Malifaux Game: Dreamer Takes on Vikki's

Over this past weekend, I took Saturday morning and headed in to Huzzah to play a game of Malifaux against Jay. I hadn’t played him before, and he was itching to see how his Vikki’s would do against a veteran player.

So we set up our terrain for a 30 stone game and I pulled out the Dreamer with his three Teddies, while Jay hit the table with the Vikki’s, the Convict Gunslinger, the Student of Conflict, Johan and Taylor. Taylor’s a beast in combat already, and facing constructs, of which all three of my Teddies were, she was that much better.

Our scenario came up with Shared Slaughter. Jay hadn’t played a Shared mission before, so we just flipped on that chart. Both of us had duel masters, so that worked out well. For secondary objectives, I took Bodyguard on my master and Grudge on his highest point minion: Taylor, both announced. Jay took Thwart to try to stop my secondary objectives, and Grudge against my Teddy with Alice on it.

I started with everyone buried save the Dreamer, as per usual. I won the initiative and moved out near some buildings nearby. Jay moved his people in two groups: Gun Vikki, the Convict, and Student of Conflict all stuck back a little near another building, while Johan, Taylor, and Sword Vikki all headed up closer to the front of his lines where the Dreamer was.

On turn two, Jay won the initiative, moved Johan out and shot at the Dreamer, but failed to hit him. The Dreamer went, dropped all three Teddies on the field near that group, and turned into Lord Chompy Bits next to Johan. Taylor activated next and I learned two things: first, she doesn’t care about Terrify. Second, she will kill any Teddy she faces in three hits. Down went one Teddy, full to dead, no chance to stop it. I activated one of my Teddies and moved in on Taylor, only managing a couple of damage. Vikki went and moved in on the LCB and other Teddy, having to cheat to not run away from the Terrifying they had. She did four damage to LCB. LCB turned around and with Teddy’s help, killed Vikki, and healed himself back up to full. Jay’s second group moved up and got in position.

On turn three, Jay again won initiative, which I knew spelled the death of my second Teddy (fortunately not my Alice Teddy, since I held that one in the most safe place of the three). Sure enough, Teddy died. LCB went and killed off Johan, then moved up on Taylor, and my last Teddy got shot by the Convict. He managed to regenerate it back up, moved in, and did some more damage to Taylor.

On turn four, Jay again won initiative (this was getting frustrating). With LCB standing right there, Taylor went and killed him off, popping my Dreamer back out. The Teddy killed off Taylor, finally, and then got shot for his trouble. The Dreamer went and buried my Teddy, trying to keep him alive. At this point, Jay had Gun Vikki, Student of Conflict, and the Convict Gunslinger while I had the Dreamer and a wounded Teddy. Things were not looking good.

But I realized I had both of my schemes successfully at the moment, keeping the Dreamer alive and killing Taylor. I had stopped his Thwart, and if I could keep Alice Teddy alive, I would stop his Grudge too. That might give me enough to squeak out a tie or win.

So on turn five (which Jay again won initiative), I had the Dreamer fly out of range of the Convict Gunslinger and stay hidden. The Student of Conflict gave Vikki fast, and she rushed around the building to where the Dreamer was, but was off by about an 1”.

Finally, I won initiative on turn six and flew the Dreamer away from Vikki. The Student of Conflict was too far away to be able to give Vikki fast again, and he wasn’t able to reach me. Jay flipped the last card to see if we went on, and we didn’t. Game ended there.

Tallying up points, Jay got 2 points out of Slaughter and none from the schemes, while I got 1 point out of Slaughter and four for the schemes. Close game, and one of the most violent that my Dreamer list has ever faced. With Taylor’s massive hammer, I wasn’t sure how the Teddies would be able to stand up to her. Sure enough, they couldn’t. Losing two Teddies and LCB to take her down was unfortunate. The Dreamer always losing the activation war was pretty rough on me, and missing the initiative on the entire middle of the game (each time costing me a key model) was also hard to deal with. Jay put up a great fight – can’t wait for the rematch.

Shave and a Haircut

So on Saturday I took a trip out to get a haircut for the wedding. I figured I'd get it cut short and let it grow back in. Not a bad plan, except the guy who was cutting my hair shaved part of my beard, so it looked all strange, and I had to shave the rest of it off.

So I'm in my bathroom with my razor and think to myself, I don't really need to shave ALL of it, do I? Of course, the answer is "no"! I can leave myself an awesome mustache.



It's beautiful - I can let that grow out for another three weeks so it's a little more bushy like the ones in Tombstone, and everyone will be jealous of me. Women will want me. Men will want to be me. Life will be great.

