Henching for Wyrd

I've been enjoying Malifaux a lot this past year so after discussion with Matthew the local Henchmen, I've applied for and been accepted into the Henchman ranks for Wyrd Miniatures.  This means I can demo games and run events officially on their behalf.

I'm very excited by this opportunity and have already run a number of demo nights at my local gaming store. Next up is a tournament on the 2nd of March - anyone who can make it is welcome!

Back to some minis then.  As the Malifaux league grew last year, I was wondering how to expand my Zoraida crew.  The stitched togethers were my first additions, but after those there were a lot of options so I had to decide which way to go.  Dolls was one route - with Collodi and his retinue and so on.  I'm not a massive fan of some of those models but I do really like the Puppets Wars plastics so I am hoping Wyrd will redo (in plastic) a number of figures in future.  Neverborn Nephilim were another route, but that felt more like Lillith's thing so I may come back to that.

So instead I went the cowboy/shooty route.  This isn't all that common from what I understand and the options are limited, but I was really interested in seeing what I could do here.  Zoraida is a subtle enhancing leader and can work with anything, in this case I was looking to maximise the amount of bullets I could put in the air.

First up, the only real Neverborn cowboy option, Tuco.  Clearly a reference to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, this chap is an ex-guild Ortega family member who was captured by the Nephilim and has become tainted whilst held in captivity.  Now resenting his former clan, he works for the Neverborn to try and reclaim Malifaux.  With a bit of "Smooth Criminal" style going on with this figure, I opted to copy the official paint job closely and am pleased with the outcome - although I can see a few chips on the photos so I need to sort those out an finally varnish him!  In game he's been amazing.  Extremely sneaky, fast and surprisingly durable, he's been a real asset to me.

Next up is the Brutal Effigy.  Created by Zoraida to learn about and exploit the other faction's weaknesses, the Effigies were created in mockery of the very things that made each faction unique.  This backfired during 'the event' and the effigies awoke with their own intelligence and agenda - they felt kinship with the factions they were designed to weaken.  All this said, the Neverborn can still command them when nearby so Zoraida can make good use of all of them.  I have chosen the Guild version, the Brutal, who at once resembles the Judge, death marshals and has 4 horse like legs.  This little chap lives up to his name, pretty cheap but hard hitting, he also comes with a pretty easy to cast healing spell that fills a utility gap in my crew. Again I've stayed close to the official paint scheme here and am very happy with the outcome.  Thinking ahead to the inevitable Guild crew I will own, I have started basing that faction differently - using cork.  My Kirai crew is on wooden boards, my Neverborn on swampy or badlands type bases, I wanted the Guild to be different again.

Next we have some minis that aren't official Wyrd products (traitor!).  I picked up some Black Scorpion cowboys as the Wyrd equivalents for the minions I wanted to use were't quite what I had in mind - i.e. more cowboys!  I've reviewed the complete pack on my brother's blog.  This slightly over the hill cowboy is my choice of desperate mercenary.  Very cheap to hire and in all honestly not great, these mercenaries are an easy way to increase my figure count and get more cowboys in to my game.  I've found that having a figure I really don't care about is actually very useful - more than once Tuco has plucked some treasure from the centre of the table, danced back to this guy and then left the poor sucker to lug it round and hide for the rest of the game while Tuco goes back to the party.

The last cowboy I've managed to squeeze in is this amazing looking chap.  The second Black Scorpion figure in my crew, I'm using him as a convict gunslinger.  The figure is suitably menacing and ready for mayhem.  Ruleswise this guy is where the pain is at, possibly the most bullet based output per soulstone in the game.  Combined this with Zoraida's abilities to control her minions, this guy is a one man army with the right cards. I've shot to pieces Dust and Ashes - and the urn he left behind.  I've also shot McMourning's face right off.  He's good.

