Guild's First Match

I got my first game in with Guild yesterday.  Actually, I guess it’s my second since my first one was in the Pied Piper tournament back at the beginning of this year where I kept getting handed lists I’d never used before.  This was the first time I had voluntarily chosen to play Guild.  Skill-less Brian was nice enough to lend me his Guild and I opted to make a list out of the stuff that I have on order.  Second Generation Awesome Dan was across from me with his Avatar Seamus list.  Since he was playing a crew he was very familiar with, and I was just starting a newer crew, he took some of the harder schemes.

He flipped Deliver the Message and I flipped Reconnoiter.  I reflipped and took Plant Evidence instead.

My Crew: Lucius (4 stones), Drill Sergeant, Austringer x2, Guild Hound x4, Guild Guard x3

Strategy:  Plant Evidence

Schemes:  Bodyguard (Lucius), Stake a Claim

Dan’s Crew:  Seamus + Avatar (7 stones), Night Terror x3, Drowned x2, Dead Rider, Grave Spirit

Strategy:  Deliver the Message

Schemes:  Eye for an Eye, Exterminate (Beasts)

I know how much I drool when I sit down against Guild and take Avatar Seamus, so my goal was to minimize him as best I could.  Also, I needed a way to handle the three Night Terrors coming in to Deliver the Message early.  Austringers could help, but I had to put these guys down fast.

There was a ton of terrain all over the board, with probably four or five large pieces that would block LOS.  The rest of the board had barrels, crates, grave stones, fences, etc. to keep people able to hop from cover to cover.

I deployed one pair of dogs on a flank to go grab some objectives, and the other pair on the other flank, but closer to Lucius to help protect him if need be.  Two Guardsmen and an Austringer deployed in the middle, and the other Guardsman, Austringer, and Drill Sergeant deployed on the side next to Lucius.

He deployed pretty much everything across from Lucius with one Drowned slightly more towards the flanking dogs.

TURN ONE – SEAMUS INITIATIVE

He probably didn’t want the initiative here, seeing as I outnumbered him 11-8, but that’s the way it broke.  His Grave Spirit linked to his Dead Rider (no shock there) and then cast Face of Death.  My Drill Sergeant linked to an Austringer and put up Shooting Range.  His Drowned headed out, one of them heading towards the middle of the board and the other heading out to meet the flanking dogs.  My flanking dogs moved out with On the Trail (these guys are fast!) and two of my Guardsmen moved up to the barrels in the middle of the board.  His bats started hop-scotching up the board and his Dead Rider pulled in behind them near the midpoint.  My Austringer started firing and with Lucius ordering him, managed to get two of the bats down by two each.  Lucius started giving the Austringer orders, and the bats flew in.  The last two Guild Hounds went and I ended up with his bats having taken 2, 2, and 3 points of damage, and had them out of range of Delivering a Message to Lucius.

TURN TWO – SEAMUS INITIATIVE

He started with his first bat that flew to the other side of my dog and then pulled his two brothers into melee with Lucius.  Lucius activated, attacked one of the bats twice and killed him, then had only one left to deal with, and it had only one wound.  Unfortunately, Lucius was the only one in range of attacking the bat, so he tried to Order himself, but the (-) flip on the cast, and even tossing a Soulstone, he failed the cast.

Now, if I was a more savvy player, Skill-less Brian pointed out that my Guild Hounds had Companion: Master, and could have moved in to finish off the last bat.  Gah!  Oh well – I won’t forget that option next time.

His bat with one wound activated and Delivered the Message, securing 4 VPs.  My dogs activated and finished off the two bats that were remaining, just clearing the board a little.  The two Drowned moved up some more, the one facing off against the dogs being just out of range of doing anything, and the one against the pair of Guardsmen blasting one of them for 2 wounds but failing to spill the damage onto the second one.  The dogs on the flank rushed out and grabbed two Plant Evidence markers, trying to peal away from the Drowned as they did.  The Drill Sergeant put up his shooting buff, and the Dead Rider picked up Fast and rolled in, cheating a Red Joker on damage to one-shot one of my Austringers.

