Monday 12 May 2014

The one where I use Tara (ToMB)!



Weeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllll! Well it’s the Big Show… Yeah it’s a big bad show tonight… Not the same as WWE? It never comes across like it should on a blog post! Dammit! I will have to try sound recording next time!

Anyway, welcome one and all to a real pick-n-mix of gaming goodness! Lined up for today are two games which involved @79sponge at Malifaux, along with @Wilsongrahams joining in. Then, I have been to round 2 of the Titan Games ‘Battle for Malifaux’ campaign day (now with my ToMB crew) and finally, I have got hold of a collection of dice and cards which look very interesting and I’m excited about!

The reason my blog is happening on a school day/night? Well… I’ve been sent home from work with this…


I acquired this beautiful injury whilst playing lacrosse at the weekend and I have internal bleeding, therefore, I have to rest it for a while! It has allowed me to get some stuff sorted and finally catch up on the blog I’ve been meaning to do for a while! It sets everything out quite nicely though because this has been a week of proper gaming, whereas last week I did next to nothing!

I seem to go through phases where I really want to paint and then I go off the boil and then I come back on, at the moment I’ve just come off the boil as I have no tournaments to prepare for and I really want to be using my ToMB crew as much as I possibly can in order to get to grips ready for tournaments with them! This week, I’ve used Tara for all my games, so I’ve got my ToMB crew up and running with games and also got to find out what the limitations are!

Just above; the start of a 'Willie and Philly' conversion - Phillip and the Nanny!

I’ve been saying for a while that the standard of play at my LGS isn’t where other gaming stores/local groups are, which from a very selfish point of view doesn’t give me as much opportunity to progress but after this weekend, be it not playing with Ten Thunders or a shift in the gaming style, I came away thinking the games were harder, closer fought and gave me something to think about. They do say you learn more from your defeats and that was certainly true in this instance!

Anyway… before the LGS campaign I had two other games planned and in place! On Wednesday, @79sponge popped round with his WIP table which is looking good for a few hours work and we had a 50SS game. Now, this is the bit where I cheat ToMB a bit and I’m so sorry but I really want to play her and she is super awesome and I do love her and I have stuck to my budget….if you stick all the money together!  I do actually play a ToMB crew which sticks to budget in a bit!

So a 50SS game against Sponge - 

Right then, with the beauty of Malifaux Schemes (Well recommended) we got Squatters Rights. For this, I took Bodyguard on Killjoy and Frame for Murder on a Void Wretch!
Sponge is using his raspy crew with Snowstorm, Golem, 4 gamin and a few upgrades.
Once again, it was a learning curve for Sponge but also a learning curve for me! I managed to get a game the previous week against Keith at my LGS (pictures to follow) but we only got 3 turns in in which I beat him 8-2 but that game was far from over when we had to call it due to time!



Taking the far side of the board, Sponge chose to pop Raspy on top of a wizard's tower which gave her board control... to a point! 



The problem? It was in the far corner of the board, so Raspy only had a limited control range! One thing sponge did take from this was that Raspy needs to be on the ground at the back of the crew issuing orders instead of taking the big pose on top of the podium! 


The combo I've got on at the moment and I'm getting to grips with, is the kill the Nothing Beast and let Killjoy and Bete pop out! One thing I didn't count on was that the Nothing Beast would actually stick around up until turn 4 and the Death Marshal in the crew would go first! A shame because I'd moved him over the board to deal with his December Acolyte!
We made it to turn 5 and all that was left on the board for Sponge was Raspy! I managed to claim the markers to eek out a 6-4 win!


A hard fought game and it really gave me something to think about! Not having the 'bounce' on Tara letting her move back to the deployment zone really made he think about where Tara was going and what she was going to do after she delivered the beast! I suppose that actually I could unbury Killjoy too with Tara... something to look into. I might not be able to, I know that when someone dies he pops up (same as Bete Noire) but he is still buried, so could I? Something I'd have to check out!

Now I transport you to Friday and @79sponge is at it again, this time 40SS. This time against @Wilsongrahams and his Perdita crew! Those of you who don't know who @Wilsongrahams is...check him out on twitter and his painting! WOW! Anyway, no Malifaux painting for him but he is after all the ltd ed scupts of the death marshals to go in his crew! 
I assumed the role of Games Master for this one and it was great to see two new players slog it out in a brutal game! What Sponge didn't realize was that Perdita shoots... a lot! Again, another close game but it swung in the way of Graham!
Hopefully this Friday we will have another game or two of Malifaux. I am demoing to a few people and try and spark their interest in the game! Should be good!


So, onto Saturday! As it stood from last time, I was leader of the whole of Malifaux! Huzzah! But it wasn't to last. For those of you who don't know (and didn't read my last post on this): declare a faction to 'support' and you will be competing in that faction to be top faction Master and also Leader of Malifaux! I declared TT (before I got my Tara crew) and I was leading with 3 wins from the first week! This time, I'm still supporting TT because...why wouldn't you!? But I'm going to be using Tara to carry out their dastardly deeds! We play one Strategy throughout the whole day and we have 5 set schemes to accompany. As we are fairly new to Malifaux, it was the idea to get us involved and familiar with the strats/schemes so we don't get confused/slow play down trying to figure out what is happening!