So here's the main part of my Zoraida crew - the figures I've completely painted.  Its not quite everything I used in the league, I had some success with the Arcane Effigy and Zoraida's Avatar too, but they aren't finished yet.  I never quite got around to using my Spawn Mother or her Gupps, the all fishman crew is surely an experiment for another day :)

So just to round off on the league (as it finished last year I should really get these catch up posts out of the way!), I was very pleased to find that I had won the league with a combination of winning most games and getting so much of my crew painted.  I was also voted best painter, which I am really happy about as a lot of time and effort went into these guys.  Most hobby points went to Matthew who painted a huge array of mardi-gras themed undead and best sportsman went to Si, with his Orphelia lead crew and exemplary playing attitude.

Privateer Press: Journeyman League - The Conclusion

So the Warmahordes Journeyman League came to an end a few weeks ago but I've not had time to post on how things went, so here's my round up post.  I've been fiddling with photography again this post and given up trying to lay the pictures out better on Blogger for the time being so excuse the rather scattered look!

So after my last post on the subject I had one round left to play before the league finished.  I was also trying to get some more bits painted before it all ended.  At the end of the league, games played, games won and figures painted all counted for points!

My final game was 35 points again Brian, using his Khador.  Brian is the very model of the best sporting attitude and he pointed out a number of things I was about to do wrong (turn order and so on) which meant I was able to play my force to their very best.  I did manage to win as a result, but Brian was very generous to allow me to do so!

I managed to get one of my favourite gators painted up in time - Snapjaw.  This guy is a character warbeast who hangs around with a mini-warlock called Wrong Eye.  The pair of them make a reasonably effective team and look great on the table.  I think I especially like Snapjaw because he reminds me of Godzilla - look at the profile in the first picture above to see what I mean.

The final scores for the league meant that thanks to me persistently turning up and playing (8 games), sometimes winning (4 games) and painting a fair old amount (3 large warbeasts, 5 medium infantry and 1 small solo) I collected piles of hobby points. It turns out I received the largest amount of painting points and came top overall as a result!

After the league finished, finally my Bullsnapper came into stock.  I love this little guy so have painted him up to near completion quickly.  This dude is much brighter than my other gators as I seem him being quite a different species and also rather nippy.  The colour scheme I think works nicely.

5" template for the Swampy Pit spell Barnabas uses to great effect

Part of the way of gators play allows me to set up swamps on the tables before the games starts and also create temporary pits throughout the game.  I decided to make some scenery to represent these rather than just use templates.  I've not completed all of them yet and intend to do a post showing how I went about it, but for now here's one of the big pits I've made complete with tree stump, fetid pools, grass clumps and little mushrooms!  This is also the reason my painted gators aren't based yet, I am still figuring out the best way of achieving a decent water effect.

Finally for this post, a shot of Steve the Mad Wizard's tower from last time.  Now completed with flock to match Rob's modular table in 7th Heaven, looking good!

Privateer Press: Journeyman League

Big catch up blog alert!

5 weeks ago or so I signed up to a local Journeyman league.  There's quite a few local players of Privateer Press's Warmachine and Hordes games and this league is designed to introduce new players, encourage players to start new forces, play games and paint.

Its a standard format that Privateer support, not sure if there's any prizes, but we do get little icons and stars and stuff as we achieve various goals throughout the league.  I'm only a week away from the end now but thought I'd show some minis and reflect on how things have gone (plus I have a different blog post in mind for next week).

My Wrastler - first PP mini I built and painted

The first thing I had to do was decide which of the many forces in the game I wanted to play.  Warmachine and Hordes are set in the same world and share a set of common rules.  Warmachine deals largely with human factions of Warcasters and their Warjacks (magical steampunk mechs).  Hordes deals with a more varied set of races focused around Warlocks and their Warbeasts (giant animals and monsters).  I had a long and hard look at at everything both games had to offer and narrowed the choice down to about 3.  I may come back to these other close run forces in future, but for now I went with the Hordes based Minions faction.

