoVA Open in the next post.

Single Elimination Malifaux Tourney

Bill ran a single-elimination tournament over the weekend for Malifaux. I had been avoiding tournaments since starting up Malifaux - when I was playing Privateer Press games, in retrospect they were my least favorite and often most douche-y time as a player. Rather than do that again, I figured I should just avoid tournaments altogether.

In over a year of playing Malifaux, this was only the third tournament I had played in, and the second one I played in without being the ringer. The group of players we have here is great and I find that I can keep my cool a lot easier than I could with Warmachine and Hordes.

Anywho, Bill was running two tournaments yesterday. The first was a competitive 35 stone single elimination tournament. The second was a casual newbie-friendly 25 stone swiss tournament. They were timed so that the first four players eliminated from the elimination tournament could join the second tourney if they wanted to.

We could play one faction the entire way through, and pick from anything in that faction. I chose Neverborn so that I would have some variety in my lists. My only other option was Outcasts and I own the Vikis and Hamelin. I've already posted my thoughts on Hamelin in the past, so I decided to leave the Outcasts behind.




GAME ONE - DAN/ARCHANISTS
So the tournament began and my first opponent was Dan. We were pretty sure we would face each other at some point in the tournament, but to get each other round one was hard. One of us wasn't going to advance beyond the first round.

We flipped for Strategies and I pulled Claim Jump while he pulled Destroy the Evidence. Damn. That's nearly impossible to stop with Archanists. I expected to see Colette pulled out - he's on quite a roll against me with her. So I pulled out one of the lists I knew he had trouble with himself: Pandora, Lelu x2, Lilitu x2, Primordial Magic, Insidious Madness, 6 stones. He surprised me by pulling out Marcus, Rattlesnake, Cerberus Tiger, Shikome, Waldgeist, Moleman, and Jackalope, with 6 stones (I think). Very interesting. For schemes he took Kill Protege on one of my Lelus and Sabotage while I took Stake a Claim and Bodyguard on Pandora.

The first turn went far differently than I expected. His beasts moved around trying to flank me from two sides, the Tiger and Waldgeist moving around the right while the Shikome and Rattlesnake moved around the left flank. I moved my Primordial Magic towards the left flank and Shikome. Since she could not attack me, it gave me some safety, and who knows? I might be able to stall her with it. The Moleman hung back by my Claim Jump and Stake a Claim spot. Marcus finished off his turn by Howling to increase his WP and then charging Pandora with the last of his actions. He managed to hit her for 3, but I used a stone to prevent all the damage. Pandora tried to cast spells on the high-WP crew, but even using stones when a crow was flipped, nothing really paid her much mind.

The second turn, Marcus started off again. I sacrificed my Insidious Madness to reflip my initiative but flipped a 2 and 3 so failed. He Howled once more, this time catching Pandora in the aura too dropping her to 4 WP and raising him to a 9 WP. He swung at Pandora and I used a stone and he missed the WP duel. Pandora slid 4 inches away. Marcus had to use his last two actions to charge her and hit her for four damage. My four twins activated here and swarmed Marcus, running him out of stones and killing him, and doing some damage to the Cerberus. At this point he was out of stones and I had only one left. The Rattlesnake charged one of the Lilitu's (not the Protege one) and did a little damage, and the Shikome tried to move away from the Primordial Magic but the little guy held her in place for the first one. The Shikome broke free with the second one, moved to the Evidence marker and destroyed it. Pandora went and started trying to ping the beasts again, but with Howl still affecting them, she had a lot of trouble.

Turn three started with my initiative and finally the WPs were reset to normal. I started with the twins who promptly killed off the Rattler, Cerberus, and lured the Waldgeist into melee and killed him too. Shikome rushed into my deployment zone and gained Fast from being near her prey, so she destroyed the second Evidence marker. Pandora activated and finished her off. At this point he was down to the Moleman and my crew was nearly intact. They moved in on the Moleman and final objective point and the game was over, 8-2.

On the plus side, Dan ended up gaining the "Biggest Loser" award, having earned the fewest victory points in the first round, and took home the consolation prize of the Puppet Deck.

The other matches were a Pandora vs. Seamus game in which Pandora won. There was a Hoffman vs. Viktoria game in which Hoffman managed to pull out a very creative win as he got Eye for an Eye (he had to kill off several of his own models to do so). And there was an Ophelia vs. Perdita game in which the Ophelia crew won when the Perdita crew was out of the deployment zone by an inch or two, and failed to collect the last points. So round two would have two Neverborn, a Guild and an Outcast.




