Gremlins is Awesome: New Toys and Admin

I haven't actually written one of these 'What did I learn' things for a little while, basically because I feel like I have been going back to the same old lists time and again. I really dislike this because not only does it make the game less enjoyable for yourself but it also narrows your playing style and possibly makes you a worse player. When I went to Scotland, I was determined to ensure that this wasn't the case and so now I feel I have some more 'learnings' to share. Also, I've thought of a couple of things where I need to just make sure I'm ready for the events.

 Firstly, Mancha Rocha. At first I was uncertain, he's expensive and seemed pretty fragile but now I think I'm in love. I think what I was getting lost in was his weak damage of 2, which isn't great. with the ability to put people on negative defensive flips or get positive to damage for every ram in the attack, you can really set yourself up to get the most of the 5/7 weak and severe. Defensive 6 with hard to wound and soulstones isn't that bad either!

 One thing I did find, however, is that his 2ap melee action and the 2 stone upgrade to improve it, are simply not good enough. His 1 ap melee attack is so good that I didn't once feel like I'd have been better off using the other, but maybe in more games it'll be better. I think next time, however, I'll save myself 2 stones.

Rami Lacroix is an interesting one. The table length range and the ability to double focus means that if you have two good cards and line of sight you can probably kill something, you'll die in the process but it might secure those killy-people scheme points.

This does, however, rely on many things. The terrain, your enemy crew and the scheme pool all have to align for you to really get the most out of the little man. I almost missed out on points with him previously because of a large forest in the middle of the board. If the enemy is hard enough to not go down from 8 wounds then Rami is not going to kill them, things like assassinate are beyond him because of stones. I think all of these things are pushing him to the back of the pool, to be only used occasionally, but it's nice to wheel something different out occasionally. I still have more Lacroix to try for the job!

 Admin. Why would I want to know about that, you say? Well recently I have made a couple of mistakes in crew selection. I took an extra soulstone in the last game at Last Round in the Chamber and in friendly games aswell. I always feel absolutely awful about this, gut wrenchingly awful. I really hope my opponents don't feel cheated. Thing is, I know I can count to 50, for christs sake it's not rocket science, but in the pressure of the tournament when you're considering many different options it's easy to get confused.

The solution is simple, bring a pen and paper and write stuff down!

That way everyone can see and there is no confusion. It's black and white and open to the world. i know it seems obvious but I have avoided it thus far so that 1) I don't have yet more stuff to bring to events and 2) I don't take more time faffing before we start, but I really do think from now on it's worth doing. I have some swish little booklets that will be perfect for the job also.

So that's it from me. So in conclusion: Mancha is a thumbs up, but no extra gremlin for wacking. Rami is situational. Finally use your words on the paper Gremlin Features!

Expect another report from Halifaux, I might get some inspiration in between, who knows? Not me.

Until then.

Last round in the chamber

It was my Birthday the other day so, because I was sent some money, I thought I'd see if I could get myself to some extra Malifaux events. Luckily there was still some spaces left at 'Last round in the chamber' and local titan Greg Piscosz was already driving up. Plenty of banter on the way up, the last hoorah for 'Worlds at War' and playing some cool games against the Scottish 'Faux contingent? How could I say no?

 The Tournament pack was pretty standard. I won't lie that there was a sigh of relief when I saw Reckoning wasn't in the pool. 3 games, 50ss. turf war, standard. recon, corner. squatters flank.

 Going in I saw this wasn't a big event and, having recently acquired myself some new goodies, I decided there were a few things I wanted to try out.

 There were 12 people who came overall, which meant the pool was surprisingly strong. Paul Campbell, Greg Piscosz and Maria were all in attendance which meant 1/4 of the people I knew could probably smash me off the table!

 My first line up, however, was against Al. I'd fought against him in the last event, when I was using Ulix, and it was the only game I had won! The scheme pool lined up and it was:

Frame for Murder, Make them Suffer, Distract? Protect Territory?

 You can probably tell from the question marks which ones me and my opponent took. For me this felt like the hand from heaven because it meant I could try my guns blazing Mancha Rocha list out. It only had two minions or peons, one of which was a skeeter so could hide away. I figured I could just go hell for leather and give up the three points for frame for murder to kill everything!

