Ever wanted to play more Malifaux but due to some real life commitments have been unable to get out to play locally? Well my friend then the good people of Wyrd Miniatures and Vassal have been able to provide a great (and free) tool for you to use!
I won’t go into the detail of how the Vassal tool, mostly because I do not understand it, but essentially it’s a virtual table top that lets you load multiple modules. Each module provides the components required to play a game but you will still have to know the rules, think of it as being given a virtual board game without any instructions.
With the launch of M2E the very wise Jon decided it would be great to organise a series of leagues over on the Malifaux forums. The players have been organised into 10 leagues with 6 players per league supported by an external website to track wins/draws/loses. I decided that it would be great opportunity to get a few more games in and get to know more of the wider players in the Malifaux community.
It also served as a good way of getting some more regular games of Malifaux games played (I only know about 6 players in the local area spread across 2 clubs). This will hopefully improve my games at tournaments so that I wouldn't be spending the first game trying to remember the rules!
So with my hat firmly in the ring I plucked for the Ressers as my chosen faction. 2013 was my years of Ressers and I had been painting up my models all year (I've now nearly finished all of my wave 1 models). Seamus would be my chosen master and I was going to take him for every game during the league. I felt that this would be the best way of learning the rules of the game and the in’s and outs’s of the game without confusing myself with new masters every week.
Through the league I wanted to keep some notes about my planning for each game and crew selection and what I learn from each game.
Preparation is everything (part I of II)
So with Seamus’ maniacal laughter at the back of my mind I began preparation for my first games. My league is the Southgate Station for those of you keeping track.
Round 1 - Jimmy (Neverborn) - Turf War
Pre-match planning –having recently come back from the UK GT and having played the Neverborne for most of my games (yes they all took Collodi regardless of the master/scheme) I was dreading this match up. Also Pandora had been re-balanced and was considered “fair game” to use I was expecting this until Jimmy very kindly told me that he would be bringing the mother or monsters, Lilith to play with. As I had no idea what Lilith was capable with I picked a basic Seamus crew (3 Belles and Sybil) and then added in a canine remains, punk zombie and hanged. How badly could it go?
Post-match musings – some valuable lessons learned in this match. The Hanged – remember to use the Whispers from Beyond, this would have been game winning if I had read it before turn 5. Canine Remains – requires a crow to be able to put out a corpse counter, not such an auto take as I thought. I made a mistake with the punk zombie who attacked rather than delivering a message to Lilith and that body guard requires the opponents model to be at least 6inches from there deployment zone. I still felt I wasn’t getting the best from Sybil, who along with the punk zombie had tied up 2 Young Nephilim and Lilith for 3 turns (however it did require a red joker on a damage prevention flip). However a henchman as a tar pit model feels like a waste of stones.
The game was a draw.
Round 2 – Jan (Gremlin) - Reckoning
Pre-match planning – Another 1st – Gremlins! Reckoning is tricky to plan for as you need to find a good balance between models that have a lot of “staying power” and remaining in control of activations. Against gremlins I was pretty certain that this wasn’t going to happen. The scheme pool drew frame for murder which I presumed would be a good choice as I had not managed to keep Sybil alive for any game yet. I wanted to go for two tactics this game – horror duels for what I assumed would be low WP gremlins and flesh constructs to devour the little gremlins.
Post-match musings – well you know what assumptions make out of people? I completely forgot to run any Flesh Constructs and also barely got any horror duels out as the Gremlins focused on the Belles for VPs. Also Jan turned up with a really elite crew so had about 6 models in total many of which where HT 2 or greater – so much for my planning! I still managed to get a win, mostly due to a little bit of last minute luck. Best moment of the game was after throwing Sybil at the Whisky Golem to die realising that Jan had body guard on the machine and having Sybil chasing it round the board trying to get it to kill her. The Hanged really game into their own and where able to add where able to offer some very nice “board control”. The combo with Sinster Rep on Seamus is fantastic.
I managed to creep out a win for this round.
Round 3 – Ole (Arcanist) Squatter's Rights
Pre-match planning – Ole wanted to test Collette from the wave 2 beta. Again I had no idea what to expect so concentrated on my tactics. The scheme pool was uninspiring so I needed to think about how I was going to get maximum points from that. I decided I would have 2 parts to my crew – Seamus and The Hanged who would be trying to disrupt the enemy as much as possible and Belles and Mortimer to be interacting with schemes and accomplishing Protect Territory and body guard.
Post-match musings – As it turns out this worked pretty well mostly due to finally getting the hang of Seamus and some mistakes on Ole’s part (which he realised shortly after making them). The Hanged ended up being pretty useless during the game but I always like to have him around as a threat. Mortimer was excellent due to the corpse generation and fresh meat and I didn’t miss Sybil at all.
Another win for the mad hatter.
I will write down some notes and thoughts about the reaming 2 games in a month or so as well as my impressions of the Vassal league.
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