GAME TWO - eCHRIS/NEVERBORN
We took a break for lunch and came back to see the two Neverborn players matched up. I have never actually faced eChris, nor have I played against Pandora before, so this was going to be interesting. I was thinking over options at lunch and landed on playing a true mirror match - pit my Pandora against his. I pulled Slaughter and he pulled Destroy the Evidence. I took the exact same list as before and he took Pandora, Stitched Together x2, Sorrow x4, Insidious Madness x3, 6 stones. I took Bodyguard and Kidnap (Insidious Madness x3) while he took Stake a Claim and Holdout.

The first turn he moved everything up behind a pair of smoke clouds from his Insidious Madnesses while I moved my crew forward to be in position should I win initiative on the second round. I did win initiative and started off with Pandora. She moved in, Pacified two Sorrows and a Stitched Together, and then let off a few spells. She used Project Emotions catching the second Stitched Together and Pandora. Pandora passed with a stone, but the second Stitched fled. Then she tried to zap the Sorrow attached to Pandora with Self Loathing and dealt two damage to it. He started moving in his Insidious Madnesses to bring up (-) WP flips. I launched all my twins, bringing a Lelu up into melee with Pandora and two Sorrows, and killed one of the Sorrows, while the rest of them moved up a little and started trying to prick other models for a point or two of damage here and there. The remaining three Sorrows surrounded Lelu but his high wounds kept him alive when his Pandora pricked him with Incite. She slid over and hit my Pandora, causing her to flee. By now I was realizing just how fast this game was going to be for one of the Pandoras. Every time I defended from an attack, I had to make a WP duel, which was at a (-) flip due to either fleeing or Insidious Madnesses, and that dealt damage to me. I was already down by a good 5 or so life. At the end of the turn, my Lelu who was engaged killed one of the low-life Sorrows leaving two to deal with.

On turn three, I lost initiative and sacrificed my Insidious Madness to gain it. He then sacrificed two of his, finally tieing me on the second one. We reflipped and tied, and then reflipped again and he won by a substantial margin. His Pandora started and went full-bore into mine, killing her. I activated all my twins and managed to kill off his last two Sorrows and the Stitched Together that had not fled, as well as his last Insidious Madness (poison helped a lot here - they basically were put to a point where they would activate and immediately die each time). He moved his last Stitched on me but I turned the Gamble Your Lifes back on him, killing him. On his reactivation, he killed one of my Lelus. By the end of the turn, I had two Lilitus and a Lelu left, and he had Pandora. The problem was that killed Stitched Togethers didn't help my Slaughter (since Does Not Die ends up sacrificing them at the end of the turn, so I don't get the Slaughter points). I was down 16-17.

On turn four, I sent my crew at him. I knew I could not hit him (my hand sucked, and I had pretty low WP) so instead I would just get near him and attack my own models to spill black blood on him. It worked a little but I ended up with 3 wounds remaining on him and just one Lilitu left at the end of it.

Turns five and six were pretty identical. I did not go after his master but instead launched myself to his deployment zone to break Hold Out. I could not win, but might be able to pull a tie. He went after his objective markers but they were on the other side of the board. The game ended with him on his Stake a Claim and me with Kidnap. We called Bill over to see what the tie-breakers were. They were margin of victory up until then. I had +6 from my first game winning 8-2 and eChris had +5, winning his 8-3. I advanced by the skin of my teeth.

eChris congratulated me and told me he didn't mind losing so long as I kept Pandora in the last match - he didn't care who used her but wanted Pandora to win the day. I couldn't say no. It was a tough game.

The Hoffman vs. Ophelia game ended up with Hoffman winning and the final board was set up to be Guild vs. Neverborn.




GAME THREE - JOHN/GUILD
I had the suspicion that John might try to toss me a curve ball by not playing Hoffman. With my twins alpha strike and all the poison and automatic wounding, I figured I'd have a pretty good shot against it.

For strategy I flipped Reconnoiter and he flipped Slaughter. I hate Reconnoiter. Especially with only 6 scoring models in my army. I considered paying the stone to reflip, but decided against it. I wanted to keep my whole cache. I played the exact same list and John put down something unexpected: Sonnia, Witchling Stalker, Samael, Watcher, Peacekeeper, Nino and 8 stones (I think). For schemes I took Bodyguard and Kill Protege (Peacekeeper) while he took Bodyguard and Kill Protege (Lelu).

