Malifaux Matches: Dreamer and Leviticus

Over the weekend, Dan and I decided to get a couple games of Malifaux in before Sunday football. We haven't faced each other since the Warstore Weekend and since then, he's picked up a new crew (Leviticus) and I've started using the Dreamer a little more (since I have more options now than just the Teddies - now I have the twins too... I haven't gotten the Stitched Togethers or Coppulus since I didn't buy the boxed set).

I have never faced Leviticus and always wanted to see what he's like. He hasn't run against the twins, Lilu and Lilitu, before and wanted to see the Dreamer with a few new tricks.

Our first game was 30 stones.

I took the Dreamer with two Lilus and two Lilitus (6 stones left).
He took Leviticus with two dogs, a Belle, Killjoy, Rusty Alice... I think that's it. He might have had something else, but he ended with three stones.

Dan had won a pretty slick piece of terrain at his last tournament so we stuck that in the middle of the board and gave it a special rule - if you killed someone that was within it, you got a Soulstone. It was also terrifying, but neither of our crews cared about that too much.

We flipped for strategies and I got Claim Jump, putting a marker in the middle of the board I had to control, and he got Destroy the Evidence, having to remove three markers from the board - two in the middle and one on my side. I took Bodyguard and Kidnap as my two schemes (secretly picking the two dogs and Rusty Alice as my targets) and he took Breakthrough and the Leviticus-specific one that requires Levi to die four times during the game. Since he's a necromancer, he can keep coming back if he dies and the right steps are taken, so it's a pretty funny scheme.

So the game started with me moving the Dreamer up to the gravestone marker I had to stick near for my claim jump. He started moving people slowly forward, moving one of his Waifes into a building and a dog out in front for me to possibly go after. Leviticus did not kill himself on the first turn - he has to discard his hand when he does, so I guess Dan had a pretty solid hand.

On turn two, I won initiative and had the Dreamer pop out all four of the siblings, but without a clear target, he remained as a kid. Leviticus went and blasted the crap out of one of the boys, killing him before the twins could activate and leaving me with a pretty unfortunate situation. I went and started my girls. The first one tried - and failed - two Lure Leviticus three times, trying to pull him closer to the remaining boy. It did run him lower on stones, though, which helped. The boy went, charged Leviticus, and killed him straight away with two claw attacks. My last girl activated then and Lured the Waife out of the house. It was tough - the Waife had 9 WP to resist by 8 CA, but I managed to get it to work and triggered the free casts of the spell enough times that I got her out of the house, in range of the girl, and killed. Phew - that meant Leviticus was not coming back anytime soon. One of the dogs charged forward at one of my girls, turned into Killjoy, and proceded to flatten her with reckless abandon, then wounded the second girl. It was insane how much damage he could do!

Turn three went and I was stuck with a difficult spot. If I did not activate my boy, he would be killed. If I didn't figure out a way to deal with jerkface (Killjoy), I would lose my girl and possibly the Dreamer. I went with the Dreamer first, then, and Dan told me that Killjoy had Slow to Die and could heal back to full if he killed someone. Which, of course, meant if I killed Killjoy, he could just kill my girl and be fully healed again. I kept with the Dreamer, buried my girl so she was no longer around, turned into Lord Chompy Bits (who dwarfs Killjoy - it's quite funny) and triggered several great attacks leaving Killjoy... well... dead. At the end, he turned back into the Dreamer. Dan went and killed the boy and managed to kill off the Dreamer too, spilling out both the girl and Lord Chompy Bits on the board.

On turn four, my girl was slowly dying. We looked over the board of chaos - I had Lord Chompy Bits and a girl and he had Rusty Alice and a Belle. I ran both my models over to the objective marker I had, Lord Chompy Bits was too big to hide. He got shot down by Alice as he started moving his models towards his objectives and my deployment zone.

Turns five and six were pretty low key - me trying to keep my girl alive and hidden while he ran for the other edge to try to get some points. We did not flip an additional round, so I was able to get Claim Jump and 1 point of Kidnap while he did not receive any points, giving me a 5-0 victory. Phew! That was a brutal game - far closer than the points looked. If he had gotten one more turn, he could have turned the game into a 2-1 victory for him, claiming both Breakthrough and blocking me from getting Claim Jump.