Only, Laura does not agree.



So instead I have to shave it all off. Sigh. She wouldn't even let me wear it around for the weekend, just for fun.

Lord Chompy Bits Eats Colette

So last night I headed back out to Huzzah Hobbies, the new store out in Sterling. It’s nice to have a game store only five minutes from the house. Makes it pretty easy to head out there. I picked up a couple new paint brushes while I was there, trying to support the place so that it stays in business. They’ve got a nice selection of paints and hobby supplies going, and I put in a special order for the new Colette box when she comes out. Laura liked the look of the Showgirls and was looking forward to painting them.



Anywho, I ended up getting two games in again last night. The first game was against Chris S. Most of the people playing at Huzzah are new to the game and so I’ll usually spend more time teaching them the game than playing the game, but Chris is no newbie to this game. We both got to pull out some pretty fun models to try out. I hit the table with the Dreamer, Lord Chompy Bits, and three Teddies (6 stones remaining). Chris put down Colette, Cassandra, a Performer with its Mannequin, and two Coryphees (6 stones remaining).



So we flipped for our missions. I got Distract and he got Deliver the Message. Great. Both of these missions require maneuverability, which he has a lot better than I do. I have to keep his Master, Colette, from reaching my side of the board by the end of the game, and she can teleport up to 18”. Ouch. And his mission is just to get one of his models to mine and pull of a two-action Interact to give me a message before I kill him. Double ouch. I’ve seen Colette’s crew move. They move FAST!

To add insult to injury, he took the two scenarios for the Archanists meaning he had to Sabotage a building on my side of the board, and he had to reach all four corners during the game. Piece of cake. I knew I couldn’t out-maneuver him, so I took Bodyguard on my big guy, and Grudge meaning I’d have to kill Cassandra as his highest point model.



The only way I could stop Colette from reaching my side of the board was if I killed her. So my goal became killing both Colette and Cassandra, the rest of the mission be damned. He could take all the points he wanted, but if I could kill Colette and kill anyone who got close to me, I should be able to win.

So deploying. He got everyone up on one side of the board where he’d have extra cover running up the board, except one model who started near the other corner. I deployed the Dreamer in the middle of the board. Everyone else began buried.

I won initiative and made him go first. His Performer tagged the side of the board next to him and started heading in to the middle of the board. The Dreamer stepped up to the middle of the board, and then I was done. So everything else in his army moved forward, save one model that tagged the back corner of his board, and Colette, who summoned a Dove as well. He was already half-way to achieving one of his goals, and Cassandra was already more than halfway to my side of the board.

Next turn, he flipped the Red Joker and won initiative, making me go first. I moved the Dreamer as close to Cassandra as I could and raised a single Teddy near her, hoping to catch her in the Terrifying range. I was just out and Cassandra rushed past me, tagging a third corner. Teddy moved back towards Cassandra, trying to pin her down a little, and I was done with activations again. The Coryphee’s moved up, joined into a Duet, and moved up next to the Dreamer. Eep! Colette summoned another Dove and kept one near her while the other started heading out. His Soulstones were still hovering around 4-5, so he was feeling pretty good.

On turn three, he again flipped the Red Joker for initiative. I was scared, but rather than taking the Duet after the Dreamer, he took Cassandra after my Teddy. I cheated a few times to keep him from doing enough to kill me, and Teddy’s Hard to Wound 2 kept him alive with 4 life left. My action, and I activated Teddy. He Regenerated two life and moved around, engaging both Cassandra and the Duet, as well as keeping within 3” of the Dreamer to protect him. Since Cassandra had popped her ability to give me (-) flips on attacks and damage against her, I hit the Duet instead, knocking it down a couple life. The Duet went, but since the Teddy was within 3” and targetable by the Duet, the Duet had to attack Teddy. It took all the strikes it had, and a Soulstone, but the Duet killed Teddy. Noooooo!!!!



Time for revenge. The Dreamer when, summoned the other two Teddy’s between the Duet and turned into Lord Chompy Bits next to the Duet. The Mannequin and Performer came up and tried to Slow some of the new army that just appeared, but failed. Lord Chompy Bits ripped into the Duet, killing it on the third strike that also Calmed it so it turned back into the Dreamer, giving it a little defense. Colette tried to get Cassandra out of the way of two Teddies, but failed, even with a Soulstone. Both Teddies attacked Cassandra, but she burned a couple more Soulstones to prevent me from killing her. As it was, she still took 2-3 damage. Now Colette was down to a single soulstone. Good deal.