My list was:

Somer Teeth Jones -- 6 Pool
 +Liquid Bravery [1]

Skeeter [2]
Burt Jebsen [7]
 +Dirty Cheater [1]
Gracie [10]
 +Saddle [1]
Mancha Roja [10]
 +Dirty Cheater [1]
 +Extra Gremlin [2]
Lucky Effigy [4]
Trixiebelle [8]
gun for a lady [1]

my opponents list was approximately

Rasputina -- 3 Pool
 +Arcane Reservoir [2]
 +Shattered Heart [3]

Wendigo [3]
December Acolyte [7]
December Acolyte [7]
Ice Golem [10]
Johan [7]
Rail Golem [11]

My crew advances

 Basically the game went as planned. Burt was blasted away at by the december acolyte, which on negative flips did severe, gave him slow and put him on his hard to kill. Unable to reckless to charge, he simply engaged the closest of the acolytes. Rasputina randomised into combat and blatted him off the map, scoring me 3 for frame for murder.  Mancha Rocha was positioned by Gracie to get the most of his 12" charge which he promptly did against the Ice Golem. I had a high tome and red joker in hand to try and get off the insta-gib triggers, luckily I didn't cheat in the red joker for the second because I'd forgotten the Ice Golem is immune to paralyse! It didn't matter though, with his low defence and Mancha's crazy damage spread he was pasted off the map. 

Project Golem was underway!

 Next turn I got initiative and charged the Wendigo with Mancha, also engaging Rasputina. Swiftly ending the Wendigo, he threw a shot at Rasputina which missed and threw up his challenge aura, to try and stop my opponent charging into the turf zone. Everything, however, turned on Mancha. It took the rail golem and rasputina to put the man down (I failed a disengaging strike and decided it wasn't worth the red joker to stop, particularly as he had to randomise). Elsewhere Gracie ate one of the december acolytes and Trixxie blatted the other, cheating the red joker to kill it in one hit and giving up 3 for Frame. Som'er took a chunk of wounds off Johan, but because of my lack of cards because of the acolytes couldn't 'do it like dis' to get rams and thus do decent damage. 

 In the subsequent turn, Johan, Rail Golem and Rasputina dragged down Gracie, but my black joker damage flip denied me slapping Johan to death with Trixxie. Giving up a point for Turf War. 

Cheating for initiative, Trixxie did manage to kill Johan and Gremlin lure the Golem away, which promptly locomoted in to try and cause some pain... but couldn't cheat to get the trigger! Som'er positioned to distract Rasputina and maybe just deal with her.

Last turn I got initiative and with no stones left on either side, used a strong hand and double focus to remove Rasputina. The golem black jokered the locomote leaving Trixxie still alive and meaning I still kept my final turf war point!

So end of the game the score was 10-4 to me. It was a really bloody game, but a good laugh. Luck wasn't always on my side but it didn't always go against me either. I felt there were some options my opponent hadn't explored and that he got easily distracted by Mancha down his throat meaning I could control the centre. admitedly I'd have been concerned with unengaging Raspy though! We chatted about various other upgrade options (the push one to disengage) and I hope he came away with some more plans for the future and a smile on his face, I know I did.

After a bit to eat, round two saw me on the top table against Paul Campbell. This was, once again, a draw from heaven. In order to do well in Scotland you have to beat Paul, who is a very strong player, better than me easily. The pool and strategy were all in my favour, however.

 Deliver a Message, Distract, Assassinate, Murder Protege

 this was mint because I wanted to try out Rami mixed with my recon list, so I took:

Somer Teeth Jones -- 6 Pool

 +Dirty Cheater [1]

 +Family Tree [2]

 +Liquid Bravery [1]

Skeeter [2]

Bayou Gremlin [3]

Bayou Gremlin [3]

Bayou Gremlin [3]

Lenny [9]

 +I'll Love it and Pet it... [1]

Pigapult [8]

Rami LaCroix [7]

 +Dirty Cheater [1]

Slop Hauler [5]

Stuffed Piglet [2]

Paul took:

Jakob Lynch -- 3 Pool

 +Endless Hunger [2]

Hungering Darkness [0]

Rail Worker [5]

Rail Worker [5]

Beckoner [7]

The Illuminated [7]

The Illuminated [7]

Thunder Archer [7]

Yin the Penangalan [8]

This unfortunately played into my hand again. His list was hard, I wasn't going to be able to grind any of the minions down and they would wade through Gremlins with ease... but it was quite slow, which meant I could sit around in my corner simply placing Gremlins where I need them.