For the day: Reckoning with Assassinate, Bodyguard, Vendetta, Frame for Murder and Line in the Sand. 
Firstly I was up against Keith, who I play fairly regularly, he declared Neverborn as his faction and he running Lilith! I won this game 5-1 with a really ground out victory! Something which was amusing from this encounter - 
Nothing Beast pops up, activates, hits Lilith... Buries Lilith... Void Wretches attack Lilith... Lilith comes back from the Void and the Nothing Beast red jokers her in the face... TAKE THAT BITCH! I consider this retribution for @Joel_Henry's smashy Lilith which took me apart at Pubfaux! 




For this encounter I took the jumpy Tara option which worked really well! It managed to keep Tara alive as a Barbaros steamed across the board towards me! My strategy worked well for Tara in this game! The board helped with LOS blocking but I kept it tight knit and that's what made the difference! 

While I think about it... Here are the pics of mine and Keith's game from a few Thursdays ago!






ANYWAY! Back to campaign goodness...


Next, I took on Matt. Now Matt does play Malifaux but doesn’t play in the event for one reason or another but today he got roped into playing using Misaki! We were on the lovely board with a load of LOS blocking which make it a great place to unload the Nothing Beast combo.
What I didn’t bank on is that his Frame for Murder was on the first thing the Nothing Beast touched and promptly killed! So already, after the first turn, I was on the back foot! 

For this game, I took line in the sand which I thought would be fairly easy to accomplish but I couldn’t get in position until turn 3, but by then it was too late! Misaki and Ototo ran riot through my crew leaving 2 Void Wretches and Tara left! We got to the end of turn 3 due to the fact that Matt had to get back to his till and actually serve customers… Inconsiderate bastards!

Anyway, a 5-4 loss which was disappointing but something which I was happy with as I didn’t get smashed like I thought I was going to at the end of Turn 2!











Finally, I was against Pete. I do need to state that at this moment in time, using my ToMB crew (Tara, Death Marshal, 3 Void Wretches and a Nothing Beast) I was happy with scraping a narrow loss instead of getting smashed! I feared that using this crew would lead to many losses before the penny drops and I can consistently work with a crew which can fulfil the needs of the mission!

Right, Pete… With a Lone Marshal and Lady J! Well… shit! It was the last game, I decided to drop Void Wretches and take a Dead Rider! Now, this Dead Rider is special… does absolutely fuck all during the game! He was very good for Line in the Sand though but with Lady J taking board control I couldn’t compete and eventually lost 7-4! My downfall in this game? Taking too many beasties and not enough minions to complete the objectives which need to be done! I am considering a change in list for the next round, still using Tara, this time with 40SS! A major plus for this game was the fact that I dispatched the Lone Marshal within 1 turn where others have struggled! What I didn’t do was deal with Lady J and the Judge! There were so many options to choose and taking priority was difficult but I went for the Lone Marshal because he’s a new model and fun to kill!



I wondered if I could use a Rotten Belle instead of the Nothing Beast to pop her out, lure characters in and then get her killed to let Killjoy pop out! Now, at 40SS I would be able to do this with the crew I have! It would be interesting to see if Bete could fit in there somewhere too!

I ended the day 1-2 which I wasn’t best pleased with because I was hoping to do a bit better in the fact of at least drawing a game but still, not a bad effort for Tara’s first real run out in a competitive game! Pleased with the combo that I’m using and I think I’ve got it down now but I need to build a team around that to support them and also complete objectives! This will be something I'll work on over the coming weeks and report back to you!

Elsewhere in Malifaux... 










So, those of you who actually pay attention to things I say on Twitter will know that Marvel Dice Masters is out and I'm very excited! Haven't seen it yet? Why not?! It is quality! Really good game which you can get out quickly!
You can choose your favourite characters to use to fight against other villains or superheroes! I bought a starter set and a gravity feed (booster packs) which has given me most of the cards and dice I need to complete my collection!
 


What I like about this game is that you have your usual Common, Uncommon, Rare and Super Rare but they've taken the stance that the Super Rare/Rare cards aren't always better, they are sometimes purely for collectors! So you could have the common of Green Goblin and it can be better than the Rare one! What a great idea!

I managed to play a few games down at the LGS to get me into it and I really enjoyed it! I would recommend it to anyone!



So you can see a picture of all the dice. The idea is that you 'purchase' superheroes to use in your fight against your opponent. It is common to use a maximum of 4 dice for each hero but that depends on what you're playing!


Finally... these came in to the store... 
No more said... 2 for 100 pts! Thank You!!!



Well, that's me done for today... I thank you very much for reading and I leave you today with @Petehumpage's Titan...
I'll see you soon!