The board was set up with a ton of cover but not much that entirely block LOS. On the first turn, I moved up a bit, spreading out my twins. I sent one pair and the Insidious Madness left while the other pair and Pandora went right. He sent his entire army with the exception of the Watcher across from my Pandora group, while the Watcher went back to try to contest Reconnoiter from my Insidious Madness group.

On turn two, the fun started. He won initiative and sent his Peacekeeper rolling into my lines, trying to attack Pandora but failing the WP duel. My Lelu charged it and hit it for 6 wounds over the course of the turn, leaving it with 3 left and Poison 2. I was pretty happy about that. Until Sonnia zapped it with the blast spell, killing her Peacekeeper (and denying me Kill Protege) and dealing 4 damage to Pandora, Lelu and Lilitu. I activated Lilitu and tried to Lure Sonnia into my lines. He dispelled the first two, running his hand to about half, and then the third Lure worked with Double-Take, bringing Sonnia right to my front lines. My second Lilitu moved over and started Luring Sonnia towards her, dealing more wounds from Pandora, and then Lured Lelu into range. Lelu charged and dealt a nice chunk of damage to Sonnia. Meanwhile, the Stalker moved up to put up his anti-magic aura and Nino and Samael moved around to get ready for the next turn. At the end of the turn, the Twins healed each other up a bit and dealt four more wounds to Sonnia. She used her last two stones to keep herself alive.

I won initiative on turn three and activated all the twins. The first Lelu killed Sonnia, then double-moved next to the already-wounded Stalker. My Lilitu brought Samael over and did a couple wounds to him, and then my second Lelu charged Samael knocking him to nearly dead and putting himself close enough to him to make things troublesome at the end of the turn. Finally, my last Lilitu lured Nino into melee with a Lelu, denying him his gun. The Watcher moved in to shoot into the melee with the two Lelus and Stalker, managed to target and hit the Proteged Lelu, but didn't wound him. Pandora went and knocked the Stalker down to 2 life left, hit Nino with Self Loathing that caused him to run and then flipped the Red Joker and Severe on damage, one-shotting him, and finished off Samael. At the end of the turn, the Lilitu healings went off, bringing the Lelus to safe range, and then they dealt the final 2 wounds to the Stalker, killing him.

The last turn, I won initiative and activated my twins again. Lilitu moved up, lured Lelu forward and the boy charged and killed the Watcher. I spread out my army for Reconnoiter and ended up winning, 6-0.




FINAL COUNT
Pandora is my least-used Neverborn master by a fair margin. I was not planning on using her every game this time through, but chips just fell that way. I was actually planning on taking the Dreamer a bit more but I felt he was a bad option against Pandora and then I promised eChris I'd play Pandora on the third round.



I'd have to say my all-stars this tournament were the Lelus. Pandora only once all tournament drew a crow above a 6 and twice in the tournament was I able to force anything to flee due to the trigger (a Stitched in the second game and Nino in the third). The Lilitu's did a fair amount of control over the course, but the Lelu's gave me the option to switch from spell and WP damage to melee damage, and that proved crucial all three games. Against Marcus, Howl was wrecking me until I got into melee. Against Pandora, I needed to do enough damage quickly to kill things and Pandora's slow pricks weren't cutting it. And against Sonnia, her counterspell capability set me back to where I would have trouble doing anything to her without my melee options.

So I ended up pulling first place in the tournament with an 8-2 win, a 2-2 tie (won by 1 on point differential for the tie-breaker), and then a 6-0 win. Not too bad for my out-of-retirement tournament. I won a gift certificate for the store which I'll be using soon enough to pick up the Collodi box to complete my Neverborn, as well as a Malifaux Event Pass for the upcoming NoVA Open.

In the 25 stone tournament, Brian won first place with Lilith and Dan took second with Lucius. Congrats to both.

Adepticon Prep Tournament

Over the weekend, Bill ran an Adepticon Prep tournament at Huzzah. Several guys from our area are heading up to Adepticon in a few weeks and will be participating in the Malifaux tournament there, so we ran a prep tournament so people could get a little practice with the rules and scenarios.

Those who know me know that I dislike playing in tournaments. Since starting Malifaux over a year ago, I have played in only one tournament back at the Warstore Weekend, and that was only because Jay and Dan talked me into it when they needed another player to have an even number. I had a pretty good time with the tournament, but still would have preferred just playing casual pick-up games.

