TOMB 3 – Collodi – Finished?!

Hello and welcome to another update for the 3rd month of TOMB. If you have read my earlier posts you will know that I accepted a challenge put forth to the Malifaux community to paint $60 dollars of models in the first month, followed by $25 thereafter until you’ve bought all the Malifaux….or until your plastic habit required medical assistance….whichever comes first.

You may also know that I picked the Master of Puppets box set for Neverborn. On paper i’d not been impressed with the final 2 Neverborn masters to elude me (Collodi and Lucius) but I do like the Collodi models and everytime I think of him I sing Metallica’s Master of Puppets track…this is what’s known in the industry as win/win.

Having 9 models to paint in month 1 would be a challenge as my normal rate of painting is 1-2 models a month however I would give this my very best shot. Well, here I am on the 26th of the month and i’m spent. It’s been quite a tough challenge so far however having “broken the back” of it, i’m looking forward to painting just the 2 models next month…more on that to follow.

So, without further ado and no more gilding of the lily, here they are. I hope you like them and I’d welcome some feedback.

Full Crew

Collodi

Vasilisa

Wicked Dolls

Marionettes

So, that’s me done for month 1. Okay, I have 5 days left to try and get the Brutal Effigy done. Maybe I will. Maybe i’ll roll him to next month which will then still only mean 2 models next month. My choice next month is Nekima who coming in at a whipping $25 means her and the effigy will bring me within $1 of my budgeted spend to date. In fact, I like that plan.

My next update is likely to be a battle report for Collodi at 35-40 stones against Zac again and let’s hope all this painting brings me a touch more fortune.

Until next time…..

TOMB – Month 1 Update – Slippy Slidey Vasilisa

So, we are now 2/3rds of the way through this first month challenge of painting $60 dollars (as valued in the Wyrd store) worth of models in the form of a new crew set. I chose Collodi and am making fair progress. Bases are done, Collodi is done and 3 Wicked Dolls are done. I’ve also base coated Vasilisa and 4 Marionettes so I think i’m going to get this done….must…remain…focussed…..*boom*

I’m not going to spoil you with pictures just yet but i did want to give a little feedback on a small game I played last night with my good buddy, Zac.

Zac will only play with painted models. Period. He is painting a Mei Feng crew with a Dawn Serpent thrown in for good measure. Kang, two Rail Worker’s and the Dawn Serpent are all finished so as the ladies were out, we had a 20ss Henchmen led game (not I do not have quite the same issues playing unpainted).

I took Vasilisa, 3 Wicked Dolls and a Brutal Effigy who may or may not make the first month TOMB but I included him anyway. As I had 4 SS left to spend, I spent 1 on Fears Given Form and the other on On Wings of Darkness. 2 Extra Stones and Vasilisa had a cache of 6.

We flipped turf war, protect territory, plant evidence, murder protege and bodyguard.

So, Kang and his construct hating crew were coming to get me. After placing mini’s ready to go, I called Zacs schemes which given the options were obvious of Bodyguard on the Dawn Serpent and Murder Protege on any one of my 4ss minion models. Needing to avoid killing I opted for protect territory and plant evidence.

I’m not actually going to bog you down with the niceties of the game but it ended up 9-4 in Zacs favour. Kang giving out +’s against constructs within 6 inches and rail workers being able to drop a card to get +’s on attack and damage meant I was really in trouble from the moment Zac rang the doorbell.

My choices were right. I could have avoided conflict a little better than I did but given the Dawn Serpent’s movement it’d have come for me eventually.

What I am going to wax lyrical about however is the movement of Vasilisa. She is probably the quickest model I’ve seen in the game. When a friendly model within 3 drops a scheme marker she can move 4 inches. This is immense. She can also give, for a 0 action, a friendly puppet a 1 action (drop a scheme marker perhaps) meaning with correct placement it’s very easy to have Vasilisa on the half way line in the first turn BEFORE SHE HAS ACTIVATED…..this is simply huge. Really. So many schemes rely on getting to the half way and interacting and she can do it, and pull a puppet up with her via upgrade. Seeing her do it on the table has left me hugely impressed with movement ability and i’m certainly looking forward to using her with, perhaps, Coryphee. Maybe my month 2 purchases are a no-brainer.