Paul's crew is easier to see before it deployed

I announced Deliver a Message and Murder Protege, Paul announced Line in the Sand. So in the first turn Paul moved forward, blocking line of sight to Yin with a Beckoner and some terrain. I tried to throw Rami with Lenny so he could get a decent shot, but to no avail, so he just took out the Beckoner. The Piggapult put 3 Bayou Gremlins in contact with Lynch. 

The Gremlin air postal service was a bit keen today

 I won initiative so delivered the message, the mess of Lynch, Illuminated and Yin killed one gremlin and distracted the other two, this however gave me a shot with Rami at Yin. I did not, however, have the ram in hand, so it was down to luck. Fortunately it's better to be lucky than good as I flipped the red joker to hit and this allowed me to cheat a severe for damage and take us both out, this gave me 6  points on the board before turn 2 was over. On the other side of the forested centre of not scoring, Paul laid down markers for line in the sand. A skeeter flew over and engaged the archer. I put models to block Paul scoring and make me score.

 Unfortunately for Paul, the game continued pretty much in the same vain. Eventually Huggy got into the mix with the Gremlins and started killing them all. Amazing a bayou Gremlin red jokered a melee attack and killed a rail worker and the piggapult continued to swamp the board with models. Unfortunately he had sort of backed himself into a corner and had made it so that if he didn't kill the Gremlins, he would be losing, but needed distract. Unfortunately, it meant he did neither and when he disengaged from the Gremlins who had delivered the message they removed distract from themselves.

He just wants a hug...

We had to call it at the end of turn 4 with a score of 9-4 to me. 

The final game was Squatters rights and I was paired up against Dave Hamilton? (I'm really sorry if I have got the wrong, spelling or the whole name!) Which I was a bit surprised at because I thought I'd need to face Marie. I groaned when I discovered, however, I was up against Collette. The last few tournaments I have been to have had me face Collette in the last game and I have not done so well, so I was a bit concerned. Also, Dave had just beaten Marie so must be a force to be reckoned with!

The scheme pool was: 

Spring the trap, plant evidence, protect territory, bodyguard

My list was my standard list for squatters, because this plays to it well:

Somer Teeth Jones -- 6 Pool (I had my maths wrong on this, btw, because I thought I had a pool of 7, so sorry for everyone involved)

 +Family Tree [2]

 +Liquid Bravery [1]

Skeeter X 2 [4]

Bayou Gremlin [3]

Bayou Gremlin [3]

Bayou Gremlin [3]

Burt Jebsen [7]

 +Dirty Cheater [1]

Gracie [10]

 +Saddle [1]

Slop Hauler [5]

Trixiebelle [8]

Dave took:

Colette Du Bois -- 7 Pool?

 +Practiced Production [1]

+A few more upgrades which I have forgotten :p

Angelica [6]

Cassandra [8]

 +Smoke and Mirrors [1]

Malifaux Raptor [3]

Mannequin [4]

Mannequin [4]

Moleman [4]

Moleman [4]

Performer [5]

Performer [5]

I was pretty surprised at this list, I wasn't expecting to so many mannequins. I think they're cool, but they are insignificant so couldn't mess with the markers, I'd expect one at most. 

as you'd expect when running low on time in the last game, I didn't get many pictures in sorry!

Dave began the game by setting up approximately one million scheme markers to prepare for the molemen to move onto markers and claim. In order to stop this I put skeeters on the markers. Cassandra nimbled about and claimed some markers. I killed time by summoning Gremlins and having them advance up the board. Collette prompted one of the molemen to claim a marker that a performer had opponed up with Siren Call, and Cassy to jump to another marker. Gracie reactivated to get within 4" of collette to place a marker for spring the trap and deliver Trixxie who went reckless and used her 0 to drop 2, scoring me 3 points. Burt had been lifted part way so that he could grab a squat marker. 