My Guardsmen started plinking the Dead Rider, doing a point here and a point there, until one finally hit the Red Joker and dropped 7 wounds (5 after Armor) on him.  From there, my remaining Austringer picked a target that meant only the Dead Rider and one of my models could be shot at, and randomized into the Dead Rider twice, finishing him off.

Seamus kept moving up, grabbing his second Face of Fear, and leveled a gunshot at my remaining Austringer, killing him.

TURN THREE – SEAMUS INITIATIVE

Damn.  The Drowned near the dogs moved in and shot one, doing 2 wounds to it, but I cheated to make sure the second one did not take wounds.  Also, one of the dogs was now in melee.  I went with one of my Guardsmen, focusing a shot on the Drowned near him and taking down a few wounds.   The Drowned then shot back at my Guardsmen, but I was able to cheat to make the attack miss.  My second Guardsman finished off the Drowned and it exploded, doing a wound to each of my Guardsmen.

Seamus went and shot my Drill Sergeant dead, ending his short-lived reign of terror.

My dogs near the other Drowned rolled out, making it away with a disengaging strike on the second time, and activated my last two Plant Evidence markers.  Now it was a battle of the schemes.  One of my other dogs got rid of all the piling up Corpse tokens and then they both went after Seamus, one of them fleeing (Seamus held him in place) and the other one putting a few wounds into him.  Lucius moved up a little and had the dogs go again, knocking Seamus down a little more.

TURN FOUR – SEAMUS INITIATIVE

Lost initiative again, and the Drowned near my dogs killed one of them.  I looked over the board and realized I could not have the dog outrun the Drowned’s range anymore without On the Trail, so I’d have to turn and fight.  I started with my other dogs first, though, having them bite Seamus some more to keep him lower for when he manifested.

Sure enough, Seamus activated and Manifested, then smashed one of the dogs flat.  Lucius had the second one start picking off on aSeamus some more, but it didn’t really do too much.

My Guardsmen avoided the whole situation and started moving towards my Stake a Claim, keeping out of range.  Lucius tried to get my dog to walk away, but aSeamus stopped him, then flipped the BJ on damage from Wicked, keeping the dog around.  Lucius just moved away from the fight with his last AP.  My dog near the Drowned charged and did a few wounds to the Drowned.

TURN FIVE – LUCIUS INITIATIVE

I activated my dog near the Drowned and finished him off, taking a few wounds from the explosion, and leaving me with a dog that could possibly get away from aSeamus and save me from Exterminate.  aSeamus wrecked the last dog then started moving over towards the last one.  My Guardsmen tried to avoid aSeamus as much as they could.  One of them got onto the Stake a Claim marker and the other two huddled near it so they could run in if necessary.  aSeamus’ path to the dog took him right by the terrain piece.

TURN SIX – aSEAMUS INITIATIVE

So much for trying to get my dog away.  aSeamus moved twice to grab the dog and kill him, also engaging two of my Guardsmen.  By this point his Anathema was at 17 too.  Fortunately I had a 12 and 13 with which to cheat my terrifying checks for my two Guardsmen engaged and keep them alive.  They both put a few attacks in on Seamus, figuring that if the game went on any longer, I’d need to do as much damage to him as possible.  Finally at the end of the turn, we flipped and the game did not go on.

  

FINAL SCORE:
LUCIUS 8 (4 Plant Evidence, 2 Bodyguard, 2 Stake a Claim)

aSEAMUS 6 (4 Deliver the Message, 2 Exterminate (Beasts), 0 Eye for an Eye)

Not a bad showing for my first romp out with Lucius.  I don’t like having to rely on Austringers for much, but with as squishy as they are, I think taking two is essentially ensuring that one will survive a bit longer.  The Guild Guardsmen were pretty solid, surprisingly good in melee with their CB 6 and minimum damage of 2.  Guild puts out a lot of damage!  I can’t wait to get some Witchling Stalkers in there instead and do that much more.

I’m interested in trying out Ryle and the Guard Captain a bit to see how they roll.  I think my biggest hurdle at the moment is learning which models do what.  Missing out on Companion: Master essentially handed Dan 4 VPs early on.  I may not have been able to stop the Rider from coming in and getting the strategy later, but I might have been able to delay him long enough to drop him to 2 VPs.

In the end, had Dan not been hindering himself with harder schemes, it would have rolled through as a tie, most likely.  I have a lot to learn with these guys, but it’s nice to come out of the gates swinging.