Medium term, as Zac is one of my regular buddies, it’s going to me a challenge giving what his crew does, but hopefully this will be a really good learning curve for me. Avoiding, blocking etc will all HAVE to become a bigger part of my strategy with Collodi. Hopefully it will round me out as a better player picking a different master. We can but wait and see.

Hopefully my next post will include a fully painted Collodi box set. Maybe a Brutal Effigy for good measure.

Until next time……

TOMB – 3 Tale of Malifaux Bloggers

“So young warrior, you want to paint a crew box of models in a month hey? And what is this extra snippet of information…..you’ve never painted more than 2 models in one month…..why then do you want to undertake such a challenge?”

*shrugs shoulders*

“I do not know, Master”

“Hmm, it seems like you are already destined to fail”

“Perhaps, Master. But I do feel it is within my grasp, if only I but try”

“do, or do not….there is no try.”

Okay, seminal film plagiarism aside and in all seriousness the Malifaux community has in the past opened it’s doors to a challenge which involves 3-4 months worth of painting a new crew, playing with said crew and blogging about the experience. For those that know me i’ve not actually painted a crew. Okay, this isn’t entirely true. I painted a Misaki Ten Thunders crew for a tourney. Came last. Sold it. My current models are Neverborn and aside from a metal Doppelganger i’ve paid for the privilege of someone else painting them for me.

Now, I don’t want to brag, but I can paint. I’m no golden daemon winning standard, but i’m fair. heck, i’d even say i’m not bad. My problem lies in actually finishing models and painting more than 1 a month. So, why do I want to undertake such a seemingly silly challenge (for me, it’s actually a great challenge). Well, because it’s there. Because I know I can do it, I just need to give it a whirl. And not least because Zac who has painted all my other models refuses to do anymore. To be fair, he has produced some lovely tabletop models but it has come at the expense of him finishing his own.

I have two crews left to round out my Neverborn faction and neither has really taken me in their gaming styles. These being both Lucius and Collodi. I do however love the Collodi artwork and I do want to paint him so my month 1 starts with the Collodi Master of Puppets box sets. Master of Puppets, you’re pulling my strings…..

With a $60 budget month one I may either add in a brutal effigy or simply carry it over. This will depend how I get on. Still, we are 11 days in and so far i’ve made some bases for my crew

I think these will work well, although i’m thinking of alternatives. As I plan on a full crew of Puppets i’d like themed bases. These work and were easy to make. Tutorial can be found here on You tube…

Anyway, here we are, a third of the month in and i’ve finished Collodi, base coated Vasilisa, Marionettes and the Wicked Dolls so i’m fairly ahead of schedule. I just need to knuckle down and concentrate. After all, there is no try, right?

Gertfaux Breakdown – Part 2

So, my second game loss against Martin Wodehouse gave me a game against Mr Malifaux, Mike Marshall, on table 7. This brought another new strategy in Bounty with the aim being to kill more things each turn than your opponent with the following points breakdown;

Minions-1 point

Enforcers-2 points

Henchmen-3 points

Masters-4 points

After totting up your kills in each turn the points were then added up, the person with the most scored 1VP. My thinking was this should be okay as i’d taken a crew largely full of minions thus not giving many easy points away. With the monstrous Illuminated (2 of), beckoner, tots, primordial magic, kade and barbaros were my only bigger points guys. We had close deployment and I was fearing a barrage of Guild bullets.

I won the flip and made Mike set up first which he put everything right up to the edge of the line. This actually suited me as it would give him less time to shoot me and Neverborn are pretty quick when need be. To make my job easier, he deployed his trapper in my half of the board. Thinking back on this, it was illegal for him to do so as technically it was now in my deployment zone, rather than 6inches away which my thoughts are about the skill from the shadows. Due to this, Pandora set up right next to him. After winning initiative Pandora duly obliged and killed the trapper with ease then walking and using her incite for a final walk. Mike then threw his Death Marshall forward. As he’d already declared breakthrough and plant evidence, I wasn’t sure what he was doing….it confused me a little, however the beckoner moved then lured Kade forward who later charged the death marshall killing him fairly easily (after using his upgrade to trigger sweetbreads (after dropping a card pre charge)). Only turn one and his crew was two activations down and although I wasn’t scoring bounty points, my reckoning was that it would then be harder for Mike to do this.

The game went on in this manner with the only true threats coming from McMourning himself and a very close call with Papa Loco nearly blowing up Kade (he left him on 1 wound).