 I claimed the initiative and Gracie promptly devoured a performers. The second then paralysed Gracie. I moved early to claim a marker with a Bayou Gremlin, only to lose it from a teleporting moleman and our 1" melee ranges. A large portion of his crew, however, then redirected themselves to try and get rid of Gracie, which then left me free to claim the markers. It did force me to lure Som'er up with trixxie and use all of his ap to claim a marker. Burt at the end, because it turned out I hadn't needed the twelve of rams in my hand, moved focussed and hit Cassandra for 6 damage because all of the rams were in play, reduced to 4. 

Honestly the game had continued thus. Angelica had activated to push the performer out of engagment with Gracie, so Som'er shot it to high heaven and back. At this point I had a Gremlin on every marker and we were running out of time. Cassy killed Burt and the bird engaged Trixxie, forcing me disengage to escape the inevitable spring the trap by gremlin luring Som'er, however I failed both my disengaging attempts because of a red joker flip. 

So at the final tally I had won 8-6 leaving me the only player at the event on 3 wins! This earned me a rather shiny trophy, which was too big too fit on the shelf so I have had to move them.

I must say I had an absolutely cracking day. The Scottish lads are all really nice (I'm sorry for every time I have asked you to repeat yourself) and are all really friendly. I really hope everyone had as an enjoyable day as I did, it was boss! I even managed to pick up some Malifaux loot from their closing stock, though it was all for Jen and not me! 

Pressure

So this is going to be a really weird blog post because it's basically just going to be me whining about stuff, so apologies in advance.

Basically, I am starting to feel the pressure of the Masters qualification race.

When you look back, I didn't start that long ago. Vappnartak or however it's spelled will be my first full year in the tournament scene. Never in a million years did I dream of getting a best in faction award or being in the running for the Masters tournament in January. It all pretty much came as a shock. Something just clicked with me and Gremlins and every so often I got a really good result.

As soon as I got the big hat, I started to feel like they expected me to do well. This, for me, is really weird, because nothing much has changed since then and now. What I have started to notice, however, is I feel a lot more pressure to do well. It's almost as if I'm going to let someone down if I lose, or everyone will treat me worse or something.

 I don't think how the Malifaux community is, not at all, maybe it's just mild paranoia. Who knows?

 What does this mean though?

Well relatively soon there is a tournament in Halifax called Halifaux. In this event 2 of the 4 games are henchman led. This means that Gremlins can field a crew made entirely of pigs. This entertains me far more than it should.

 Thing is, it's awful.

 O.K, maybe I might be able to pull of a neat trick or two, but without the gremlins to control them, the pigs will get rolled over by a decent opponent, they probably won't even give their bellies a scratch.

 What sort of monster wouldn't scratch a pig's belly, for gods sake it's not like they'll have much luck doing it by themselves!

 Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I am feeling the pressure to take the event more seriously and try and be an actual contender for the Masters and another part of me just wants to say 'fuck it' and mess around with squealing porcine madness.

I could be throwing away my chance to get into the Masters, my chance to reclaim the big hat...

On the other hand I could be throwing away my chance to have fun.

But then again, I do have fun with Gremlins, they are pretty crazy after all! There is also the point that I might not have that much fun getting my pigs pasted into oblivion. I am almost always crestfallen when my pigs don't perform as hoped. I can't help but root for them, they're really adorable!

So basically I'm stuck and I need help. Comment or message or whatever. @Proximocoal on twitter or find me on facebook. Hopefully you can rescue me from my indecision!

Malifaux Beginners Tournament

Some friends from far away have expressed interest in meeting up and possibly dipping their toes into the world of Malifaux. In order to try and get everyone to learn together I made up a rulespack for a beginners tournament and I thought it'd be good if I posted it here and was able to get some feedback (pretty please!)

Anyway, here it is!

Welcome to Malifaux!

