Malifaux

Some of you may know that once again, my itchy gamer finger has been playing up, and as ever I seem to have run out of ointment.

This time, my attention has turned towards Malifaux by Wyrd Games. I've been drawn to this game for some time now, but because it uses a very different mechanic, namely cards instead of dice, I've always kept a distance. There are a few people in the area that play the game already, but due to circumstance I haven't really had a chance to see how it plays.

So a little introduction to the background for those that do not know. The world of Malifaux is linked to our own by a dimensional gate known as the Breach which was opened by a collection of magic users on our side. On the other side was found an abandoned town, also called Malifaux, and a very specific resource called Soulstones. These Soulstones can be used to power spells amongst other things, but diminish in power with use. The main method of recharging them is with the death of a living being in proximity to the diminished Soulstones. As such, the town of Malifaux has been populated by groups of humans all intent upon seeking their fortune. Of those, there are several factions: The Guild who retain some semblance of order, though mainly for their own ends. The Arcanists that area collection of independent wizards and black market smugglers of all things magical, the Resurrectionists who are practitioners of Necromancy. The Ten Thunders, the newest faction who have spent years increasing their influence by infiltrating the other factions, the Outcasts, the disinherited populace that have no home within the other factions. This one more than most are crewed by human and none human members. Finally, The Neverborn, as far as is known are the native inhabitants of Malifaux. The presence of the humans is not a welcome addition to their world and they seek to eradicate this new intruders, something which they may well have done at least once in the past.

For my part, I have been drawn to the Arcanists, or more specifically, to Colette du Bois' crew of Showgirls.

Now, before you judge, I would point out that in Hordes I play Trollbloods and in both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 I play Chaos. Neither are particularly feminine, even the female Trollbloods. As such I go for models that look nice and I can feel a resonance with their background. I shall let you dwell on the thought of resonating with a showgirl.

For Malifaux I wanted a crew with a good strong backstory, and the trouble is that they all do, but the Showgirls particularly drew me as more than many others, they naturally rub shoulders with the other factions on a regular basis. It seems however, that I have not only picked a crew requiring more synergy than most, I have also picked one that hasn't yet, and in all likelihood won't have its 2nd edition beta rules for some time.

As such, I have also picked up the Ortegas box.

This crew, I understand, is more forgiving for the beginner and so I am hoping that I can get the basic rules down using this crew and then I shall move on to Colette.

I've been helped so far by a few different resources, as well as Mark Green who goes by the twitter name of @Aeth_1904.

The main resource is the Malifaux site itself. As well as pages for each Faction and crew, it also has a PDF of the current 1.5 version of the rules, a crew creator which is fully adjustable with all options available to each faction.

In addition there is a downloads page that has rules updates, wallpapers and fiction that is all free to download. 

The Wyrd Forums appear to have a good group of helpful gamers as well as a reasonably active company presence. As said earlier, Wyrd are currently working on a second edition of the game and one of the most surprising things I have found is that they are running an open public beta. This is a completely alien concept to me and just goes to show that Wyrd are open to genuine feedback.

External to the main site, and independent of Wyrd, the most useful source I have found is Pullmyfinger which is the Wiki site dedicated to Malifaux. So far it seems very detailed and very extensive and has  proved invaluable.

I've also been watching as many battle reports as I can find on YouTube as well as watching episodes of Joeyfaux.

Finally, I have been listening to the Malifools podcast. Episode 33, which can be streamed from the website, contains a beginners guide, so be sure to listen to that one.

Obviously I am still new to the system, but if anyone would like any further info, or can  provide me with information please do so. I would be particularly interested in any good Malifaux blogs or 'how to' or introduction videos.

For now however, I'm off to find Deadwood on DVD cheap. 

This week in Immoren: Hunting with Grim

Okay I will admit it, I am in love with Hordes again. I knew I would be. I even spoke about it in my last post.

So far since writing that I've had one very long walk to get a new Warlock and three games.

The Road

I had ordered the Hunters Grim a couple of weeks ago, and not long later a red slip appeared on my doormat one afternoon when I returned home from work. Helpfully the time on the card indicated that as useual, the Postman had been waiting around the corner out of sight until I had left for work earlier in the day, waited a whole three minutes, then gingerly ran to my house card in hand. This is the only logical conclusion I can draw as it seems to happen every time. That was the Friday. By Tuesday I was finally off work, but not having a car at the moment meant that I would need to walk to the depot if I ever wanted my parcel. Phones, it seems do not work in the Royal Mail and I cannot figure their backwards website out.