We had about 45 minutes until football started, so we decided to do a quick 25 point game this time.

I took the Dreamer, one set of twins and a Teddy (5 stones).
He took Leviticus, Rusty Alice, a Belle, and three Steampunk Abominations.

My scenario turned out to be Contain Power - trying to keep his master on his side of the board. He got Treasure Hunt. For my schemes, I took Kidnap (selecting his three Steampunk Abominations) and Bodyguard and he took Holdout and Leviticus' special die-four-times scheme again.

Once again, I deployed just the Dreamer. I went first and flew out to the middle of the board behind some cover. He just moved up getting ready for some attacks and bringing his three Steampunks up one side. Knowing that they were my Kidnap victims, I sent the Dreamer after them on the next turn, spilling out my three Nightmares, becoming Lord Chompy Bits and killing one, then turning back into the Dreamer. He went next and Leviticus blasted my girl, bringing her down to three life, then turning her into a Steampunk Abomination. Teddy and my boy finished off the Steampunk Abominations and the turn capped.

On turn three, Leviticus went and blasted at my boy, dropping it to nearly dead (would die at the end of the turn) and leaving Leviticus almost dead. I charged Levi with the boy and managed to kill him, and the Dreamer launched himself over a building, turned into Lord Chompy Bits, and killed the hidden Waife. I forgot to trigger All Done (I was holding the card in my hand to do it) and ended up leaving Lord Chompy Bits on the table. My Teddy ran for cover while I had to ditch a bunch of stones to keep Lord Chompy Bits alive from Alice's shooting.

On turn four, Teddy ran straight to Alice to block her from shooting at Lord Chompy Bits and she managed to Red Joker a kill on Teddy! Ouch! But the nightmare bought enough time for Lord Chompy Bits to run up the field near her. It came down to the next initiative...

I flipped a 1 and groaned. Dan flipped a 1. Phew. Reflip. Dan flipped a 9. I cringed... then flipped an 11!

Lord Chompy Bits charged in on Rusty Alice and with a good hand of Masks, triggered Flay enough to kill her outright. The Belle had no shot against the monster, and we called it there. Two very close games, though. Leviticus frightens me.

Walking Dead

I missed the premier episode of this series on Halloween because I was running my Halloween roleplaying game instead, but last week Laura and I managed to catch the second episode. I went back onto Hulu and saw the first episode after that, and figured I'd give my opinion of the show.

I really like it.

I'll add a disclaimer here that I am a huge fan of the comic and of the horror/survival genre, so this show was almost tailor made for me, but I think they could have really screwed it up, and I'm glad to see they did not.

The show, rightly so, focuses on the characters more than the zombies and horror. Watching the show I feel like they're going to be paying far more attention to how the people react to their entire world changing and the daily goal being just survive to the next day. The zombies offer a constant threat, but my impression is that they won't be there all the time. Sometimes the survivors will make their way to someplace safe for a little while, and then they'll be dealing with each other. From watching the show, this whole concept could do just as well and moving the setting into space (like the Cylons chasing the humans in BSG's first episode) or by removing the zombies entirely (making more of a post-apocalyptic setting). The focus is on the characters and the zombies provide a vehicle to tell the story of these people. The biggest threat to survival is not the zombies themselves, but the people and how they'll react to them.

I have to say, I was happy watching the second episode of the show. While I know the show is based on the comic, nearly the entire second episode was original, not at all drawn from the comic that inspired it. It was an early warning to those fans of the comic that this is going to be different. Different things might happen - different people might show up. Don't expect that just because the comic did a particular thing that the show will too.

As a warning, I did try to show my mother the first episode, and while she likes post-apocalyptic shows and character-driven shows, she could not get through the episode. Not for lack of quality of the show, but because the suspense of the zombie threat was too much. If you're not a fan of horror or suspense, this might not be the show for you. I'd recommend giving it a try with the lights on in the afternoon at some point - it's worth checking out.