My flips for the whole game were as freakily good, as Mike’s were terribly rotten. It was one of the games where my hand had nothing lower than 8’s and every flip I needed a card for I got. Mike on the other hand must have been using his Lynch deck as there seemed nothing but low cards. We’ve all been on both sides of those games and it’s not nice. Ah, the fickle hands of fate.

 

I ended up taking the game 8-3? (or close too) which left me facing a game against the Senior Winton on Table 4. He plays the Dreamer, another master i’d not yet faced but I was hoping he’d take some Neverborn things I was used to.

Aside from the Illuminated, his crew contained lots of things I was unaware of. Dreamweaver, Stitched Together, Dreamer, Day Dreams and later an insidious Madness. Despite taking a Stitched out the game fairly early on (which he promptly summoned another the very next action), I just couldn’t kill anything. I did score 2 points for Andy killing Tuco as i’d made him my sucker model. I was also able to score a few points for stake a claim and breakthrough but in the end, Andy’s summons against my depleted crew meant he just outscored me and took the game 7-6. Ah, so very close. Still, Andy, as with all my opponents on the day was a thoroughly nice chap, explaining as much as he could and frankly, this type of game is (almost) better than the actual result.

I did manage to score a set of bendyboards’ ( http://www.bendyboards.co.uk/ )crates which I will say are very easy to put together and look amazing. I’ll post a pic another day on those bad boy.

So, 2 wins and 2 losses (both fairly narrow) meant I was totally happy with the days events. Out of an originally planned 34 players, I finished a respectable 13th. Not unlucky for me.

However not all was happy with my performance. It came to light after that i’d been playing Pandora a little wrong. I’d, on a couple of occasions, used her Fading Memory trigger to push when an opponent lost a WP duel, however the exact wording is an opposed duel which only therefore effects either the Terrifying Tests or when Pandora uses her Incite action. I know I used it once, perhaps twice in each game (although to be honest, i’ve been playing Pandora aggressively so I prefer her in combat), but it did take some shine off matter. I suppose in my defence, i’m still new at Malifaux and even more so with Pandora. I reckon i’ve now played about 20-30 games of M2E over the space of 12-18 months perhaps which isn’t that much when you consider some of the top, top players are playing a couple of games a week, nonetheless, i’d like to apologise again publicly for my error and I hope when I replay some of the guys, the games go even smoother. We all make errors and as long as they are honest and dealt with correctly, i’d like to think we can all still enjoy gaming. I’m certainly looking forward to my next tournament which is Haul of Eggs in Milton Keynes with Lord Fezzington as my car buddy. I’ll be taking Pandora again in a similar size field although there once again looks like some top players. It’s going to be another experience that’s for sure.

Gertfaux – The Breakdown pt1.

Hello. As some of you may be aware if you follow this blog, I’ve been gearing up lately for a tournament in Bristol, Gertfaux, well this took place last weekend and four of us (DES, Zac and Andy) travelled up and back in the same day with varying results. It was my second third tournament since starting Malifaux, albeit only the second ranked tournament, and I was hoping for an improvement on my Wooden Spoon placing at Malifolk.

Leaving the house at 6am to round up my fellow gamer’s tired didn’t necessarily bode well however as the Schemes and Strategies had already been announced for the tournament there was an element of uncertainty taken out of the equation. They were as follows;

With two new Strategies from this year’s gaining grounds, it was going to generate some debate en route.

The journey was largely uneventful with us all planning/discussion crews for the first game aside from DES and Andy discussing fisting. I’m really not sure how the topic came up, or quite why it continued for so long, but it certainly set the bar low. Cheers chaps. We did recover however for some good debate about our first crew choices/schemes and I was nailed on for the first game.

We arrived at the venue with plenty of time to spare even after stopping for a cracking fry up at the riverside cafe in Bristol (BS44WW….thoroughly recommended). The venue itself was a held at Bristol Independent Gaming store. A large venue on an industrial estate. It looks as though it could easily cater for twice the amount of gamers we had if split between upstairs and downstairs. As there were 30 gamers planned for Gertfaux we were upstairs and aside from being a touch on the chilly side it was very well decked out with gaming tables et al.

Pretty much everyone who was going to turn up did so in good time. This allows the TO’s to get everyone sat at the respective table and ready to start on time. There were 4 no shows (not even a message) but this did not dampen the fun.

