Archive for the ‘Gaming’ Category

Great work by the guys at @Guildball unlocking another of their Free Agent “Union Members” team. Fangtooth is now a free add-on to be selected during the post-kickstarter survey.

They have also provided a detailed artwork of the next stretch goal, Mist, who will be unlocked at £70,000. Let’s hope we can go the whole way to £80,000 and unlock all the members of the Union team.

I’m keeping an eye out! Current total is £65,537

Bob

  • Fangtooth

  • Mist the assassin

In the last 24 hours I have put some serious thoughts into running Henchmen as leaders in smaller point games. Typical games in Malifaux tend to be either 40 or 50 soulstones with your leader being free. This leaves the entire amount of points available to spend on models to tie in with the Henchman and that can grab you scenario points.

Downsides?

With a henchman you have access to a less powerful model than a master naturally. You also give up a valuable AP as only Masters have 3AP generally. Masters will generally also have more synergy with more models than a henchman.

So what’s the upsides?

Well as most people generally take a Master you can have a surprise advantage of only throwing down a henchman. This could lead your opponent off his game from what he was expecting to face. As all models are simply pawns in your grand scheme (or they should be) you should be able to adapt your overall plan to cope with the loss. The upside can also be for introductory games and playing against opponents of different levels to you. Purposefully handicapping yourself can provide a quick way to level the playing field. And if you can pull out a victory with a Henchman led crew against an opponent running a Master, well then victory tastes that much sweeter.

Conclusion

I think there could be times when it is fun to run a henchman-led crew. It could be for a story encounter or in conjunction with a campaign. Regardless the open playstyle and crew composition of Malifaux 2.0 allows many different combinations to be tried, tested and enjoyed.

Bob.

A while back someone mentioned on the Wyrd boards about using the Malifaux city map as the basis of a map-based campaign. Malifaux itself does not lend easily to a campaign system unlike Necromunda or Mordheim from Games Workshop.

Essentially with campaign games you are linking your games in a structured way with other gamers to evolve your crew/warband/bunch of rats/whatever and tell a narrative of how they came to be. Not only does each crew member get better they can also receive serious injuries and get worse. It might be easier to just kill them off (and then sell the body to necromancers for some gold!).

So how can we translate this to Malifaux? The Wyrd Chronicles released a campaign system where each crew member could get better or worse but I think this might be a more difficult way to go with Malifaux.

My thoughts, compiled yesterday morning over a coffee, boil down to this:

  1. Start with 30SS fixed crew and master
  2. Start at a point on the map
  3. Get an objective from that location (collect items from locations)
  4. Each round you decide where you need to go
  5. Draw a line from starting point to end point
  6. Each player flips a card, highest resolves his path first.
  7. If his path intercepts any other player’s path he can decide which player to do battle with
  8. The lead player will decide the story encounter that will happen (from a list)
  9. If his path does not cross another player he WILL be investigated by the Guild at the location he ends up.
  10. Guild patrols will be 30SS squad led by a Guild Sergeant, controlled by the GM.
  11. Each battle a player wins earns him 2SS
  12. A player who loses will be deducted 2SS for the next battle only.
  13. The core crew of the player cannot change but extra earned SS will allow extra recruitment to the crew.
  14. During a battle the player with the lesser SS total will get bonuses
  15. At a location the player can select another objective or get given an item.
  16. Once a player has the items required for an objective he must get to the destination to score campaign points
  17. Once a player earns 20 Campaign points he wins the campaign.

Essentially it’s a treasure hunt with brawls along the way. Win a few games and you have an advantage, lose some games and you are hampered for the next round. If you win yo will be building up a bigger crew to help you win the campaign. This can be tied in with new players who wish to expand their forces.

I’m still debating whether the items at each location are randomly given or a player can select from a number of items from the top of the deck. Maybe players can exchange/barter their loot or maybe the winner can steal some loot from the loser.

If anyone has any thoughts on how to progress this I would be very interested.