I planned to come to the tournament and chat with some of the people for a while and help Bill out if he needed anything. When I got there, I offered to play the ringer for Bill if he had an odd number of players who registered for the event. Turned out that we had seven players show up and register (including three from all the way up in Pennsylvania), so I filled in the eighth spot. I'd play the games, they would count for my opponents, but I'd be taken out of the running for any of the prizes (there were four: first and second place, players choice - which was essentially best painted/modeled crew, and sportsmanship).

It was a four-round tournament. Each scenario was a shared scenario and pre-made. Each player could pick two schemes each round, and no schemes could be repeated for the entire tournament.

Since I was just playing for fun, I decided I would use each of my Neverborn masters once and try out some new things or things I was not used to playing in each round.



ROUND ONE

My first round was against a local player, John. While he's been playing a lot of Archanists around the store recently, he decided to switch back to his Ressers. Usually I fare pretty well against him with his Archanists. His Ressers... not so much.

I took Lilith, the Primordial Magic, a Mature, a Younger, and five Terror Tots with 6 stones.
John took Nicodem, two Vultures, four Canine Remains, two Belles, Mortimer and a Nurse with 5 stones.

Our mission was Shared Slaughter, and I took Bodyguard and Kill Protege (Mortimer) while John took Bodyguard and Kill Protege (Mature Nephilim)

I had never taken more than three Terror Tots before, and wanted to try a swarm of them, just to see how they'd work. I was able to put an end to his Vultures pretty quick, killing one and locking down another in melee before it finally died a few turns in, but I was losing a lot of models as the game progressed. Sensing an opening, I tried to Transpose Mortimer next to Lilith to finish him off, but I flipped an Ace on my stone and he was able to cheat to resist. After that, I moved up to Nicodem to stop his onslaught of spells, but my soulstones failed me again and I was Paralyzed by Rigor Mortis.

I was able to grow two of my Terror Tots into Younger Nephilim, but they did little more than give John more Slaughter points. My Mature Nephilim and Lilith came up short against Nicodem and the undertaker was able to blast my Mature down to one life before another minion of his finished him off. Game was called and he had me beat by more than double in slaughter points and I grabbed a pretty solid loss (2-8).



ROUND TWO

Having one of the worst point totals, I was set on a lower table this time. It ended up being against another local, Convy, and his Marcus crew. We lucked into grabbing a bog-themed table with a ton of water. We looked at the table and smiled, both agreeing to take our full compliment of Slurids against each other.

I took Zoraida, three Slurids, Bad Juju, and two Stitched Togethers with 5 stones.
He took Marcus, the Jackalope, three Slurids, the Rattlesnake, two Molemen, and a Horecat Pride with 5 stones.

Our strategy was Shared Destroy the Evidence. I took Breakout and Steal Relic (Zoraida's got a hefty Willpower stat, so I figured I should use it) and he took Breakout and Sabotage.

Our game began with both Marcus and Zoraida running to the central Evidence point so that the following turn, whoever won initiative would get that objective. I slowly moved my Slurids up, not fully grasping their use in this mission, and got my Stitched Together up near the center after crossing bridges and the like to try to avoid the water. Bad Juju popped up near one of my other objective points.

I won initiative and took the objective and Marcus tried to beat me up for the effort. I was able to use stones to keep her to only losing three life. My Slurid pack launched into his and I killed two of his before he got to go. That proved pivotal in the game as the Slurids, when starting in water (and they always did), could essentially clear 29" of the board as long as they got into melee with an enemy sometime during the middle of their shenanigans. Convy was able to pull off his Sabotage and get the objective point in my deployment zone while I cleared out all the points, had Zoraida steal Marcus' Relic (before he was killed by a Stitched Together) and make it into his deployment zone for Breakout. Zoraida ended with only one life left at the end, but it was enough. I pulled in a victory with full points for my second game (8-4).



ROUND THREE

Pulling out a full win put me back to the center of the pile and I was able to pull a match-up with Dixon. While he's a local to our playgroup, he and I have not played against each other much. I asked him if there was anything he wanted not to face and he just looked at me confused - evidently no one asks him that. He told me to pull out whoever I wanted to play and give him my best fight.

I was down to the Dreamer and Pandora left in my arsenal so I picked the Dreamer. I have never run a full Alp Bomb (and I am not convinced of its brutality), so I figured I'd give that a try. Given what I was facing, I'm glad I didn't try to pull any punches - Dixon had a solid list put together too.