My first game was against a McCabe Ten Thunders (TT) crew, on table 6, which I was fairly happy about as i’d previously played some TT and knew some of the things I might face. Alex Hill, my first opponent, was a really nice chap. I’ve generally found this to be the case across the scene. It was his first game with McCabe. It’s hard going to a tourney not knowing what other people’s crews, let along your own. Still, he took some heavy hitters and Pandora was going to have her work cut out.

I took Line in the Sand and Breakthrough and declared them both. He took Breakthrough and didn’t declare the other.

I won’t go into the exact details but my tots sprinted well. Pandora and Kade did lot’s of killing and by turn 4 he had only got 2 points for cursed object. We called the game a 10-2 to me as i was moving towards all the other objects while scooping up lots of heads hunted. It’s a tricky strategy but I focussed on killing his crew memebers that were closest to the tokens, that way i’d be in great position to pick up the old token and the new one dropped. This focussed choice made the difference. Tot’s and Pandora are very capable of scoring the two schemes. A very good game enjoyed by us both.

One thing I took early from this game was that Pandora does better against the bigger hitters. Her CA7 which uses the damage track of the target is wasted against smaller minions etc. A valuable lesson for future games.

I didn’t really think about where my win was going to take me but eek, I was now on the top table against a very good player in Martin Wodehouse and Collette. I’d not played Collette before so if nothing else, it was going to be a learning experience.

I took Line in the Sand which I declared and took Plant Explosives. Martin declared LITS also. Now, I know I was a touch fortunate in this game as in the first two turns, he only managed to create one mechanical dove. He informed me this is as rare as rocking horse poop and was going to hinder him. I also took out his Mech rider which was spawning Metal Gamin and didn’t want to be out activated. Line in the sand started well and i’d gotten three down by turn two. With the Primordial Magic lining up to be the fourth, I was in a happy place. Martin was about to ruin my happy place when he finally managed to push, prod make fast via imbued energies and some general good cards to assassinate Pandora in turn 4 for 3 points. To make matters worse, we had both erred in Reconnoiter with some bad movements. I was hoping to take it with my LITS which he was seemingly delaying on and plant explosives. Now, even though I’ve played Plant Explosives quite a few times and found it an easy scheme to get at least 2 points from, I forgot the actual wording. In my mind, I needed to get scheme markers near his leader rather than just any model. Had I remembered this simply fact, I would have declared it in turn 3 with some of my LITS markers then spent two turns getting more down, instead I spend far too long chasing Collette with a Tot and Barbaros needlessly. A really silly mistake which ultimately cost me I think. In turn 5 his Performer got him the 4th scheme marker and he managed to pick on of mine up. Even though i’d not played Collette, in hindsight, focussing on my scheme pool a little more should have resulted in a much tighter game, as it was I lost it 7-2. A bit Schoolboy but hey, this is what the learning experience is for.

Martin was a great opponent, talking me through what his stuff did as much as possible in a tournament setting and i’m looking forward to a rematch at some point.

This result took my onto table 7 against Mike Marshall of Malifools fame. He was taking Guild McMourning who I knew he had a lot of experience with. This was going to be tough.

tbc…..

It’s an update Jim….but not as we know it.

Okay, so I was planning on updating y’all with the adventures of our little trip to Gertfaux at the weekend for the Malifaux tournament but, due to the good wife’s laptop failing and her needing to use the computer, i’ve been foiled. It’ll likely be a long post. So instead i’ve been busy finishing a nerd project. A short while ago I made a folding 3×3 table for Malifaux and it’s been needing some clasps and a handle so they went on tonight like so…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It tidies it up a bit and allows for far neater storage under the stairs. Is that all I hear you yell? No…..

So, after a bit of Ebay sniping, I picked up some model railway grass sheeting, enough of which to cover the playing surface so it is now ready to play some Malifaux and the soon to be release Guildball ( check it out here. http://guildball.com/ )

Anyway, the result is this bad chap….I like it. Hope you do too.

 

A most excellent playing surface.

Finally, in honour of Spock’s passing this week.

Blogging ‘ell.

Hello Blogosphere. You may or may not have notices i’ve been absent without leave for a little while? No, oh dear…it’s awkward.

Well, i’ve not completely been doing nothing. Honest.

