Tale of Malifaux Bloggers - Month 1 (continued)

Taken a wee while to get round to posting this battle report, but as we are due to play again today, it makes sense to upload this first.
So on Friday Martin and I continued our vendetta with another game with our blog crews Colette vs Lucius.
This time we flipped interference for the strategy (using the new gaining grounds schemes and strategies), with a scheme pool of convict labour, exhaust their forces, public demonstration, Neutralise the Leader and A Quick Murder (I think).

I decided I wanted to try out the Ice Dancer, no model out yet, so was using a Beckoner as a stand in. I had decided this before the schemes and strategy had been flipped, which isn't the best practice to be honest.
The crew was:

Colette, A Lady's Secret, Shell Game, nothing up the sleeve.
Cassandra, smoke and mirrors, recharge soulstone
2 Coryphee.
1 Performer.
1 Mannequin.
Ice Dancer.
2 Mechanical Doves.
Cache of 5.
I took Convict Labour and Exhaust their Forces.

Martin had:
Lucius
Dashel
Dr. Grimwell
2 Orderlies
1 Lawyer
2 Guild Guard
1 Guild Rifleman
Martin took Exhaust their Forces and Public Demonstration.

Unfortunately i don't have any pictures, and my memory of the game is a bit hazy, so i will highlight the key points or interesting moments from my point of view instead of a blow by blow account.

The Guild Rifleman got the game off to a flyer for Martin, (with the aid of a nearby Dashel) by dropping one of the Corphyee down to 1 wound with some brutal shooting. This completely changed my plans, as I had hoped to try to keep them apart for most of the game this time, and then Dance Together on turn 3 or 4 to get the extra activation and hopefully tip the battle in my favour, whilst allowing me more activation control in the early turns. Instead I had to prompt the other Corphyee into contact and Dance Together. This however did allow me (with a rather aggressive place in base contact for the duet) to charge the Guild Rifleman and take her out in a hit.
To further this aggression I used Disappearing Act on Cassandra to send her up the table and allow her the range to charge Dashel, unfortunately I still find him quite difficult to kill, so it resulted in a slight overextension with Cassandra, although I was banking on her Swirl of Motion (which failed to do damage so didn't work) and Stage Presence to allow repositioning at the end of the turn.
This set the tone for the game I felt, as this early melee, denied me the numbers on that side of the board to push for the Interference Points, and I'm not convinced I scored any from the Strategy in the whole game.
However it was denying the strategy that had us scratching our head a bit, as to prevent Martin for scoring 2 quarters I flew a Mechanical Dove into engagement with Dr Grimwell, the Dove has no Melee attack, however Grimwell engages it, so they both count as engaged (by my reading of the engagement rules) which prevents him from counting for his table quarter. He wasn't very happy with this, but we couldn't find anything to the contrary (if there is, please let me know in the comments below!).
The Ice Dancer performed well, she ended up as a scheme runner for the majority of the game, which with her walk of 6 wasn't the trickiest roles for her. I would like to use her again, so I have now sculpted fur throws onto both the Beckoners so I can use them as Proxies until the Ice Dancers are released. I didn't manage to cast her Work the Crowd which I was expecting to use a lot, and one of the reasons for bringing her, but the only time I tried I didn't hit the mask, plus she ended up close to Colette for most of the game, so her (0) was being used to interact instead.
Speaking of Colette, much to my delight, and Martin's frustration, she managed to kill Dr Grimwell with her (0) Sabre Trick being within 4" of him and then hitting the Next Target trigger to go again!

I was behind for most of the game on VP as Martin had scored early with Public Demonstration (I had wanted to try it, but misread the Coryphee card and thought they were Enforcers (only the duet are), so didn't think I had 3 minions).
Thankfully I managed to line up Convict Labour to pull ahead on the last turn (although I got confused with Line in the Sand, so hadn't declared it the previous turn, but Martin graciously let me score for the two turns). It ended a close fought win 6-4.

Hopefully will get some pictures from the game today, but here is one of the Ice Dancer proxies, plus a sewer base I made from greenstuff. Thinking I may go for the sewer bases after all, inspired by the Colette story in Rising Powers.

The monthly purchases will have to change slightly due to the inclusion of the Ice Dancers, so I will have a ponder, I still want the Arcane Effigy for it's condition removal, and the Silent Ones...

In other news I decided to sell on the Neverborn, so have picked up Ironsides to start my larger Arcanist collection. Not sure how much of her crew will fit into Colette's, but the Captain can find a way into most Arcanist crews, and the Oxfordian Mages would synergise quite well with a Dove sacrificing itself for +Ca. 
I also swapped my Ortegas for Martin's Marcus crew, which was a bit painful losing Santana, Miss Terious and the alt Francisco, but he'll get more use out of them than I will, plus I fancy trying out some of the beasts.