Two Games on Tuesday

I got to Huzzah at about 5:30 and already there were two games going - Bill was playing the really tall guy that's not Jay, and John was playing Tim. On Bill's board, it was Lady J (Bill) v. Marcus (really tall guy) and on the other board it was Marcus (John) v. Vikki (Tim). I watched the really tall guy playing a bit and saw a few new tricks to use with Marcus. I understand now how the Mole Men should be used. They dig in deep and then run around close to Marcus. They end up with an Armor of 6 or so, and Marcus can shunt any damage he takes to them (damage, not wounds, so the armor still reduces them). Anytime he's hit for 7 or less damage, the Mole takes 1. Not bad. The downfall there is that it really anchors Marcus. The game ended up being a tie as Marcus took down Lady J and then went to time with only him on the board for Really Tall Guy and a couple of Deathseekers or something on the board for Bill.

I was surprised by the number of Marcus players - though this is a pretty small sample size. Maybe he's one of the new masters to take. Seeing how he was run gave me some new ideas to try with him. Too bad Dreamer has really taken my focus right now.

It was getting really late and I was getting disappointed because it seemed like I wasn't going to get a game in. Chris was there, but he didn't want to play Malifaux, instead either running Infinity for Ryan (one game), or sitting around chatting (the rest of the time). Ryan wasn't in the mood for playing Malifaux after the tourney, plus he had to run the store, so no problem there. Another couple guys came in, but they ended up playing Uncharted Seas.

Finally, John and I got a chance to play at around 7:30.

30 Stones.
Shared Contain Power
Dreamer, 2x Lilu, 2x Lilitu, 6 stones (Bodyguard, Holdout)
Vikkis, 2x Ronin, Hans, Convict Gunslinger, Student of Conflict, 4 stones (Assassinate, Holdout)



I started with the Dreamer on the table and nothing else. He split his forces into two, one with both ronin, the Convict and the sword Vikki (closer to the middle of the table) and one with gun Vikki, Student, and Hans (near one of the edges). On turn one, we just had a lot of maneuvering - me moving behind a building near the back center of the table and him moving his two squads up but keeping cover. His sword Vikki took a lead in the one group and the other group stuck close together.

Turn two, I got the initiative. I had forgotten how Dreamer works a little and discarded my 5 of Masks (which would trigger my ability to toss out all my nightmares) and did not draw any masks in my hand. Oops. I moved the Dreamer forward and tried to cast the spell, flipping a 13 of Masks. Phew. All my Nephilim poured out near the Sword Vikki. I switched into LCB and proceeded to pound on her. First attack he stoned to miss. Second attack he stoned but I still hit him, triggering Onslaught and doing 2 damage. Third attack I hit and did another four damage, dropping him to one. That attack triggered All Done and the Dreamer was back on the table surrounded by Nightmares so he couldn't be targeted.

John looked at his nearly dead and defenseless Vikki and decided to activate the other Vikki and pull her out of harms way, trying to reconsolidate for a return attack later. I activated one of the women, companioned a man, and lured one of the ronin into one of my guys. The woman did a little damage to her, and then the guy went, companioning the second woman. He knocked the ronin down to 1 life. The girl went, companioned the last guy, finished off the ronin and lured the second one into my lines. The guy went and knocked her down to 3 life left with 2 poison on her. He went, seppukued his last Ronin to at least get stones out of it, brought the Convict around to shoot one of the chics. I don't think it hit, but even if it had, she could heal two back at the end of the turn. He brought his other Vikki a little closer to get ready for the next fight.

Turn three, I got initiative. I activated one of the girls, companioned a guy, and lured Vikki into my lines twice, then hit her for one. The guy went and companioned a girl, and smacked Vikki around, knocking her down to 1 life left. At that point, with another guy and girl going, and planning on killing the first Vikki and luring the second one into my lines to kill too, John asked if he could call it. Pretty brutal - two ronin and close to two Vikki's dead before turn 3 ended. That's hurting I can get behind. I never realized how much fun having Lure in your army is - those Belles have been given new life in my eyes!