And so, I began the forty five minute walk (each way) to pick up my new favourite Warlock and it was worth every second!

Hunting Season

I've been lucky enough to get three games this week with Hunters Grim. In no particular order, I played against Ben's Lord Assassin Morghoul led Skorne, Luke's Gorten Grunback led Mercenaries and Sam's Thagrosh the Messiah led Legion of Everblight.

Now, I must admit that I completely messed up against the Skorne. Taking nothing away from Ben who earned his win regardless, I not only left Angus vulnerable but I didn't exploit openings he left to the fullest and I fixated on his distraction. And so, Ben got his first Caster Kill with his new warlock.

Against Luke I knew I was facing a much more experienced player than I. He started playing Warmachine and Hordes at the same time as Ben and me, but hadn't been playing other systems since and so was more focused (pun intended) than either of us. It was a great game and Luke was very patient considering unlike myself, he doesn't need ten minutes just for the control phase. I enjoyed facing the Mercs as it was a very different one to the Seaforge list I faced last time I played against Mercs so it was a nice change. I conceded this game because of time, though as I explained to Luke, my options couldn't lead to a win, though his own would, and so I am glad I didn't take up Luke's paint bet upon arrival. I've fallen foul of that before!

In my game with Sam, I had obviously learned from the previous two games and I managed to pull together a few combinations to ensure a caster kill on Thagrosh with these little buggers

Now, it was actually the min unit rather than the max, but it was still fairly impressive. Here is how the plan came together. At the beginning of my turn I was left with just a Mauler in my battlegroup who was facing off against a Scythean that it didn't manage to kill. With a Raek nearby the Scythean and Grim being in charge range of the Scythean, I knew that if I didn't manage to kill Thagrosh in my turn, Sam would kill Grim in his.

Coup de grace

Mirage and Vengeance moved my Fennblades in to Thagrosh's rear arc as well as enabling them to kill a Shredder which would hinder the Digmies shooting. Because Sam had depleted my Fennblades over the previous two turns, I only had three that would definitely make it into Melee with Thagrosh and two that may or may not (I had used No Quarter earlier so wouldn't gain +2 movement not to mention the all important Fearless required to face an Abomination with ease). As such, I knew that I would need to view them as the back up plan. I therefore activated The Hunters Grim. Muggs and Krump advanced towards Thagrosh, albeit from different areas of the board and Grim as the only with a hindered line of sight to the Messiah advanced to a better position, though one that would mean a rear advance from the Scythean if the plan didn't work (albeit that it would only be a rear advance if Krump died). It was unclear at this stage whether all the components were in the right postion as I purposefully for once didn't check my control range. If even one member of the warlock unit was out, the plan would crumble anyway. My first action was for Krump perform his Trapper action. If Thagrosh survived, it would deter Sam's Blackfrost Shard from aiding in the retribution towards Angus, not that the Scythean particularly needed it. But it's main function was to let me know if I would gain Mark Target on Thagrosh. The 5" template overlapped Thagrosh's base and so I knew that part one of the plan had worked. Next up, Grim popped his feat. I now knew he wouldn't need snipe on Headhunter as I had just declared I was casting Mortality on Thagrosh and found myself to be in range of that. I boosted the roll to be certain and managed to hit. This proved invaluable as I then fired Headhunter causing the first amount of damage to Thagrosh. Sam didn't have any fury on him and so couldn't transfer. Next, making the most of gaining Snipe from the Feat, Muggs fired the Snare gun. Even at defensive 11 with an effective RAT of 8 thanks to Mark Target, I was nervous of the roll but managed to hit Thagrosh thereby knocking him down. From here, I knew that the outlook was bleak for Thagrosh as the newly emerged Pyg Burrowers were next to activate and advanced so that four of them were within eight inches of Thagrosh. Needing anything but ones, none of the pygs failed to hit their target and it took just three to finish off the Messiah.

I would say that Sam didn't really make any mistakes, he just couldn't cover all the possibilities as I had ensured that threats were evenly spread and so he dealt with what he could where he could.

I was pleased with the way I used the list as I felt I was beginning to get my head back in to the Privateer Press way of thinking again, so hopefully I shall be able to continue this in future games.

Thanks to all three for great games, and I hope to face you all, and others besides, again soon.

The State of the Nation 2013

I've not been too frequent with my blog posts lately, but as that is well documented already I won't go in to that too much other than to say that as much as I love writing, I miss wargaming as much as I used to be able to. 