My Ironback Spitter, a grumpy old turtle

Minions are an interesting choice.  They are largely ally units that other Horde (and to a more limited degree Warmachine) forces can draw upon to increase the variety in their units.  Within the book however is the option to base a force entirely on Minion units, with certain limitations, and go to war in their own right.  The two flavours of Minions are Gators and Pigs - and generally never the two shall mix.  I loved the look of the Gators and, PP claim you should play the figures you like, so my choice was made.

The Tango-ghost!  My feralgeist isn't the typical green colour...

So having made a choice I needed to understand how to play, what I needed to buy to join the league and how things would progress.  For most forces in the game there is a starter battle box, a nice £30ish get you up and running set made of plastic.  Typically this contains a Warcaster or Warlock and 2-3 Warjacks or Warbeasts.  There's 3 forces in the game that this isn't an option for, I picked one of them, typical!

My Gatorman Posse, possibly the best thing in my force

So talking to my local store owner Rob and looking over the league rules, despite there not being a box, there was a recommended starting force I should pick up.  This consists of Bloody Barnabas a fairly solid melee Warlock, a Wrastler (Mexican luchador inspired giant alligator) and an Ironback Spitter (giant spitting turtle).  A bit of online research on PP's own forums confirmed this was a good start so off I went.

The terrible trio

Now the plan with the league is that as the weeks progress so does the size of your force.  To start with things are a little unbalanced as the battle boxes aren't 100% the same points value or balanced, but they are pretty close (certainly better than a few other companies I could think of).  It also means that the core of your force is likely to be with you the entire length of the league unless you've already got a large selection of stuff sitting at home (in which case the league isn't really for you some would say).  For minions especially the battle box is a very solid start, there's a good chance at least 2 out of the 3 figures would be in any game I ever play.

With my little warband I played my first two games, a loss and a win in short order.  Very quickly it became apparent that Warmachine forces could not be dealt with on equal terms, my minions would have to use all of the dirty fighting tricks I could 'wrastle' up.

15 points of meanness

So after week 1 we moved to 15 points.  My battlebox came in at 11 points (each warlock and warcaster grants bonus points that can only be spent on warbeasts and warjacks to encourage more big nasties on the field) so I had 4 extra points of stuff to find.  Again internet research tempted by local experts (Mark, Pat and Bryan) suggested that a Bullsnapper (another alligator yay) was a good choice having a key ability that would improve my force.  Sadly 5 weeks in my Bullsnapper model still hasn't arrived so I am using my Bushido dragon (its the right base size) to fill in for now.

This left me with enough room to squeeze something small in.  I went for a feralgeist, it can bring my dead warbeasts back to unlife briefly to give something a good kick and has one or two other possible uses as well.  I only managed one game at this points level and it was a convincing defeat - again warmachine forces proving a real challenge to me.

25 points, even more gators

The next level of escalation was 25 points and this would last 2 weeks.  The second week would allow you to swap more things around should I wish to, but I was happy to stick with what I had to try and get to grips with it more.  I added a Gatorman Posse to my force, a really hard hitting infantry unit.  I dropped the feralgeist (yes he snuck in the photo but I didn't use him) and took a Croak Hunter too (little frog dude fits in nicely with all the other swampy creatures I feel).  At this level I had more success, beating both a hordes and a warmachine player.  In both cases the Gatormen were really stars and I am pleased they work so well, are nice models and one of the key reasons I chose Minions.

The whole gang at 35 points

The final level of the league is 35 points so to round things off I added Wrong Eye and Snapjaw.  This pair are a mini warlock and his pet warbeast and great figures to boot.  I also get to sneak the feralgeist back into the force legally now!  My first game at this level didn't go great, some mistakes with Snapjaw and once again the fires of Pat's Menoth causing me no end of trouble.  I have one more game to go so I'll see if I can put in a decent final performance.