An event for many of the Tea-Makers to trade in their dice for some cards and try their hand at cheating Fate.

Schedule

09:00-09:30	Turn up and register. Acquire Bacon and Tea
09:30-11:30	Round 1
11:30-12:30	Break for Lunch
12:30-14:30	Round 2
15:00-17:30	Round 3
17:30-18:00	Awards and Home

Game setup

Round 1

30 Soulstone Crew (see Crew Construction Below)

Standard deployment - Turf War – No Schemes

This round is really designed to be a warm up and allows players who have not played the game before to get to grips with the basic mechanics without going in ‘head first’

Round 2

40 Soulstone Crew

Standard Deployment - Recon – Pick one of the following:

Breakthrough, Protect Territory, Bodyguard, Assassinate, Line in the Sand

N.B. Normally in a game of Malifaux you would pick two of the five options, which could not be the above because of the way they are generated, but this is designed to introduce you to the most common schemes in the game

Round 3

50 Soulstone Crew

Standard Deployment - Squatter’s Rights – Pick two of the following:

Line in the Sand, Murder Protégé, Entourage, Protect Territory, Breakthrough

A full game of Malifaux to finish off the day!

Crew Construction

 When registering in the morning, each player should notify the TO which single faction and single Master they intend to use for the day. This faction and master must be used in every game.

E.G. If I wanted to use Misaki, I would need to tell the TO that intended to use Misaki, but also which of her two possible faction options I wanted to play her as, for example Ten Thunders.

Crews do not have to be fully painted, but need to be assembled. Proxies and Conversions are allowed as long as you get them approved by emailing connorbarker520829@gmail.com first. In the event of a dispute the TO’s decision will be final.

Round Times

Round times vary, so check the schedule, but in every game when there is 15 mins left the TO will announce ‘last turn’ where players should not begin a new turn. When the time is up the TO will announce ‘Last activation’ and players should not activate any other models. Victory points must be scored as the table lies, not with what may or would have happened, and both players should fill out their result sheet and give them to the TO.

Players should not flip for extra turns after turn 5. At the end of turn 5 the game ends.

Winning the event

When you arrive at the event, when you tell the TO your chosen Master and Faction, you should also rank your experience in the following chart:

1	Never played before
2	Have played less than 10 games in total ever
3	Have played the last edition, or play the game every month or so
4	Attended other Malifaux tournaments

Obviously this is only a rough guide and it relies on the players being as honest as possible. Please don’t be that guy.

Where possible then, players will play against people of the same level. The first game drawn randomly from this selection, the next games chosen using the swiss system.

 At the end of each Encounter, players tally up the VP that they earned that round. The player that earned more VP than his or her opponent wins the game and the opponent loses the game. In case of the same VP count, the game is a draw.

 Each of the different ranks of players will then be pooled into separate scoring tables i.e. people who have never played before will only have their scores compared against people of the same level of experience.

 After each round, placement will be scored according to ranking of total Tournament Points, with Victory Point Differential and then Total Victory Points used as tie breakers (see below if you are interested, but you, especially beginners, don’t really need to know this bit!)

Tournament Points [TP]:

A win awards 3TP to the winner, a draw awards 1TP to each player, and a loss awards 0TP to the defeated player.

Eg. Adam and Bill played a game, and Adam scored 6VP while Bill scored 4VP. Adam receives 3TP, while Bill receives 0TP.

Victory Point Differential [DIFF]:

Each player subtracts the amounts of VP their opponent scored from the amount of VP that they scored.

Eg. Using the example above, Adam would have +2Diff, while Bill would have -2Diff.

Victory Points [VP]:

This is the amount of points each player earned.

Eg. Using the example above, Adam would have 6VP while Bill would have 4VP.

Then whoever is the top of each table wins best: Minion, Enforcer, Henchman or Master respectively based on experience!

'Not a Bad Thing' Tournament Report

Worhamma, my local gaming club, hosted it’s second ever Malifaux tournament named ‘Not a Bad Thing’ Yesterday. We managed to convince 27? Players to brave intelligible accents and attend. I say ‘We’, what I really mean is Nate, Andy and Victor did all the hard work and organising whilst I added a few boards worth of terrain and got to play with my toys!