I took the Dreamer, two Daydreams, six Alps, and two Stitched Togethers with 8 stones.
He took the Viktorias, the Student of Conflict, Von Schill, the Librarian, and Jack Daw with 7 stones.

Our mission was Shared Contain Power.
I took Holdout and Reclaim Malifaux. He took Thwart and First Blood.

This mission was unusual. There were a lot of buildings on the board and a long, narrow street up the middle. It was down this street one along one adjacent alleyway that almost all the fights occurred.

I had five of my Alps and one of my Stitched Togethers go into defensive stance and get hit with Terrifying before being buried. I had the Alps put up their anti-WP ability, but I left the Stitched Toegther's fog down - I don't like to put him out away with fog on him because I find usually I'd rather keep LOS to opposing models when I pull him back out. My other models started tagging terrain pieces to Reclaim Malifaux.

Jack Daw rushed out to face me down and put up his anti-cheating bubble. That thing sucks. For me, that is. I tossed a Daydream forward near his Viktorias. They popped the Daydream who turned into my buried Stitched Together. I was able to burn his hand with Gambler, and then tagged the Student with Gamble Your Life, killing him, then turning on the Sword Viktoria with Gamble Your Life. I managed to burn some stones and had him killed by the ability, but with Reactivate, I was able to get to a place where I could cheat the damage for the Gamble Your Life on Viktoria. I dropped the Red Joker and then flipped another Severe for 14. Stones were not going to help him. She died right quick.

I finally got around Jack Daw, though it took me much longer than it should have, and brought Lord Chompy Bits out against the Gun Viktoria, dropping her to one after her untimely encounter with the other Stitched Together. Jack Daw was out of position now that the Dreamer got away from him and I pulled the Alp Bomb around the Librarian and Von Schill. I wasn't going to get the Terrifying to work since they had already activated, but five Alps were going to make not-getting-slow pretty tough. I won initiative the next turn and Lord Chompy Bits killed both of them (Von Schill was out of stones from trying to keep the Viktorias alive). Game ended with another win for me (6-3).



ROUND FOUR

That victory brought me up to second place, four points behind the current leader, Dan. Of course we faced off against each other for the last round. I was left with Pandora as my final choice and he took Seamus.

I had Pandora, Primordial Magic, two Sorrows, the Doppelganger, Lelu, Lilitu, and a Stitched Together and 5 stones.
He had Seamus, the Grave Spirit, Bette, two Belles, Sybelle and a Hanged and 5 stones.

Our mission was Shared Claim Jump.
I took Assassinate and Kidnap (both Belles and the Grave Spirit). He took Kill Protege (Doppelganger) and Grudge (Lelu).

I hate Sorrows. I never use them. And against Ressers, I usually try to load up on Nightmares so I can avoid any Terrifying shenanigans, but I figured I'd pull in some old school models like the Sorrows and Doppelganger.

We forgot about the (-) flip for initiative while the Doppelganger was alive. As soon as Dan killed her (on turn 2), he never won initiative again. I think it's karma for avoiding the Doppelganger's rules in the first place. Either way, it helped me out a bit.

I was able to kill the Hanged in exchange for the Doppelganger, which probably was a good trade in his favor, but from there I was able to push forward and keep most of the fight on his half of the board so I only had to fall back to reach the Claim Jump point - he had to push through me.

I was able to pull some great draws - having a high crow on three key turns (and having two high crows on one of those turns). I got Seamus and his two Belles to flee while I took care of Sybelle and the Grave Spirit, then brought them forward a bit with Lilitu to finish them off. Lelu killed the last Belle nabbing my Kidnap, but Bette was brought in by all the carnage and killed Lelu off herself.

Pandora was able to chase down Seamus and, with some early help by the Stitched Together, finish off the serial killer. I fell back to the Claim Jump and zapped Bette back to wherever it is she goes. Game ended with me winning (8-4).



So as the tournament came to a close, Dan and I tied at the top spot with 24 points. Not a bad showing for the Neverborn that day. Dan took home the first-place prize - a crew box. I actually ended up trading him my Marcus crew for his prize so I could pick up Von Schill's box. It looks pretty fun. I'll grab the Viktorias and see how they work together. It looks like a nice little list and looks like it will play pretty similar to Lilith. Lots of speed and hard-hitting.