I hate these things

Overall I feel I am very much still learning the game.  Like Malifaux there's a huge amount of active decisions in any turn and the warlocks and warcasters each player brings really changes how an otherwise identical force plays.  This can mean there's a lot of questions at the start of a game - I've seen a few cases of "I didn't know that was even possible" followed by horrible losses so I prefer to know what's coming even if I can't figure out how to get around it yet!

The end of the league means I get time to finish painting what I have and think about how I might expand my choices further.  I haven't actually finished any bases yet (I'm playing with swampy effects) and have only used Barnabas, there's 2 other legal warlocks I could use without really needing to change the rest of my force so they would be easy ways to get a lot more variety into my games without having to paint or pay for lots more.

Warhammer Campaign - retrospective

Over the last couple of months I've managed to fit a series of games in a light hearted Warhammer campaign.    This series has come to a close, but I'd like to reflect on what I've learnt and what this might mean next for my Warhammer interests.

I've been using (as you may figure from various previous posts on this blog) my Vampire Counts for this campaign and had some fun and mixed success with it.  The rules for the campaign was that we had to take a special characters of approx 500 points, plus 2000 points of regular army.  I toyed between Vlad and Mannfred and in the end went for the spell caster supreme over the melee master - I'll comment on how well this went in each game!  The special character was fixed throughout the series of games, potentially gaining bonuses or penalties depending on how well they performed.  The rest of the army would be changed as you wished from game to game, but if you stuck with a list, you could again potentially gain some bonuses - but also suffer casualties as hang overs from previous fights.

Game 1 vs. Tomb Kings

Ok so it wasn't quite as bad as this picture looks, but it felt like it!  I have to hold my hand up here and say that I've not played with more than 1500 points for a very long time, nor special characters so I was headed into this campaign with no real idea what to expect.  A few weeks prior to this game, I had played Pharoh Rob, resident Tomb Prince at 1500 points and done quite well so I foolishly felt confident and comfortable with what the dry cousins to my army could do.  How wrong was I.?

Turns out very.  Rob elected to take Settra as his general which with some clever positioning meant that all but one of his units was either using the massive WS7 Settra has, or WS5 from the Tomb Princes scattered about.  For a largely WS2 army this was a bit of a problem!  In addition, despite some really favourable charges, Settra and his chariots refused to die (even with multiple killing blows landing) and Mannfred's magic and melee efforts were somewhat lacking.  In the end between Settra and a Sphinx I failed to contain it all looked very grim by the end of the game.

Poor things never stood a chance

What did I learn?  2500 is very different to 1500.  My magic was more opposed/contained than I expected - my low level mages not really getting chance to cast in the face of a level 3 mage on the other side.  Also my many small units approach suffers without the magic tricks I'm used to pulling so I need to think about hordes more.  A reshuffle for match 2 then I think...

Game 2 vs. Bretonnians

Nice axe?

Before this game, I decide to lose some smaller units, make a horde out of my ghouls and skeleton spearmen and give my lesser Vampire a nice choppy axe.  Feeling these minor improvements were enough, onwards.

Another army I've not played in an age is Bretonnians.  Poor Dan suffered a barrage of questions before the game started as to what on earth his various knights did these days and how lance formation worked.  With this roughly worked out in my head I set up with various shenanigans planned for my spirit swarms, bats and so on to mess with the Knights movement.  Dan had 3 large Knight formations, a small questing knight line and King Louen - surely I could contain this!  Alas turn one Mannfred disappeared into a vortex of chaos having cast but a single spell (I can't even remember which).  Punching a huge hole in my plans to bolster my own forces and hinder the foe, I attempted to make the best of things and get ready for the inevitable charges.  Sadly my lesser Vampire failed to take control of my horde and very quickly my force was falling to bits.  My small units evaporated in the blink of an eye (have you ever looked at their leadership?  Its really, really bad) and even the Varghulf wasn't long for the world.  Long and painful combats developed across the board but fairly quickly I was losing far more undead than I could possibly replace with a lowly Vampire and necromancer.  In the end I lost my entire force, to around half the Knights (plus memorably the Hippogriff).  