On turn four, he won initiative again. Colette activated, dropped two cards for a Soulstone, and successfully pulled Cassandra out of the certain-death spot she had found herself in. The Dreamer went, buried both Teddies, then raised them again further down the field near the Mannequin and Performer, then turned back into Lord Chompy Bits again. The Performer went, trying to slow down the Teddy assault, and managed to pull off Slow on one of them. The Mannequin sacrificed itself to give Cassandra a heal, but only removed one wound. The slow Teddy went and shredded the Performer, who, in her death, gave Colette Reactivate. Colette was sitting a little rough with a half-dead Cassandra, herself, and one Dove left, with only a single Soulstone in her cache. Meanwhile, two nearly-fully-healthy Teddies (one had taken some damage when Cassandra started breathing fire at me) and Lord Chompy Bits stared out across at her. Colette activated and tried to get some defenses going, but with her Soulstones depleted, she was not in a good way. Teddy activated and charged Cassandra, but failed to hit her as Colette used her last Soulstone. Lord Chompy Bits then leapt across a fence (crushed it under his feet, maybe?) and caught the Dove in his claws. I flipped and got a 16. He flipped to a 17, with a 12 as his flip. I weighed back and forth and finally decided to spend my 4th Soulstone (I had used a few to kill off the Duet) in order to kill the Dove.



At that point, Chris conceded. He needed Doves to restart his teleportation tricks, and down to zero Soulstones meant he would have to use all his resources next turn just to summon a Dove, and that would leave Cassandra and Colette a little defenseless against the onrushing Teddies and Lord Chompy Bits. So it turned out that there was another option to how to win the game other than kill Cassandra and Colette: kill everyone but Cassandra and Colette. He had no way to get close enough to my master to deliver him a message (which, I assume, read “Please don’t kill me”), and I had cut him off from both the last corner and the building he wanted to reach. He would have to end up pretty close to my army to try that goal. All in all, a good showing for the Dreamer and his pals.

Dissatisfaction with Food

I love barbeque Fritos. For my money, it can't get much better than that. They're not that easy to find, though. People stock regular potato chips and the like before they bring in the tasty goodness of barbeque Fritos.

But my vending machine here at work stocks them. Great news, right? Well, I thought so too. But when I went to get one today, I noticed the bag was nearly deflated when I pulled it out of the machine. Well, that's no good, I said to myself. And then when I opened the bag and started eating them, they were stale! Oh, the horror of it all! So what was going to be my wonderful snack turned out to be just a depressing bout of awfulness. I couldn't even finish the bag, they tasted so bad.

Oh, life is difficult sometimes.

Two for the Road

So we ended up doing some more painting last night and I finished off the pumpkins for the bases and the murder of crows, while Laura finished off Lord Chompy Bits.

More Malifuax Models Painted

So I got a few more models painted up this weekend. First up are four models that I had painted a while ago, but never got around to displaying. They're to be used for objective markers. I have another one on deck - a murder of crows - but I'll wait until later to show that one off.



Next up is the Dreamer. I had most of him finished a little while ago, but was waiting for the pumpkins to add to his base. Gives him a little more color than gray and blue, which is pretty cool. When he turns into Lord Chompy Bits, that monstrosity is going to have a bunch of jack'o'lanterns on his base instead of just pumpkins. Laura's working on him right now, but he's a massive model, and will probably take a while to get all finished up. In the meantime, here's the Dreamer.



Following that, I have two totems to show off. The first one is the Jackalope from Marcus. This rabbit's got horns and tends to be used as a missile - attacking at great speed, doing some damage, and then being killed off only to rise again and repeat it all. So I decided this guy was something of a bloody mess. Other rabbits just look down on the Jackalope, fearing that he gives the rest of them a bad name.



The last one for this round is the Primordial Magic, which, in painting, I grew to like the look of more. I thought it was a worm-like thing before. But as it turns out, it was some soup that was cooking up in a cauldron, and when it tipped over, it coalesced into this long thing. Looks pretty neat that way. Still, I added a little mini-worm next to him that's trying to grow up to be just like daddy.



Next up: the Murder of Crows, maybe the Miss Pack, the Lord Chompy Bits... and then who knows?

Two New Models

Last night, Laura and I painted up a few models. I started working on the Dreamer, but he's not quite done, so I'll hold off on him. In addition to him, Laura finished up Jack Daw, and I painted up one of the Apparition random models I had. I mean, why not? He's a cool looking model. I figure I'll use him as Coppulus until the real model comes out.