The Guildball guys are doing it again! They have now realised artwork for both the new team – The Brewer’s Guild, taking the number of teams available to 5, and also given us a preview of the artwork for first unlocked Union member (Free Agents), Snakeskin.

Let’s hope for more stretch goals to see what else they have up their sleeves!

Current total: £57,601

A great little card game on Kickstarter, Oddball Aeronauts, is in it’s last few hours. With the project funded and a number of stretch goals broken including this and all future releases being printed on a quality linen finish and some extra kickstarter only cards I am really looking forward to getting my hands on the finished article.

Bring on September!

With only 2 weeks before Paddyfaux we have been frantically playing smaller level games to prepare for the first day (3 rounds 40SS). I have played 1 game with Lilith and 1 with Lucius and I will tell you what I have learned: 40SS does not go very far.

In order to get minions that can fulfil the schemes on a game-by-game basis the amount of big gribblies I can field goes down dramatically. Lilith took 3 tots, a cherub, silurid, Young Nephilim and a waldgeist. Leaving no room for any heavy hitters (Young Nephilim aside). So what’s outcome? Basically the difference between 40 and 50SS is a heavy hitting minion, enforcer or henchman. What i believe is that if you nail your games at 40SS then moving up to 50SS just gives you more survivability to do some damage with the additional model in your crew.

I also ran a Lucius Guild/Mimic crew with 2 riflemen, austringer, beckoner, tot and a silurid. Again with little experience with Lucius I eked out a draw but was not using Lucius or his minions to their optimum abilities.

And the painting is still continuing. Have been steadily applying 3 colours at least to all models. Still got a few that need to be airbrushed but this will happen this weekend.

So with the help of a couple of big backers Guildball has broken the £50k mark. That is a great achievement in just over 1 week. The first stretch goal was custom designed goals for each team, cast in resin. This second goal is “Snakeskin” a free agent player for the “Union” guild. This models becomes a free add on for pledgers that have backed for at least 1 team.

The creators of Guild Ball have re-ordered their stretch goals and re-worded what each backer may or may not get. Check them out!

Below are the posing shots of the Fishermen, Masons and Morticians teams.

So the guys at Guildball have released their alpha set of Quick Start rules. A quick skim reveals a very simple and fluid system of dice rolling to determine success/failure and consequences.

Check it out! They have already hit their fund goal so the project will proceed. All other funding will help them release more models. And what gamer does not want more models?

Malifaux at Slayers 24/2/14

Posted: February 26, 2014 in Gaming
Tags: , , , ,

Last night we had more training games for Paddyfaux with 40SS games being played. Lucius (Neverborn) took on Hoffman in Squatters Rights and Sonnia and McCabe had a grudge match in Reconnoiter.

Hoffman vs Lucius

Hoffman – Remote Mines, Field Mechanic, Arcanist Assets, 6 cache
Mechanical Attendant
Guardian
Hunter
Guild Guard
3 Spiders

Lucius – Surprisingly Loyal, Legalese, Secret Assets
2 Riflemen
Austringer
Silurid
Waldgeist
Beckoner

Both set up on opposite flanks and rolled up the board, the Silurid jumped forward to flip a strategy marker and the tot ran up the outside. The Hunter received Fast and Hydraulics from Hoffman, giving him Nimble for the game. He moved up, the Beckoner lured him forward and a rifleman Red Jokered for damage on him, killing him. Then my opponent announced Frame for Murder and scored 2 points.

Lucius did what he does best – order minions around, swapping places and dropping scheme markers. Hoffman was coughing up scrap markers to use for his Remote Mines later in the game – setting up traps so that Lucius could not get near him.

The Terror Tot ran up past a Guild Guard and a Silurid landed in base contact beside him preventing any shots at the little fella. In reply the guard swung twice at the Silurid for 4 damage.