 The rulespack was pretty standard. 4 round, starting a bit early at 9 and finishing, because we ran late, at about 6:30, 45 soulstone games. The one unusual element was that you could either player as fixed faction or fixed master of dual faction (i.e. play McCabe as Thunders in one game and Guild in the next, but use no other master). I know a few people took advantage of this and I don’t think it caused any real issues, though I have not been on the internet for a little bit due to fighting off invading Welshmen so couldn’t guarantee.

Though further extending this substantial intro, I think it’s important to set the scene from my perspective. Some of you may be aware that last weekend I lost the position of best Gremlin in the UK to Rob Smith. I had worked out, however, if I was to get 3^rd in this event I would have reclaimed the big hat. I didn’t expect to do that well, it was a very strong field, but I felt like the pressure was on. 

 What of the games? Well round one saw me randomly drawn to play on my Bayou Board, which I had made for the last event and had still not played on! I was pretty happy with that! My opponent was someone I hadn’t met before, Matt Abbot (or ‘Mad Abbot’ as he was dubbed) who came up with the sguigs.

 I’ll be honest, I was pretty confident of a strong game knowing I wasn’t a big name and seeing the strategy and schemes. Som’er in recon with a piggapult is pretty amazing, I can pretty much guarantee my own points and likely deny my opponent at the end of each turn. Deliver a Message makes it even worse, particularly as I took Trixxie to secure the initiative!

 Unfortunately for Matt, the game went almost as planned. I lost a couple of points because of a mistimed black joker and because we basically ran out of time, but equally part of Matt’s problem (which he astutely pointed out afterwards) is that he gave too many jobs to his Necropunks. The Drowned Lady (not going to try and spell her name) was pretty effective at grabbing Trixxie and not letting go… but it was not enough. Final score was 6-2 to me at the end of turn 3. Matt bagging 1 for Recon and Distract and I got 3 for Deliver a Message, 2 for Recon and 1 for Make them suffer.

 After this first strong game I knew this was going to be a tough tournament. Next I was matched against Jimmy Balderstone, who I have played once before in York in my first Gremlin event (I think it was his first game against Gremlins aswell, we broke our cherry together man :P). He repeatedly accused me of taking what he referred to as ‘Gremlin Bullshit’

 Not to disappoint, I decided to field Pere Ravage for this Turf War game, reasoning a fair number of the enemy would head to the middle first turn and would be ripe for a bit of ‘oopsie’. This was perhaps, however, the most infuriating game I had ever played. Pere got almost all of Jimmy’s crew into range and blew himself three times, including his death blast, but the top deck and hand of a god saw Jimmy emerge largely unscathed. Later Gracie needed to kill teddy to grab my murder protégé and black joker her damage flip, very dangerous as it meant she couldn’t heal. No matter, thought I, I will cheat to go first and make Gracie kill him then… but she bloody red jokered again! With that Jimmy got Murder Protégé and denied me a turf war point when I black jokered again to not kill his Wendigo and deny him some turf also! When the dust had settled, however, my extra points from announcing schemes secured me the win at 8-7 to me.

 So, two wins? That’s pretty good going! What’s next? Well after a bit of chilli and banter it turned out that I was faced against Mr Joel Henry himself in Reckoning. Damn, just going to go home! Well no, I decided I was just going to play less risky than I normally like to. I took Merris, who is absolutely useless in reckoning but can confidently secure protect territory by hiding. I took entourage on Som’er and decided that I would only go for the kills if I was in a real strong position and wouldn’t get much flak back. The game started pretty well, Som’er managed to get three clean shots at McCabe and unhorse him, putting pressure on him because he was his announced entourage, and causing blasts on Izamu in the process. My bad positioning had cost me a mass of wounds on burt though. Second turn saw Izamu die from a double focus boomer shot from Som’er putting Joel firmly on the back foot, but the rest of my crew could not kill the strong arm in that turn to score reckoning, or get in range of anything else (unhorsed McCabe had fled) meaning that neither of us scored strategy and got full for schemes. 6 all draw.