Game Two - we were running short on time, so we just played 25 stones. We kept the same missions and switched up our secondary objectives.
25 Stones.
Shared Contain Power
Zoraida, Lilu, Lilitu, Hooded Rider, 8 stones (Bodyguard, Hold Out)
Vikkis, 2x Ronin, Convict Gunslinger, Student of Conflict, 7 stones (Grudge, Whatever the one is that lets you kill the highest point model (unless that's grudge, at which point it's whatever the one that lets you kill a model of your choice))



He deployed in such a way Zoraida couldn't see anything other than Vikki, and with not being able to target masters with the Voodoo Doll, it meant I didn't have much of an option. Turn one was all maneuvering. He pulled up tight, but kept himself out of sight behind buildings and rocks. I moved out into the open where I could see him, but kept my Hooded Rider in Night stance so he couldn't be targeted by ranged attacks and stuck my other models, who are shorter, behind him. Turns two and three were more of the same - him trying to keep out of sight and me trying to draw line to him. Around turn three, I decided that things were going in my favor. To get the scenario, he had to kill my master and Voodoo Doll (who wasn't out yet). To win his schemes, he had to come after my minions. I just had to stay alive and keep him out of my deployment zone, and he had a good distance to run to get to my deployment zone with only two turns left.

Finally on turn four, he moved out the Convict and took a few shots on Zoraida. He missed, and I popped a Voodoo Doll out on him, having him turn and blast one of the Vikkis. With the threat of the Voodoo Doll being popped gone, his entire crew rushed out to me, and after my Voodoo Doll also got the Convict to shoot Vikki, Vikki moved in on Zoraida and did 6 damage to her (I prevented 2 of it).

On turn 5, I popped the Red Joker for initiative when he popped the Black Joker. I cursed, then realized that was actually a good thing. I started with Zoraida who turned into a raven. She then flew away from the Vikki, using the Red Joker as her flip for defense and got away. She booked it to the other side of the board, out of range. The Voodoo Doll was companioned and re-linked to a Ronin, just to spread some Poison love if I got the chance. Vikki went and cut my Voodoo Doll in two, then moved in and killed the girl. The guy and the Hooded Rider killed her in response, but at that point the guy had only 3 life left and was going to die at the end of the turn. The process of that turn dropped him low in stones, so he had to seppuku one of his Ronin to get enough to bring back the second Vikki.

On turn 6, the Hooded Rider booked it away in Night Stance again and John made a new Vikki while running his Convict as close to my deployment zone as he could. I popped a new Voodoo Doll on the only minion I could see - my Hooded Rider - to prevent him from getting the point for me having no Totems on the board at the end. We flipped for the end of the game and the game ended. We measured and the Convict was an inch and a quarter out of my deployment zone. I got Hold Out and Bodyguard, and he got Grudge. I won, 4-2. Close game, most of it involving maneuvering and the like.

Back Into Painting

I don't think I've done any painting since my wedding, so a couple months ago. Partially it's been a matter of not feeling like it, but mostly it's been because I don't have a whole lot left to paint. Earlier this week I got a few new models, and last night I spent the evening watching Deep Space 9 and painting. I was going to watch V For Vendetta (Remember, Remember the Fifth of November) since I wouldn't be able to watch it tonight, but I didn't really feel like a movie when I got home.

Anywho, that's a longer story than it needed to be. Among the models I recently acquired were two sets of the Neverborn siblings. I've painted up two of the girls and one of the guys, and the second guy is about halfway done. I wanted to paint them up in alternating schemes - I liked the light blue and the red that the official models had, but with two sets of twins, I had to switch it up a little. So one of each twin has blue skin with red clothes, and the other has red skin with blue clothes. Makes a nice synergy like that. Here they are!

Dindrenzi Reinforcements

There was a while where I was playing Firestorm Armada every week or so, sometimes multiple times, getting in game after game with my Dindrenzi and generally having a blast. Sometime down the road, other things got in the way. Not only Malifaux, the miniatures game that ended up stealing away my number one game slot from Firestorm, but also the whole wedding thing, plus the honeymoon, and other stuff like that.

Recently, though, I've gotten back into Firestorm with the advent of a couple new ships to diversify my fleet. I used to run with the basics - battleships, cruisers and frigates, with occasional escorts thrown in. My carrier never made the field, mostly because at speed 5", it never got anywhere and since it was large, it turned far too slowly. So the games got pretty repetitive.

Not anymore. Two new ships streaked out into my lineup and I'm ready to rumble once more.