It Begins Again...

Yesterday I put in an order with Chris at Huzzah for my next project: the Guild!  It’s kinda funny because when I first started playing the game, they were the faction I said I would never buy into.  Though they are the last faction I bought a crew for, so maybe that counts.  Even still, I’m putting them higher than the Archanists on the list of factions that interest me.

My last experiment, the Ressers, I would call a success.  Of the four crews I purchased, only one of them did I not actually enjoy playing much, and that was Nicodem.  Seamus (especially his Avatar) was a bundle of fun.  Kirai wasn’t so much fun, but she did click with me.  But McMourning came out as the gem of the bunch.  I have enjoyed almost every game I played with him (even the ones where Avatar Ramos uses and abuses the poor guy).  My only regret, I think, in the whole Resser experience is that I think I went way overboard with them.  There are a lot of Resser models in my collection that just gather dust and don’t really help any.

To that end, I’m being a little bit more reserved in my Guild collecting.  I will not be purchasing every master (I say that now…) and rather than buying everything all at once, I’m going to be a little slower in making my purchases.  I’ve already outlined my initial purchases and picks for the crew, and I’m going to work with them only for a little while.

So who will be leading my first Guild crew?  Lucius!

I know he’s not a master, but since he hit the shelves, I have been intrigued by him.  In the past, I never really wanted to get him since he was just about the only thing in the Guild line that interested me, but I’m starting to come around on some of the other options.

It’s probably no surprise how much I like Lucius.  My favorite master of all is Zoraida, and the two of them have some similarities in how they support their crews.  I’m really looking forward to getting him on the table and trying to learn his tricks and trappings.

To go along with his box set, I’m picking up the Drill Sergeant, some Hounds, some more Guardsmen, and a pair of Austringers.  I figure that will give me a solid core for my crew that I can play around with and learn how they work, so I can expand in the future as need be.

From here, I’m going to be looking at spreading into some of the more generic Guild models.  The Warden will join Lucius’ crew, and as I pick up my first master, Lady Justice, I’ll be grabbing a few more toys she can take like Witchling Stalkers and a Guardian.  The Pale Rider’s going to make the cut at some point just because I love the way he looks (even though I hate painting the Riders).

This is probably pretty good timing for me to get into Guild.  Since I have my silly new year’s resolution of only playing with painted models, I need to start my new crew before GenCon comes around and all the extra goodies come out.

My next plan is working on my scheme.  I already picked the basic theme for the crew: I want them to be desert walkers crossing the cracked ground.  I found some bases over at ForgeCraft Games that fit perfectly.  Looking forward to getting the models out on the table as soon as they arrive and get painted up.  That bunch will probably be pushing my Avatar Dreamer and Widow Weaver to the back of the line.

Falling Skies

When this show was first announced, I had a passing interest in it.  That is to say I immediately thought, “That would be cool” and then another more rational voice in my head said, “No, you only want it to be cool.”

I mean, what’s not to like about the concept?  If you’re me, at least.  Post-apocolyptic.  A mystery about what happened and why.  Follows the survivors and deals largely with their survival.  I know there are a lot of shows out there now that seem to be post-disaster shows.  With Walking Dead already in my queue, I figured I’d pass on this one.

Jump to a couple weeks ago when the fourth season of Breaking Bad came out on DVD (my favorite show currently running) and I headed up to Best Buy to grab a copy.  While I was there, I passed by the first season of Falling Skies and it was on sale, so I figured I’d pick it up too.  My wife and I put it on the side and watched through Breaking Bad, but then we picked up Falling Skies.

The first show started a bit differently than I expected.  I thought the show would be kinda like an extended Independence Day or V – we would see the aliens arrive, watch them launch their attack, etc.  But instead they summed all of that up in the first minute or two with a voice-over.  All that stuff didn’t matter to the show.  Or rather it mattered, but it wasn’t the focus.  Instead we were eight months later where the survivors of the attacks were trying to do something.  Fight back, or just survive.