 Wow, I thought, a draw against Mr. Henry! I can do this! First is gone, but 3^rd is definitely doable now! The pressure is on. My last opponent was Joe Taylor. Anyone who has a good memory and follows my tournament reports will know that my last game against  Joe saw Ulix get absolutely ruined by Collette in reckoning. It couldn’t happen again, however, I needed the win. Anyway, Reckoning has gone, Squatter’s right isn’t so bad… though it is Collette’s game!

This is where I made the most stupid mistake. Even simply typing it makes me gnash my teeth in frustration. When making my crew I thought to myself ‘Gracie always dies, frame for murder should be fine on her’. Like an absolutely hero, however, I wrote the name ‘Trixxie’ on the card. It was the other model I was considering, but I decided she was too valuable to get killed in this scenario. Of course, I only realised this as I deployed and by that point it was too late. A very elite crew saw me swamp the markers and score 2 for cursed object and 2 for strat, as we only got to turn 3. Denied the squat markers, Collette in the last turn reactivated a mole man to get 2 for breakthrough (unannounced) and 3 for line in the sand.  By this time Gracie had been killed by Langston, Trixxie was still alive and kicking meaning the final score was 4-5 to Joe… which meant he got 3^rd in the final rankings... which is exactly where I would have ended up if I hadn’t put the wrong name on the card… which is what I needed to get my big hat (top Gremlin position in the UK) back.

 Sigh

 Fuck this game, I’m going to go play tiddlywinks

 In all seriousness though congrats to Joe for the great game and big thanks to all my opponents for some great games. Joel went on to win his game and thus claim second, with Blutac defeating the local Greg and claim the gold. It seemed like loads of people had a great time and 8 people went home with cakes. All of this seems pretty win.

 My final thought, however, is that I don’t think I actually managed to get to turn 5 on any of my games, which is not great. I know it seemed last time that we had enough time to add an extra 5 soulstones on the crews, but it might have been a touch too far for the time limit. Just my thoughts and suggestion to the big Ned and Worhamma lads for the future.

All said and done though they did an absolutely amazing job putting on the day and I just hope we can continue having such awesome. Thanks again guys. 

 

  

  

 

New Year Resolution - Toy Tally

This post is inspired by a fools daily episode, which you can find here, talking about New Years Resolutions. Unlike Conrad, Jen and I have actually done particularly well in our Hobby resolution. Our resolution was pretty simple though, basically so we could overcome our 'cupboard of shame':

 Before your allowed to buy any new models, you must paint one old 'project' and one new 'project'

This is intentionally very vague. One of the things that me and Jen decided was that we never wanted our hobby to be a chore. Forcing yourself to paint one thing can easily make it onerous. Painting is an emotional thing and the best thing to do, in my opinion, is to ride those creative ways, whilst not becoming some form of new age hippy.

 So why have a resolution in the first place? One of the things which is cool about painting is the sense of achievement you get when you paint something your are proud of. Having this 'toy tally' system helps you have some motivation. Also, I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but having deadlines and goals helps to motivate me. Recently I have been attending multiple Malifaux competitions and, although in many of them I don't have to, I like fielding painted crews and it has got me to do lots of painting

The last nice thing about this system is that you get a reward for painting your models. When you have done your old and new models you can then get yourself a reward. Everyone likes getting new toys.

Why do I keep calling it 'Toy Tally'? Basically we didn't want to be in the position where if a fancy new model/ kickstarter came out that we were held back, so we wanted a way to 'bank' our new toys. Therefore, when we complete and old project, we put a notch on the toy tally to be used at a later date.

So what do you class as a 'project'? Well that is debatable. We try and make it that whatever 'projects' you finish, be it a single character for a painting project or a regiment of soldiers, you can buy the equivalent size thing as your new toy. So I paint a warband of uruk hai bezerkers for Lord of the Rings, that means I can grab myself a Malifaux crew. Obviously this up to interpretation, but I suggest not being a facist with your hobby.

That's it from me, hopefully this will be useful for other hobbyists. The next post will probably be on the weekend to do a report from 'Not a Bad Thing'. Chat then.