What did I learn?  Quite honestly I'm not sure I could have done much more with losing my general like that.  Mannfred is key to my army's performance, with the campaign's focus on the special characters and the extra burden a Vampire general must carry so without him from such an early point it was only a matter of time.  Overall I was quite happy with how I did things given what I had, but it was like trying to hold grains of sand.

Game 3 vs. Empire

Feeling luck was against me last game, not my choices I stuck with exactly the same army list and moved on to a new foe.

I'll take em all on

Howard is fairly new to Warhammer and suffering a terrible losing streak at the moment.  With this being my first game against him I wasn't sure whether this meant if I lost I should hang my dice up for good or it was some sort of initiation ceremony.  I've played Empire a LOT over the last, ooo, 14 years but haven't faced the new book before.  Howard had opted largely for a gun line so I new it would be a magic vs shooting game.  Some early over committed cavalry from Howard saw some quick losses for him.  I tempted fate with my dire wolves to see what a hellblaster was like (and if I could fluke a misfire from it).  Turns out hellblasters got good again - I avoided it from then on.  Howard attempted to blast my ghouls from the table with pretty much every gun he could bring to bear and I countered with summoning spells at every turn.  In the end I destroyed his army utterly with only very minor losses (thanks for a blinding game from Mannfred this time).  

What did I learn?  When things go well with magic, my army hits like a landslide.  To be fair there wasn't a lot of elite melee troops in this army, the few knights I faced were hit by the sort of combined charge you only see as an example in a rule to explain how different unit types work...

Game 4 vs. Chaos Daemons

After the success against Empire, I stuck once again to the winning list and marched into a Storm of Chaos battle vs. Will.  My extra 500 points went towards a pair of dragons, a little one and its slightly larger cousin.

Rainbow warriors

So Daemon are, wait for it, an army I haven't faced in an age.  In fact I have never played them as their own army list, only as part of the oh-so-ancient Chaos army (which included beastmen, warriors of chaos and daemons in one huge, all powerful melting pot).  As you might expect, Will was faced with a deluge of questions as to what on earth was on the table, let alone what it did.  On top of this, although I had read the rules this was my first Storm of Magic game so I really didn't know what was going to happen.

Will had a Slannesh/Tzeentch army which with cataclysm spells topped out at 32 different cards - plus the Blue Scribes tricks to boot!  I managed a mere 23 (Mannfred bringing the lion's share) and wondered if we'd ever get our of the magic phase.

As it turned out, my Vampire counts were more than a match for the Daemons in close combat and the multiple monstrous threats I had at my disposal more than outclassed the magic advantage Will hoped to use.  The dragons burned, trampled and ate many a demon.  My ghouls obliterated flamers and horrors.  Even humble skeletons outfought demonettes (with some support from my new favourite thing in the game, Vargheists).  A convincing victory for me, especially once a dragon ate the Blue Scribes and Will couldn't regain a fulcrum or find a way to knock Mannfred or his apprentice necromancer of their own.

What did I learn?  Even in Storm of Magic you can have too many spells.  The monster/pact/magic item bonus points were key for me and next to useless for Will (he took some Vampires and Ghouls) so spending them wisely is important.  The fulcrums are at the end of the game, the only thing that matters, so big undead blocking units are great for this.

In summary.

An epic post there!  I'm learning a lot about Warhammer 8th at the moment, especially at the higher points values.  I'm looking forward to more games, but still a bit stuck as to how to beat the Tomb Kings with my current choices - I may have to look into mixing up my characters and considering the other new book additions.  I am keen to avoid too much power gaming so don't want to build death star units which means clever play and favourable match ups.  I just need to work out what they might be!

My final list was something like:

Mannfred Von Carstein
Vampire Count with Enchanted Shield and Ogre Blade
Necromancer (Level 2) with Master of the Dead

40 Skeletons with spears
20 Skeletons with spears
40 Ghouls
27 Grave Guard
20 Zombies
3 Vargheists
1 Varghulf
5 Dire Wolves
2 Fellbats
1 Spirit Swarm

Ghouls - lots of them

Its been a busy few weeks so I've neglected my blog a little.  Time to catch up with a bumper post.