The setting started in Boston with a bunch of soldiers in the 2nd Massachusetts.  But they weren’t all soldiers.  A lot of them were civilians that were now serving alongside the military.  And then there were just the civilians that were staying near the military for protection.  Things were going poorly in Boston, and the army had to split into smaller groups to flee the city.  So straight away we had a hundred soldiers leading two hundred civilians out of Boston trying to avoid the aliens and the like.

Characters came in fast, from the civilian doctor, to the history professor-turned-soldier.  The head of the military stuck the history professor with the captain of the 2nd Mass in order to give someone to watch over the civilians.  Evidently the captain had a more military bend of mind and sometimes saw the civilians as a detriment.

As the story grew, the focus was primarily on the characters.  The writing was surprisingly good, sometimes taking a good amount of time to focus on small conversations that really don’t do much to advance the plot, but really get into the feeling of being a survivor.  What do you talk about when the world is completely changed?

I know there are some complaints about the show.  It’s not strong on action.  The show slows down a bit at times because it focuses on the characters more than the plot.  For me, those are all strengths.  Like another show I recently reviewed, Jericho, the best part of the story isn’t the plot and mystery as much as it is watching the characters involved react to what’s happening.

The second season just started recently.  The wife and I have to rush through the first to get caught up.

The Stench of Defeat

On Tuesday night I headed out to the game store to grab some Malifaux games.  Most times, I have nothing planned and just grab games where I can.  Last night, though, I had two games lined up.

GAME ONE – aRAMOS (SLAZ)

The first was against Slaz, our local Archanist player.  I hadn’t played him since early this year when I was playing Ressers a lot.  He had beaten me with aRamos and I wanted to get a rematch against him.  So I set my Neverborn aside and dusted off my Ressers once more for a McMourning vs. aRamos rematch!

I took the Avatar this time – he wasn’t an option last time I faced aRamos, and since I had Line in the Sand, I opted for a trio of Night Terrors and the Dead Rider.  He took a fairly standard aRamos list, and kept Johan as a bodyguard.  I rarely face Johan, so I was a little fuzzy on what he did, but I figured he shouldn’t be a big issue.

Things started going poorly for me as I managed to flip a Black Joker on McMourning’s first turn as he tried to kill off the Canine Remains.  I ended up killing both of them, but shorted myself some bodyparts doing it.  Everything else was looking good though as my Night Terrors and Dead Rider were flipping my dynamite markers.

On turn two, my Dead Rider grabbed one of his Large SPAs and yanked him back to the edge of the board to kill him, and my bats were circling around away from the fighting.  I brought McMourning forward and summoned a Flesh Construct to face off against Ramos, hopefully putting a few wounds in him before he manifested.  Here’s where my lack of understanding of Johan came in.  Johan pasted the Flesh Construct in three hits.  Damn.  aRamos manifested.

I got the initiative on turn three and was holding a decent hand, so I decided to send McMourning after aRamos.  I used Scalpel Sling and Slaz cheated in a moderate Tome, then stoned for a severe putting his defense pretty high.  Still, I felt I had a good shot.  I tossed a 13 and stoned, needing a 6, and missed.  So McMourning could not actually attack anything more.  Instead, he booked it onto Slaz’s side of the board, hopefully positioning himself so that Slaz couldn’t come after me without risking the Turf War.  My Dead Rider, meanwhile, finished off one Large SPA and was moving in on a second.  My bats surrounded McMourning to cut off his positioning so aRamos would have a harder time landing a Leap near enough to attack.

Turn four did not go much better.  McMourning landed his first hit on aRamos for 6 wounds (prevented to 5) but missed after that.  aRamos summoned two new Large SPAs after the Dead Rider killed the other one and was flipping dynamite.  aRamos, the bugs and Johan took turns whacking McMourning, but he managed to survive the turn.

Turn five saw McMourning try to hit aRamos again, but another moderate Tome plus a 13 on the stone this time pushed the attack out of my range.  Needing a 7 on my stone, I again flipped too low and wasn’t able to attack anymore.  My bats weren’t accomplishing anything, so I drained two of them for Soulstones to try to keep McMourning alive, but he bit it after some concentrated attacks.  He moved most of his crew towards my side of the board, holding one Large SPA back to break my Breakthrough.

Turn six, my Dead Rider launched himself at the Large SPA, killing him and moving into his deployment zone, but by then, the four dynamite markers I had flipped were being flipped back and he was on my side of the board with enough people to get two points for Turf War.  The game ended and I lost, 2-4.