Next turn the silurid leapt away to continue with Breakthrough leaving the tot to the pistol of the guard. 2 shots and he was done. The beckoner lured a spider forward to help reposition her in between 3 scheme markers for Protect territory.The spider lucked out, flipping a strategy marker and preventing Lucius from scoring. An entire round of shooting from 2 riflemen, an austringer and Lucius himself finally killed the spider off. A reposition of a rifleman gave the chance of flipping the scheme marker but a remote mine killed him.

We reached the end of Turn 5 without either master taking any wounds. The dust settled and the score stood at 9-9.

So at the weekend we got in a game, smaller than usual but in preparation for an upcoming tournament, PADDYFAUX, which will use 40SS games on Day 1 and 50SS games on Day 2.

Since the Lilith box set comes in at 25SS for models alone I decided to proxy some models to see how good they would be with Lilith leading them.

Strategy: Turf War
Schemes: Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Plant Evidence, Spring the Trap, Line in the Sand

Crews:

Lilith, Beckon Malifaux, Living Blade 4 cache
Silurid – for objective grabbing and leaping
Waldgeist
Young Nephilim – accompany some tots for protection
3 Terror Tots – objective runners
Cherub – (0) interact actions with a certain radius for other models
Tuco

Sonnia
Samael
2 Death Marshals
Witching Stalker
Guild hound
Brutal Effigy

My plan was basically to run the cherub with the tots up a flank and drop scheme markers as I went. The Young Nephilim was close by to provide support when needed but could get to the centre of the board for the strategy. Lilith would remain central and use her ability to see ignore terrain for LOS and move enemies when needed or throw up forests to hamper LOS. A terror to and Silurid were deployed on an opposite flank and Tuco was in the forest ready to cause havoc. My opponent took a central line in preparation.

Turn 1:

With my opponent allowing me to go first, Tuco emerged from the forest and blasted at a Death Marshal catching the second and Samael in the blast. In response Samael set him on fire and dealt damage to kill him at the end of the turn. This was a bad move! Keeping him in cover and possibly getting 2 good shots off might have been a better use for him. The tots ran up the opposite flank with the Nephilim and Cherub while the Effigy, a hound and a stalker moved to counter them. The Waldgeist moved up and threw up a forest and Lilith did similar to cut down lines and slow progress. At the end of the turn Tuco took damage, killing him and my opponenet spent a stone to have a witchling stalker emerge from the ashes.

Turn 2:

My Nephilim could not see the hound behind the wall to charge but did manage to walk and then engage. 1 strike meant the end of the hound. Lilith performed Tangled Shadows and swapped a Waldgeist and the Brutal Effigy and then killed the effigy in a strike. My tot placed a scheme for (0) and then ran forward, sprint helping out to get extra movement. The tot was on fire from a witchling bullet but my Cherub could only look on as it cannot interact to put the flames out. The death marshals advanced towards the centre so to counter a Silurid leapt and charged and in doing so was able to get into position to score a point from the strategy. Killing the marshal did not change the situation and at the end of the turn we both scored 1VP. 1-1.

Turn 3: Lilith had Samael  in range and casually walked up and swung twice. Not charging gives a +ve flip to both Attack and Damage and with Living Blade giving 3″ melee no one is safe within 9″. Score 2-2.

Turn 4:

With little left of my force and the opposing crew suffering likewise the strategy was forgotten as we attempted to score scheme points. Sonnia rounded the tower and put a Young nephilim to the torch, blasting Lilith and a cherub in the process. Lilith walked to Sonnia and with no soulstones left was in position for next turn. Lilith was left on the board against Sonnia and a stalker.

Turn 5:

Initiative flip was the key here. Flipping a Red Joker secured me the initiative and with it she struck Sonnia twice for severe damage on both to kill her. Last AP I tried to root the stalker in place to prevent any movement for scheme grabbing but missed. Her (0) grew a forest beside the witching to hamper any movement.

When the dust settled I had placed 2 objectives for Plant Evidence and announced it for 3VP. My opponent scored 3VP for Breakthrough and 1 for Plant Evidence.

Lost 6-5.