Diary notes:

• A few weeks ago I introduced a number of my friends to Malifaux, the session went quite well with everyone at the least interested in the way the game played (which in contrast to Song of Blades and Heroes is saying something!).
• I've joined a Warhammer fantasy battle campaign with 7 other players.  Its a larger size (2500 points) than I have been used to so its kicked off lots of mini projects.

Right on to the main post then.  When 8th edition of Warhammer was released it led to a lot of experimenting with what worked on my existing forces.  A clear winner in my Vampire counts army was ghouls, at the time they were the same price as skeletons and far, far superior undead the new core rule set (hello poison and supporting attacks).

My 6th edition skirmishing(!) ghouls

I already had around 28 ghouls, of which only 8 or so were painted.  In previous editions ghouls worked differently every time an army book was released and were never especially effective so I hadn't been too keen on them.




In the 7th edition book at least they were a ranked unit and with the right choices, a vampire could increase the unit size so I had started to build up a good sized unit.  I wasn't a fan of the GW plastic ghouls (more on these shortly) so I looked around and got some of Mantic ghouls (see my previous post on these here including some painting ideas).  I also needed a Ghast to lead the unit so I found this huge beasty from Reaper to lead them.

Don't mess with the big guy

With my gaming group we started a 500 point 'tale of gamers' type series of games to allow people to start new armies and try out Warhammer.  500 points isn't an especially balanced size game, but it was small and fast.  I decided to build an all ghoul army as an add on to my standard force (especially as experiments with skeletons resulted in consistent losses!).

My brother had some very old metal ghouls lying around he wasn't too fond of - I think these are 4th edition as there were earlier incarnations of ghouls (the "night horror" range included at least 2 ghouls) which saw use in 3rd edition and earlier.  I do like to have as many generations of figures as I can in a unit, but these chaps are tiny and pricey on ebay so I'll relax my rule.  After some brush restorer dipping, these were returned to battle ready status in the now trademark purple skin tone.

Comical, but at least they rank up

Finally there's the GW ghouls.  I had bought 20 but only built 10 at this point.  These little @#%$ are not my favourite figures.  They don't rank up and generally look silly with the crazy over the top piercings and trophies.  They do however fill up my ranks and add some variety to the unit so needs must...

Not actually genestealers, honest.

This mob is lead by the Ghoul King from the top of the Terrorgeist.  It seems unlikely to me I'll mount the big bat beastie if I take it, instead using it as a rare choice.  This sorted my second Ghast model out for me.  The real question is, if I do take a Ghoul King on foot, do I use the Reaper giant or the leaping GW model?

So having completed 54 ghouls, including movement trays my ghouls were finished and all good for battle.  I had plans as we expanded beyond 500 points to increase the size of the units so bought some of the really excellent Heresy ghouls to add to the mix.  Then, the new Vampire Count army book arrived.

Great.  Ghouls now cost 2 points more each and can't be raised beyond their starting numbers.  They also cost twice as much as a skeleton.  So for a long time, the Ghouls sat shiny and ready for battle without leaving the shelf.

Now with this big campaign I'm playing in I am considering them seriously again.  If I take a large unit (40+) they may well work for me - an experiment with 30 didn't go too well in my first game, but their size wasn't the only factor in the problems they faced so I am willing to give them a few more tries.  They are also all painted so I want to use them!

I've also finished some more undead themed scenery.  I picked up some gravestones from Mantic (actually produced by Renedra who I think mold Mantic's plastics) and added them to the small pile of bits I had from GW skeleton and zombie sprues.  I still have more left over which I may make more scenery with, but I am also trying out some regimental basing (inspired by my brother and Rob Hawkins).

My unit of skeletons (about to be raised)

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