GAME TWO – PANDORA (BILL)

The second game was against Bill.  He told me he was going to play Neverborn last week, and I was planning on taking Neverborn too, but then he put up a bit of a stink, so I acquiesced and switched to Ressers.  Then I made the mistake of telling him who I was taking after we flipped Strategies (I had Reconnoiter so I went with Kirai – I was hoping to get a McMourning-friendly strategy), and he put Dreamer down and picked up Pandora instead.

The game went predictably for Pandora vs. Kirai.  Pandora got to Kirai without much trouble (high model count gave a lot of models to bounce off of with Pacify), killed off all the Seishin with her pricking them, then was able to target Kirai with enough stuff that her own Pitiful kept hurting her.

I was able to get my Insidious Madness up near Pandora a couple turns with the (-) WP flip, but even with that, Pandora was often outflipping my crew as they tried to target her.

I started with one Shikome and summoned a second on turn one.  The first one was going after Lelu, and the second one spent the first turn targeting the Doppelganger as its Prey.  I was able to get to Lelu, but he ran the Doppelganger away and Lilitu was able to hold the Shikome down.  I never really had the opportunity to swirl it away because I was under pressure from Coppelius the whole time.

Overall, not a lot fell my way.  Bill had a really solid crew to counter mine, and mine did not have much that could directly deal with his outside the Insidious Madness, and that hurt my crew just as much as his.  By the end of turn six, he had wiped my whole crew and maxed out his points, giving him a 8-0 victory over me.

So at the end of the day, I lost two in a row.  Rough night for me.   I had to go back home and let my wife know that it was the stench of defeat she was smelling on me.  She told me I had to sleep on the couch that night.

But I’ve already challenged Slaz to another aRamos match.  I have yet to beat that guy, and I’m convinced that prize is just in reach.  Looking forward to the re-rematch… 

Where Do We Go From Here?

I am something of a gaming whore.  I didn’t used to be.  Used to be that when I started up a game, I would pick a particular faction and stick with it throughout.  In Warmachine, this was Cygnar.  I didn’t care how bad people said they were – I liked the way they looked and I played them a ton.  When Hordes came out, I thought dragons and ice elves sounded cool, so I picked them.  Turned out that they had the opposite problem as Cygnar.  People did not say they sucked – they said they were too good.

When I started up Malifaux, I decided I liked the look of all the Neverborn masters, so that’s what I went with, and I stuck with them for a good while.  Then for some reason I bought Marcus.  I think I was ready to try something new and I already had Silurids and Waldgeists.  Soon thereafter, book 2 came out and I dropped Marcus in favor of the Dreamer and getting back to my original faction.  Then I got bored again and tried something new: the Viktorias and the Freikorps.  All this was in preparation for Hamelin coming out so I could play Outcasts.

Then I decided to plunge into Ressers and see what they were all about.  Now I have nearly as many Ressers as I do Neverborn.  This year I have split games almost evenly between my Ressers and Neverborn.  Recently my Neverborn have started to overtake my Ressers, but the first quarter of the year saw me playing Ressers about five times as often as Neverborn.

Now we’re moving in to another era…

I just haven’t figured out quite what it is yet.

I had it all figured out before.  I love Lucius and really want to get a crew for him out on the table.  I figured I’d just pick up a little bit of Guild – just Lady Justice and Lucius – and give them a whirl.  It would give me a nice way to mix things up from time to time.

But then they went ahead and announced that there would be yet another faction coming out: the Ten Thunders.  Nothing much has been announced for them yet, so I can’t really say whether I’m going to grab them yet.

But all this put my Guild construction to a halt.  I have to wait until I know more.  Do I go Guild, or do I go Ten Thunders?  Or heck… do I go both?

The Beginning of the End

Maybe it's not quite that dramatic, thought Bill may come to call it that before too long.

If you're not the one listener and you enjoy Malifaux, I encourage you to head over to the Gamers Lounge and take a listen to Episode #56.  Two new hosts have joined Bill in his rambling antics.  Alright, I'll spoil the surprise.  It's none other than Second Generation Awesome Dan and myself!  Hope you enjoy...