Infinity, upcoming Malifaux tournaments and scenery building are just some of the things that have been taking me time up recently. Last night I was fortunate enough to play host to two good chums, Zac and Sam for a game of Malifaux. As Zac and I are going to Gertfaux in Bristol next Saturday with DES we thought it a good idea to see the Headhunter strategy for the first time. Now, i’ll be honest, I didn’t read the new gaining ground document when it came out earlier this year…no, nor did you. Go check it out now and come back to me…..

http://wyrd-games.net/community/files/file/52-gaining-grounds/

Okay, now you’ve really taken a look, you will note that there are some new strats. This will undoubtedly add a new element to our gaming circle and will be very interesting to see how they play next week.

Headhunter, we know already, is the strategy for the first round game next week. It involves dropping a “headhunter” token when a model die’s 3 inches away and then whoever takes an interact action with the token can use it to score a point at the end of the round.

So Zac and Sam lined up their forces as follows (approximately. They will confirm I wasn’t paying total attention, but making Tea, Cheesy Garlic Bread, throwing amazing anecdotes in, drafting my 100 SS list for Gertfaux and showing Sam pics of the new GuildBall game).

Sam – Ophelia, Gracie, Lenny, Francois, Meris Lacrois, Slop Hauler and some bayou gremlins. Upgrades, as always, I forget. Oops.

Zac – Ramos, Howard Langston (miss step), Joss, electrical creation, Steam Arachnid, 2 Metal Gamin and Soulstone Miner

Schemes were LITS (Sam Declared), Breakthrough (Zac declared), Distract, Cursed Object and Spring the Trap.

The game was played to Tourney Time and immediately I was concerned we wouldn’t see Turn 4. Both crews have a lot of models and activations and therefore some of the schemes are redundant as it’d be very tough to get all three points from them. Still.

Turn 1 – Sam threw most things forward towards the centre line. Movement tricks aplenty with Gracie saddling up Lenny, Lenny throwing smaller Gremlins and Meris able to move and drop stuff almost for free (Sam forgot to discard cards when dropping the “free” marker but it didn’t effect the game so we won’t feed ‘im to the pigs). Zac did likewise creating 2 spiders from the scrap from the electrical creation.

Turn 2 – Zac brought the miner into play on the far edge, Sam nearly shot it to death with a gremlin who did a severe damage doubled up due to the dumb luck trigger. 6 wounds but due to armour, it held on. The resultant wounds (after a previous ricochet) were enough to finish off the gremlin. Gracie charged into the middle of combat. Ramos made three more spiders. Meris dropped a million scheme markers and at the end of the turn Sam had 4 markers on the centre line. I’m not sure how that could be combatted….lure Meris perhaps. Interesting to ponder for future games. There was a headhunter token on the table but no one could pick it up…iirc.

Turn 3 – Lots of killing in the centre, both scored a headhunter point, soulstone minor dropped a token and with magnetism, a gamin dropped another one. Zac was on for breakthrough. Sam dropped some more with Meris and a gremlin to get his own breakthrough and scored a headhunter point.

As predicted, the game ended here timewise with Sam taking it 6-5. I may have missed a point somewhere but on the face of it, it appears very hard to score headhunter. You don’t want to shoot the oppo crew as the enemy can pick up their own fallen “heads”. get in close though and everyone is interacting with each other and therefore it becomes hard to pick them up. Some of this will come down to crew match ups but next week will be interesting.

Pandora can generally get through turns a bit quicker as first round is generally a couple of tot sprints….moves etc so I think it lends to Breakthrough and Spring the Trap (oppo master dependent)….we will see of course.

I will hope to do a Mammoth blog after next weeks games to let y’all know how I fare and hopefully i’ll have some more accurate info.

Toodles.

What’s a turn….or two….between friends.

With Gertfaux fast approaching, I’m trying to get as many games of Malifaux in as possible and last night saw me face Lord Fezzington (LF) for only the second time. It was Pandora (who I’m taking to Gertfaux) against Sonia. Before I go into too much detail about the game, we agreed we would play to two hours, thus replicating tourney conditions as much as possible.

Pools were;

Scheme – Squatters Right’s

Strats – LITS, Breakthrough, Deliver the Message, Frame for Murder and Bodyguard. I declared breakthrough and Deliver the Message, LF declared Breakthrough.

My crew. Pandora with Fugue State and Open the box. Barbaros with Fears Given Form. 2xIlluminated, 2 x tots, Primordial Magic and a Doppelganger. 7SS cache.