Jimmmyfaux report

 I have just got back from Sheffield where I took part in another Jimmyfaux (I think it was called totem something?) I have been to the venue a few times now and chatted about it each time, so I won't say more than it was it's hot, slightly cramped but otherwise grand self. It was 3 round 50ss. All pretty standard stuff.

Dave demonstrates his love for razorspine rattlers

 My first game was against Dave Chandler, or SSK on twitter. I'd not played or met Dave before, so honestly I didn't know what to expect. It started well, I vastly out-activated him, though alpha on the Jackalope killed a bayou gremlin (I was pretty non-plussed). However this meant that Francois was able to get saddled and jump on the December Acoloyte and score 3 points for Vendetta. Next turn went down hill rapidly. My hand was awful, so felt I didn't have the cards to make an agressive move with Francois and foolishly decided to wait to try and get cards from dying Bayou Gremlins. This gave Marcus the chance to alpha Francois and charge Gracie, killing them both. From that point it was an uphill struggling, finally losing when I didn't have enough activations to keep hold of my 3 for plant evidence, whilst not taking quite enough wounds to take a point of bodyguard from Joss. Lost 10-8.

Dave's victorious crew displayed whilst we went and got Burrito

My second game, after a very tasty burrito and some decent banter, was against Josh Leak using Ressers. He used Seamus and announced entourage and protect territory. I took entourage on Som'er also, but didn't announce. I also hard Frame for Murder on Burt. In the first turn I tried out using a stuffed piglet to fire before models moved against Sybelle. I cause 6 wounds and no blasts. Realistically I should have shot Seamus, I think, but there were too many juicy blast targets nearby. Seamus jumped Burt and took him down to hard to kill, but he healed himself up with lots of Dirty Cheater and cause many wounds and Seamus. Burt was then lured away, but not into much danger and Som'er went wild and killed Sybelle and a Belle. From then on the Piggapult denied Recon, it's so powerful at that. Burt killed the rogue Necromancy and was then jumped by Seamus again and got me 3 points. Skeeter denied the Valedictorian for the whole game and in the end the piggapult and the skeeter managed to deny 2 of the 3 protect territory by outnumbering the enemy on the scheme marker. Honestly, I felt pretty bad for my luck and the strength of my crew in this scenario. I won 9-4.

Josh Leak's very nicely painted Resser crew

My final game was against the same player as my last tournament, Mr Neil Dee. We had a great game last time and it was really close. This time was reckoning and many of you may know that I really struggle with this strategy. I was playing against Arcanists again and decided that it wasn't worth risking Gracie against Joss. This was a mistake as in the first turn, with some pretty lucky flips, my whiskey golem was taken down to a single wound and Burt was forced to end his misery to not give up points in the following turn. Som'er and Francois, who had positioned the turn before, at the start of turn 2 attempted to kill the Wendigo and the wounded December Acolyte and failed to do both! From that point I really felt it was an uphill struggle, though Sammy, Trixxie and Burt did combine to take down Joss and drain all soulstones. I did grab reckoning the following turn but I was barely clutching onto my models. Last turn of the game, with no soulstones left, I lost Trixxie and Som'er to single blast from Raspy so Neil claimed a reckoning points. Unfortunately, due to a bit of confusion about protect territory and my ability to remove scheme markers I was able to deny all but one point from schemes whilst I was able to grab 6 from plant explosives and protect territory from my control of activation and having already begun placing markers early. final score 7-2 to me.

 So at the end of the day, I won 2 of 3 and got a +8 differential, so if I am not mistaken I finished 5th. I am pretty chuffed seeing as I though everything was lost when I lost the first game. It was pretty good for the North East though, with 3rd going to John Wharton and 2nd to Greg Piscosz. I have lost the big hat though as Rob Smith, the person I stole the hat from, took Gremlins and took first place. Best sports went, deservedly, to Dave Chandler. Bucky took best painted. Below you can see a bunch of the other pics I took on the day. You can see the rest of the results here.

Big thanks to all my opponents and I look forward to seeing you across the table soon.

Hutch got the chain of shame as bottom sguig

Add caption

Maria's crews are always highlights for me, I personally love this