First, Heavy Cruisers. What isn't good about these guys? At 20 points more a pop, they're a bit pricey. Two of them weigh in at just under a battleship's cost, and three of them are a good chunk more. But they're quite worth it. Where in normal cruisers, the only powerful gun was the front fixed gun. The side guns weren't all that fantastic. And even though they sported a nice 4/8 damage rating, they'd still drop pretty quick to concentrated fire. Not so much anymore. Their gun racks max out the same as their fore fixed, meaning with proper maneuvering, the Dindrenzi could finally threaten two ships at once. Their damage rating bumped up to a 5/8, and they gained two more hull points meaning they're not going to fall too easily. Frigates have a much harder time reaching that lucky shot that does a damage to them, and they'll stick on the table for a while, waiting for that heal card. Plus, link their side guns (which are an arc, not fixed like their fore guns) and you're launching a nice 16 dice. Very pretty.



Not to be outdone, soon the Gladius Class Gunship hit the tables. Again, a squad of only three, but these guys don't really need more than that (don't get me wrong - I'd take more than that, but they don't need it). Their damage is further godly at 5/9. They lose their mines, and take a hit on crew and assault, but they make up for it by pretending they're Sorylian ships. No more picking one of the two flanks to fire on - these ships have guns aimed both port and starboard, as well as their standard heavy railgun. They're going to launch a nice 10 dice to each side, linking to a hefty 20 dice. I've seen these guys take out a handful of ships in a couple turns, and they're ready to take a pounding themselves. You pay for these things - 95 points a pop - but they're worth it. Being medium ships, they can maneuver better than a battleship and hit just as hard (or harder).

Overall, my fleet has finally found a reason to drop its second battleship and start fielding something that can maneuver a little. I shudder to think how the other fleets are going to compare before they receive their own gunships.

The Twins

Picked up two sets of the twins a couple days ago. Put them together yesterday. Might start painting them tonight. Their rules look fantastic - can't wait to get them on the table.

Spartan Game Night

A couple days ago I hit Huzzah to play a couple games against Dan. They had a bunch of stuff I had special ordered in (thanks Chris and Ryan!) so I got to increase both of my miniature loves: three Gunships for Dindrenzi and two sets of the siblings and the Hooded Rider for Neverborn. I glued the Gunships together in preparation for facing down Dan.

Our first game was Uncharted Seas, my Imperial Navy against his Railguard. Once again, the wind started against me and I couldn't really maneuver that much. Our ships shot at each other a bunch with me getting an early advantage until he evened the playing field. Soon he was down to a badly damaged battleship and a couple of damaged cruisers against my barely damaged battleship. We sailed around an island for a couple turns as I tried to fight the wind and get an angle where I could hit him with my broadside but... well, frankly it got a bit boring and rather than play it out, we stopped the game there.

Besides, we both had three new Gunships ready to field in Firestorm.

So we hit the table with 1000 points each, each of us trying to destroy a target on the far side of a moon opposite us. That was really less important. More important was just seeing how many antics we could get in with our ships. He took a strong lead, blasting through five or so of my frigates as I downed only one of his cruisers. Then my Gunships went. Ohmigod. Blasted 10 dice into three different frigates on one side of me, and linked fore guns into one of Dan's Gunships, nearly killing it from full. Next turn, I won initiative (yay Dindrenzi tactics!) and my Gunships went again. Three frigates fell to their barrage, and Dan's Gunship was finally trashed. Good times! His responded in kind, and destroyed one of my Gunships, and the battle kept swinging back and forth. My Heavy Cruisers were putting a pounding in as well, and with my Battleship being the nice center of that attack, I was able to control the middle of the board while Dan took the flanks. A few well-timed boarding assaults, one by him that eliminated one of my Heavy Cruisers, and two by me that eliminated his Battleship, turned the tide. In the end, he had three cruisers left (one damaged, and split into two squads) and I had one Battleship (damaged slightly) with an Escort and a Heavy Cruiser left. We called it there since we were both just going to concentrate on getting our objectives at that point and it would take a while for our fleets to re-engage. I think I would have the advantage if I was able to destroy one of the cruisers from his squad of two - at that point he'd have trouble hurting my battleship, but it would take a while for that to happen.

Overall, good times! Dan's Heavy Cruisers are on their way. We'll have another match up then.

Dan and I agreed that Uncharted Seas is clearly the inferior game of the two. Granted we have more options in FSA, but the gameplay and the style just seems more... fun. We'll be sticking with that one.