1. Sonia (I can never recall upgrades…doh!). Fransico, Austringer, Death Marshall, 3 Guild Hounds, Trapper, 2 Traps and the Malifaux child. 7SS cache.

LF won the flip for deployment and made me set up first….darn that deploy from the shadows….so mostly I set up in the middle with a tot on one flank and Barbaros on the other. LF deployed fairly evenly on the back field with a both traps set up on the squatters rights markers and the trapper near another in the middle of the table.

With the assistance of the lovely Doppelganger, I secured first turn with her ability to cheat the initiative flip. Pandora moved and in her remaining activations took out the trapper. The rest of the first turn was me moving up the board but just outside the 18inch range of the Austringer. LF put his dogs up the board ready to secure Squatters Right’s in turn 2.

Turn 2, I tried once again to cheat initiative, throwing in an 11. LF soulstoned a 12 flip. He went first. The turn was basically spent jockeying into position to score Squatters with the dogs. I killed one dog in return and moved a tot into the grill of the Malifaux Child.

Turn 3 resulted in Pandora killing the DM which LF declared Frame for Murder and he secured another point for Squatters. Barbaros took Francisco down to one wound.

Now, if we were playing to the 2 hours this is where the game would have stopped with Pandora facing a 5-0 loss…..as things were set up nicely to finish quickly, we did as follows;

Turn Doppelganger killed Fransico with this own gun (thanks mimic). Sonia killed the Doppelganger, an Illuminated and a tot with flaming flames of burny burny. Austringer killed the other tot. I secured squatters rights turning off one of his and delivered a message on Sonia with Barbaros early doors. This put the game at 5-4.

Turn 5. Sonia put up a flame wall in an attempt to stop Pandora scoring breakthrough however Pandora used her move shenanigans to get one marker down and the other illuminated being just within distance to score another, with us both scoring Squatters this put me at 8-6.

We did flip for a turn 6 but agreed the score wouldn’t have changed….maybe another squatters for us both.

So, what did I learn from this. Well, it’s become apparent that the game, to be balanced, is designed for 5 turns minimum. Without the game going this distance, it really lends for either uber quick or uber shooty crews. The pool itself made it very difficult for me to score VP early on. Was this a crew choice error or just the way the game lends itself? I don’t know. Looking at the pool, I could have got Frame for Murder off within the 3 turns, running a tot up perhaps, maybe even getting Deliver a Message off at the same time. I do feel however that if this necessity for less turns is the way tourney play is going, then despite my inner competitor, I think I prefer the longer version of the game. It’s nicer to take time without having to rush through. Nor do I play enough games that I am going to remember every stat of my cards let alone the oppo’s.

So, hopefully if you are reading this you can take something from it. I certainly have.

Many thanks to LF for hosting and I’m looking forward to a nice, slow game when we all (barring DES and Dom) meet up on Saturday for some more Malifaux.

Totally board

So, a little while no post. Again, no excuses but I have been nerding. On Saturday I played my first game of Zombiecide. A cracking game which relies on co-op play to avoid an undead horde. I’ve never played a co-op game before as I usually like to know i’m the winner….well this is a great compromise. You’re either all winners or losers and it really brings a different element to an evenings gaming. Thanks to Sam for bringing it.

Me and the little group of gamers are getting together in a couple of weeks and we may have as many as 12 players looking for a game of Malifaux. With that in mind, tables and scenery are likely to be at a premium. I’ve been harping on for ages about having my own gaming table and how it’s surely quite easy to make a folding board…almost bendy, if you will. Well yesterday morning after collecting my car from the garage I went and did this….

£30 all in and mostly enough, I figured, to get me started. So, 2 sheets of 4.5mm MDF measuring 2ft by just over 3ft and lengths of 2x1inch timber for use as edging. I did ask the guy to cut lengths 2ft so I could quite easily do some proper joint work however he appears to be a youth of metricity and cut them 60cm. Too short. Bum. So, as my side lengths were a bit too long, my corners are simply butted up. It doesn’t matter too much though as i’ve screwed the side panels into the main body underneath (and countersunk them to avoid table scratching). After only a couple of hours this bad boy come to fruition.

