Slaughter in Salisbury!

My crew, Kirai's spirits of Vengeance

Well yesterday was quite a success.  I arrived nice and early at the venue in time to help set up the boards ready for a day or wargaming.  In the end there were only 6 participants, however this did make the event feel a lot more friendly and communal as a result.  The tables and scenery were supplied and prepared by Bryan and Pat.  We had a graveyard, a creepy forest and a couple of windy canyon tables to battle over.  Bryan kept everyone in order and was tracking scores throughout the day as well as providing cake!

There were 3 games to be played each throughout the day, each round with a specific strategy to play for.  Each player was also allowed to select up to two schemes per game, however no scheme could be used twice at any point during the day, so selecting the right ones for the right game could be the difference between winning and losing (and it was...).

Round One - Shared Slaughter

Dr Frankenstein, I presume?

My first game was against a a crew from the same faction as me (resurrectionists) - lead by the infamous Dr McMourning.  Controlled in fine humour by Matthew, the game was a slug fest where the objective was simply to do more damage to the other side than they managed on you!

As both of us were keen to increase the size of our crews through our necromantic skills, this had the potential to be a very bloody game.  Things started very well for me, I soon summoned pretty much everything I owned onto the table, well before McMourning had even started thinking about stitching anything abominable together.  As it turned out, time was short for us on the first game and we were only half way through the 3rd turn when it ended.  This caught me rather by surprise and as a result despite being in a commanding position to wipe out around half of McMorning's minions I wouldn't get the chance!

Matthew had been much cannier than I and succeeded in taking out his revealed grudge against my Onryo and managing to kill my Shikome (or the proxy "Haku the dragon spirit" I am using) in the dying seconds of the game through a slow to die action.  I gained only a single point through my own secret grudge scheme.

So round 1 - a loss 1 - 4 victory points.

Round Two - Shared Reconnoitre

Nothing up my sleeves or under my hat, honest

Game two was against Pat, one of the chaps who organised the event, using his show girl crew lead by the slippery Colette du Bois.  Pat knows the game of Malifaux well and was using a complex and subtle crew here.  The mission was to spread out across the table and take control of as many quarters as we could.

I was wary of Colette's sorcerer skills - Pat had a mountain of soulstones in front of him very quickly.  Taking the bull by the horns, I sent Haku the dragon off on a mission of violence against the only none-showgirl Pat had, knowing he couldn't do too many sneaky tricks against this.  After eating the unfortunate gunfighter, Haku continued to distract Pat by munching on his performers, eventually pulling Colette's attention away from the centre of the table.

This was fortunate, magical pigeons were flapping about far too close to Kirai for my liking - I had to dispatch one with her shears!  After a late game summon of Ikiru was incinerated by Colette in a single blast I was getting worried about her simply gunning my spirits down, but again time was running out and I had managed to distract Pat long enough to secure half the board.  Pat managed to secretly claim a nice mausoleum, but I had successfully bodyguard'ed Kirai after announcing it to him, so managed a narrow win.  As Pat is fond of saying, even if you get wiped out, in Malifaux you can still win if you did what you were supposed to.

So round two - a win - 4 -3 victory points

Round Three - Shared Claim Jump

Some interesting models in this crew, not sure
 they are a great choice out of the box however

Feeling a bit more positive after the second game, I faced Rob using an interesting choice of crew - Lucius's special forces.  This is a bit of a brave choice as Lucius is a henchman not a full master so considered a bit weaker than standard.

Knowing a bit about this crew (their rules are much less complex than Colette's!) I played very aggressively.  This suited the mission well as I needed to own the centre of the table to win.  Ryle was real concern to me, so I made him the target of a scheme and proceeded to hit him really hard before he could fire that blasted cannon at me too many times.  After that, Lucius's men were outnumbered and outclassed by my swarming spirits.  Haku had another blinding game - eating the guard captain and Lucius!  At the end of time for the round only a single guardsman was standing (just, on 1 wound) and I had dominated the table, gaining all the victory points I could.  Rob had some terrible luck, his cards never seemed to be much help to him.

So round three - a win, 6 - 1 victory points

So after the dust had settled and the points were added up, the placings were read out.

In third place was Matthew.  I'm not quite sure how his fortunes faired after his victory over me, I know I heard that McMourning had died in at least one of his games.  Regardless a fine performance.

Somewhat unexpectedly (at the time) I came second.  Turns out Bryan, the main organiser, had taken himself out of the running as he was only playing to help with numbers (he should have won by my reckoning).

In first place was (Viking) Dan.  I didn't play Dan so  don't know how mean his crew were, but I did see some rather empty tables opposite him through out the day, except when he played Bryan...  All the same, very well done!

There were non-place prizes too, one for sportsmanship - won most deservedly by Matthew who remained upbeat, fun and in character throughout the day, and one for painting.  Now to be fair only 4 of the players had any serious amount of paint on their crews but I had spent a fair few hours the last few weeks working on mine so I was hoping to be in with a good chance of clinching this prize.

The votes went my way (I don't know if Bryan again took himself out of the running) 

and I got this fine certificate to remind me.  Very pleased I am too.

There was a 'bad luck' prize for Rob too, he received a new card deck to hopefully improve his luck in future!

So all in all a fun day and a pleasing result.  Thanks and well done to Bryan and Pat for putting this all together and thanks to 7th Heaven for sponsoring the event.

I'll post more about my crew, the theme I am using and how Malifaux the game works in future posts.  For now here's a couple of shots of my crew's leader Kirai and my star of the tourney, Haku.

These shears aren't just for show as a magic pigeon found out

Fast, poisonous, relentless and cool, its Haku