Focus
One of the decisions I made earlier this year, which is again well documented, was that I would focus on GW games with a view to maintaining a consistent approach as well as to improve my knowledge. As such I have stuck closely to single armies for both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000.

Warhammer 40,000
The army I have played the longest for 40k is Chaos Space Marines. I've tried a few different styles over the years be they Night Lords, a mixture of the cults and none cults, but when GW started to focus more on the Red Corsairs more as a unified force rather than a rag tag band that is mentioned from time to time in the fluff, I really started to like them. The Huron model is superb, and as such with the new book I wrote a Red Corsair themed list. The list itself isn't a tournament list by any stretch, nor however is it too weak and as such I have enjoyed using it greatly. As I've tweaked it and become familiar with it, I have looked towards developing a second force, which whilst remaining a Chaos Space Marine force does perform in a different manner. The Red Corsairs were more of a fire base army with a few mobile elements with which to close up to the enemy. However, I have developed a purely Tzeentch army whilst is quite the reverse. It is much smaller even than it's Red Corsair counterpart, and is in truth a bit of a glass hammer, but although I shall need to test and tweak it further, I think it should perform strongly.

Warhammer

For Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I have again developed one army before working on a second. The first being a Daemon Prince led Tzeentch army with a few monsters in it, albeit that I have mixed marks in this army a bit. I liked the idea of men of the North worshipping all the deities, but perhaps some being favoured more and so the bulk is Tzeentch but some of the army is dedicated to Nurgle. Afterall, they are men even if they are servants of the gods, and men follow a strong leader even if he does speak of a different god. This army has done reasonably well. Again possibly not a tournament army, but solid nonetheless. The second army is a much newer beast. All units in this second warband are marked Nurgle, or cannot be marked. It is still early days, but is enjoyable enough to play with.

Children of the Empyrean
I have however begun building my dual system Daemon army. Very early days as yet, but initially I plan to use them as allies in 40k, then develop them as a force in their own right.

Privateer Press

Now, having spent the first half of the year keeping my promise to stick to GW, I find myself yearning to get back to Privateer Press. At the end of last year I felt I was finally starting to get somewhere with Hordes and Warmachine, something which I think I shll have to develop once more due to the break in play. I am still very much in love with my Trollbloods and have spent a lot of time recently thinking about lists. Jarl Skuld is still my favoured Warlock and so he is still going to be the crux of my main list, but I have found myself looking at the new Hunters Grim Warlock unit from the Gargantuans book.

Having played about with some list options, I am happy with the theory of how the units will play, and as such he is now on his way.

Aside from the War Wagon (which I think will have to be a Christmas present) and any of the currently unreleased models, I'm now at full faction and as such I have plenty of options and so I'm trying to vary the lists as much as possible at least up to and including 35 points. Inevitably the Fennblades are a popular option in most lists as are the Scattergunners, but I've resisted putting them both in all lists. I've also varied the Warbeasts as much as I can, though the Impaler, because of his animus and my seeming preference for ranged lists, makes it in to more than one force. Initially I shall concentrate on the two Warlocks mentioned above, though eventually the aim is to get back to developing the Borka list and some of the other Warlocks that I've not used before.

Convergence of Cyriss

Keeping with Privateer Press, I have wanted to have a go at the Warmachine side of the coin for some time, though as they did before I first bought the Hordes Trollblood starter pack when Mk1 was around, none of the factions really captured my imagination. Even the newer Scyrah didn't really hit the spot, and to be honest I had decided to forego that side of the game entirely. However, with the announcement of the Convergence of Cyriss as a playable faction, I decided to wait out the details and see how I liked them, and I must say, I really like them! The idea of them being clockwork beings that have foregone their flesh is a very good one to me, and I like the idea of the Vectors rules. As such, I have ordered the starter set for them and who knows, maybe I can cope with painting silver?

Dystopian Wars
To be frank, this has taken a back seat for now. I still have much less time than I would like to wargame, and either 40k or fantasy will suffer to fit in Warmachine/Hordes. But it is not forgotten, and I shall get back round to it at some point.

The Future
Some of you may know already, however The Whyf has been given a store manager position in Ilkley, and as such at some point the intention is for us to move to West Yorkshire. Their are pros and cons for us that we have carefully considered, but both think it will be beneficial in the long run. It may be in a few weeks that we go, or in a few months. That is the best information we have at the moment, but we are looking forward nonetheless.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.