Is it perfect. No. For example, the two sheets of MDF were not identical. Also, depending if the side supports were even a mm out, it doesn’t line up perfectly, however it opens/closes fine and to be frank, i’ve never been super skilled at woodwork but, like my painting of late, it looks okay and certainly does the job. I’d even go as far to say i’ve enjoyed the project so far and looking forward to getting some paint on in. I will finish it off with a handle and clasp at the top to allow it to be stored away nicely under the stair cupboard. Perfect.

Holy Batrep…..

To Samwell and I played a 50ss game on Saturday. It was a different story to the game a couple of days earlier with DES.

Scheme – Reckoning

Strats – Line in the Sand, Entourage, Bodyguard, Make them Suffer and Protect Territory.

Samwell’s crew – (Gremlins) Ophelia, Young Lacroix, Burt Jebson, Raphael, Francois, Rami, Lenny, Slop Hauler – Upgrades, i’m not sure any were taken…more on this in a bit.

My crew – (Neverborn) Pandora (Fugue State and Box Opens), Primordial Magic, Barbaros (Fears Given Form), 3 x Illuminated, Beckoner, an Alp

Samwell declared Protect Territory. I declared Entourage.

I won the toss and made Samwell set up first. He largely set up in the middle with Burt on my left and Raphael on the right. There was a fair killing ground in the middle and a long lane centre left. I proceeded to set everything up on the extreme left to hopefully avoid some shooting.

Turn 1 – Generally moving up the table for both of us. Beckoner moved, tried to lure an illuminated for a free move and flipped black joker. Beckoner therefore didn’t get a free push into cover. Only other action was Rami double focussing thus extending his range to 36inches and blowing the beckoner away. So much for her charm.

Turn 2 – An activation down already, I needed to level that. Pandora was close enough to Burt to use her 0 action WP test which causes me to choose the activation for that model. I used the free 4inch push winning this created to get within 6 of Burt. 2 AP later he was toast causing him to kill himself. 8 inches further up the board and a walk to finish with behind cover. I was in the enemy deployment zone in Turn 2. Using Pandora the right way results in her being deceptively quick. Samwell moved Raphael and Francois up. Barbaros engaged Francois. Not necessarily the wisest of moves but I didn’t want him to have free reign in my backfield. End of turn 1-0 me for a reckoning point.

Turn 3 – Samwell did a lot of upgrade enhancement with the Young on Opehlia giving her a shot ignoring line of sight and another decent shot (blast templates I recall?). It smacked me as a really fun mechanic to give her upgrades. I’d have to be careful in future. She shot an Illuminated with Rami help and took it down to one wound which he regenerated one and self healed another to take him back to three. My Illuminated moved up, hiding a bit. Pandora came from her hiding spot with a walk, 0 actioned on the young to get within her engagement on his. She then 1 actioned and took him out easily and used the free move to engage the Sloop Hauler and Rami. Rami at this point was down to 3 wounds so she took him down with ease. Barbaros used 2 stones in defence against Francois and held on with two wounds. He took him out with his final attack and moved to engage Raphael and be within 8 inches of Lenny for his Challenge ability. Yay. 2-1 me both scoring reckoning points.

Turn 4. Pandora killed the slop hauler early and moved behind a building in the back field to assure entourage points. Opehelia killed an Illuminated. Lenny struggled with the challenge but was neatly pulled out of the way by Ophelia. 4-2 me with a reckoning point for us each and me declaring Make them Suffer.

Turn 5. Pandora activated first, used 1ap to walk near Raphael from the building. Using her 0 action on him to get the free walk using a further AP to kill him and the resultant push and last walk to get well within safety of the enemy deployment zone. Barbaros walked into the zone too to stop him getting targeted by anyone. Samwell dropped some scheme markers for protect territory and that was game. It didn’t go into turn 6. 8-5 me.

So, having learnt Pandora’s push and seeing how hard she is to kill, I feel as though i’ve understood her a touch more. Which is good as she will be my master to the upcoming Gertfaux Tournament. She will have higher WP challenges that Gremlins but it was a useful start.

In other news……..

More of a sales pitch but there is a game that has produced some stunning miniatures in the last couple of years and the rules have finally been released. It’s everyones favourite Dark Knight….Batman….

The artwork on the cover looks stunning and i’m looking forward to reading some reviews. With Infinity and Malifaux taking up the bulk of my time at the minute, i’m not sure where it would fit, but there is always room for an excellent game, right?