Tale of Malifaux Bloggers - Month 1 (End)

So we're just into the start of Month 2, and with it come a few new purchases, and hopefully will be followed with a few more games.
I've managed to paint the Month 1 purchases, which was slightly past the deadline, but due to college hand-ins was a necessity.
I'm relatively happy with how the crew turned out, although I may need to revisit Colette and a Performer to pick out their eyes if possible. The only model that it is unpainted is Miss Step, but she didn't turn up until last week, so it will take a bit longer.

So to the pics:

The finished crew.

Colette

Cassandra

Performer 1

Performer 2

Mannequin 1

Mannequin 2

Corphyee Duet

Corphyee Duet (Dance Together)

Mechanical Doves

Overall I'm happy with how they look, I'm looking forward to seeing them on the battlefield. They have had plenty of outings so far, with mixed success. 

I used them in all of the games at our first tournament, in Game 1 I played Kit (Hamelin) which was a closely fought draw, 5-5. I faced Hamelin and Ashes & Dust for the first time which seemed to be a bit of a nuisance, we both got suckered into killing the frame for murder targets, Angelica and Nix, killing them off quickly for maximum VP's. The game feel pretty evenly matched, it would have been a good one to fight further to see how it would end, but due to time it finished in turn 3.

Game 2 was against Michael (Lilith), which I lost. I had rather foolishly taken Covert Breakthrough as a scheme, which I should have thought about, as being a tournament with timed rounds it was going to be tight to get the models into the opposing deployment zone. I only managed 1 VP from this scheme, causing the loss. I felt with another turn I may have snuck it, but alas. The one cool moment was Colette using Now You See Me, on an enemy scheme marker jumping out of range of a charging Lilith, then using Disappearing Act on herself to jump into a Mechanical Dove which had flown into their deployment zone, moving over 20" in total her turn.

I had a bye in round 3 so had to wait it out, which allowed me to do a spot of photography and watch the other games. Whilst pondering my choice of crew. I had used the same models for the first two games, and although I was tempted to switch it up and take another master against Martin, the likes of Kaeris or Ironsides, (still haven't tried Marcus) I decided to keep going with Colette.

Game 4 was a really closely fought game, and my chance to avoid the wooden spoon, I was playing Martin, and it was looking good for me throughout the game, I was ahead on VP's, Models and it seemed that fate was on my side as i had some great hands, and had done a good job in neutralising Martins Crew (Lucius). I score maximum points early on for Public Demonstration, was scoring a lot for Stake a Claim, and maxed out for Catch and Release. Things were looking rosey until the Doppleganger mimicked the Corphyee Duet's attack and then flipped Red Joker on them for damage killing them off on the final turn, forcing me into using Colette to hold one of the claim markers and moving her away from the last performer and scoring him maximum points for Take Prisoner, losing me the game by 1 VP, rooting me to the bottom of the leaderboard, winning Martin the tournament...grumble!

Its been a good month of gaming, and hopefully with more to follow. The Archaists have been great fun to play with so far, and I have perhaps been bitten by their bug, pledging my services to the M&SU by purchasing Ironsides, Kaeris and Rasputina, along with trading for Marcus, and picking up the Cult of December range to go with the Ice Witch herself.

I've used them all once (apart from Marcus) with mixed results, Kaeris had a great game against Lucius (Martin), Ironsides had a less than stellar showing against Von Schill (Sean) and to start June off with a bang, Rasputina gave Lynch a beating (Stewart).  

Hoping to get started on painting of Month 2's purchases soon (Angelica and Silent Ones), with hopefully some pics to follow.

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.

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers: Month 1 (continued)

So after the draw on Thursday, Martin and I set up a rematch for this afternoon. 50ss, Lucius vs Colette. He went for the same crew and upgrades, I opted for a few changes.

This time I had:

Colette (5 cache) Shell Game, Practiced Production and Nothing Up My Sleeve.
Cassandra, Smoke & Mirrors and Recharge Soulstone.
2 Performers.
2 Mannequins.
2 Corphyee.
1 Mechanical Dove.

We played Extraction (fighting over the Informant Miss Anne Thrope, again....)
Scheme Pool: Convict Labour, Covert Breakthrough, Frame for Murder, Hunting Party, and Show of Force.

This time I was very slow out of the blocks in terms of VP, at one point being about 6-0 down. The game was a blood bath, with Martin killing all bar Colette and a Performer, whilst I in turn left him with just the Peacekeeper left (which I still don't really have an answer for, the armour and high wounds are a big stumbling block).

The game ended with a 8-7 loss, I scored once through Extraction, and full VP's for both my schemes (Covert Breakthrough and Convict Labour). I came close to a draw but the Coryphee Duet were killed by the Peacekeeper with a Red Joker for attack cheat, and an Ignoring Armour trigger, killing them off.

This time I tried to learn from a few of the mistakes of the last game, the upgrades were tweaked, I got a lot out of Practiced Production, using it as a safety net to have a Scheme Marker close by for Now You See Me DF trigger.
I also tried to use the Performers Siren's Call to pull out targets for the rest of the force to pick off. It worked pretty well with Dashel, but as he killed one of the Performers, and I had to send the other up the field with Disappearing Act to try and score with Covert Breakthrough.

However I still made a few mistakes, managing with one misplaced walk action with Colette to stick a spanner in the works, and limit her effectiveness for the rest of the game. With the likes of Disappearing Act having a large range, but requiring line of sight, her utility is huge but still has its limit. Hopefully if I can iron daft mistakes like this one out, maybe I can even win a game!

As a slight aside, Martin and I started our day by visiting the ABZ store that opened today, going halvers we picked up the Two Player Starter Box. He had dibs on the Guild models, which look awesome, so I got the Neverborn.
The models are awesome, lovely sculpts (even the Scion of Black Blood, which from the pictures I had seen, wasn't my favourite. Holding the model it is really nice, although still a bit 2d. I feel hopefully with the Secret Weapon Sewer Bases we used, it will look like he is part of a Sacrificial Ritual taking part in the sewer itself). Building them was really straight forward, with the pieces being very self explanatory.
I'm not sure what I will do with them, they are Mercs so I can include them in any game. However I am currently bidding on some metal Neverborn that I could use, and I also have Zoraida waiting to be painted too.
Unfortunately I haven't time to start painting them, so no pictures, and sprayed black there wasn't much to photograph.