More Malifaux!

Since my last post I've managed to put in a couple more games of Malifaux.

I've been getting my ass handed to me by My Esteemed Opponent, mainly because he is a very good player but also because he's got his Sonnia Criid crew dialed in and I continue to try out different crews to see how they play, which means it's mostly a steep learning curve for me every time.

These past two games, I've played first the Ortegas (Guild) and then Yan Lo (Ten Thunders/Resurrectionists). Both were lots of fun to play. Lists are reproduced below.

Ortegas (35 SS)

• Perdita Ortega
• Papa Loco
• Abuela
• Santiago
• Guild Austringer
• Hans

I thought the Ortegas would be good against Criid with their emphasis on ranged attacks, but I had trouble coordinating their signature chain-activation ability...and then the flames started raining down. :-/

So many Burning markers...

The game ended up with Hans the sole survivor and pretty crushing loss on my part.

Ten Thunders (35 SS)

• Yan Lo
• Reliquary Upgrade
• Chiaki the Niece
• Soul Porter
• Ashigaru (3)
• Penanggalan

I fared a bit better in my second game. I chose two Schemes with good synergy ("Breakthrough" and the Ten Thunders-specific theme, "Watchful Eyes"), both of which require depositing Scheme Markers near deployment zones. Unfortunately, I was unable to effectively defend a couple of my markers, as My Esteemed Opponent sowed his usual death and destruction—though not to the same extent as in the Ortega game! I'm definitely learning some effective counter-measures against Sonnia's mastery of the Burning marker the hard way, though.

(I really should take a look at some of those tactical guides on Pull My Finger one of these days...)

Speaking of Burning markers, My Esteemed Opponent showed up for this game with some badass custom 3-D printed markers! The condition markers even have tiny little magnets embedded that hold them together. The future is now, everyone.

A glimpse at the Criid crew

I still have a couple other crews I want to try out: the Dreamer (who I played once before to horrendous result) and the Brewmaster (and his trusty Whiskey Golem!). We'll see how that goes...

Moving on to Malifaux

So while I excitedly await reams of Skorne errata for my Hordes collection, My Esteemed Opopnent and I decided to move on to Malifaux.

To be more specific, I "refereed" a Malifaux game yesterday, as My Esteemed Opponent brought his equally-esteemed girlfriend to give the game a try. To no one's surprise, she ended up really enjoying herself, and the evening ended with her making plans to pick out a crew of her own. I've got my fingers crossed for some sort of campaign or at least semi-regular Malifaux play this year.

This game was the Guild's own Sonnia Criid and her Witchling Stalkers messing with the Viktorias and their all-lady crew of Outcasts. Our new player took the Outcasts and got into the game immediately, doing a great job of sticking to her Schemes despite coming under the fiery attacks of Sonnia and her napalm-hurling minions.

Seriously, when you go up against Criid, be prepared to see lots and lots of BURNING tokens on the table. I've seen this crew in action once before and it was brutal. Sadly for My Esteemed Opponent, he made the Classic Malifaux Mistake™of losing track of his Schemes in favor of going after blood for blood's sake. By Turn 4, he realized it had become impossible for him to win due to a combination of losses and ignoring his Schemes, and so conceded. And so the plucky Outcasts managed to not only Defend Their Turf but also Plant Evidence implicating Criid and her crew in some tomfoolery or another.

As I said, I'm looking forward to playing more Malifaux; my one critique of the game is that it runs verrrrrry slowwwwwwwly when you're first learning the game and your crew; this is easily solved, but not if you go more than a year between games like we did!

Here are some shots from the game. It ended up largely revolving around the wagon in the middle of the intersection. The board looks a little sparse to my eyes (though it's still way more crowded than what we're used to with WarmaHordes!). I've got 2-3 more buildings in my painting queue, plus more scatter terrain, so future urban encounters should be a bit more crowded...

WarmaJournal #1: 0 Points

This year saw the release of the 3rd editions ("MkIII") of Warmachine and Hordes. Unlike certain other companies, Privateer Press is not given to churning out new editions all that often, and changes between editions are not terribly drastic, as a general rule.

That being said, I'm looking at the new MkIII rules as an opportunity for a fresh start and to finally achieve a certain level of rules mastery over the system, since that is what it demands for a satisfying game. My Esteemed Opponent and I are going to make an effort to get in 1-2 games a month for the foreseeable future, and will be gradually escalating the size of our games each time.

My intention is to keep a bit of a journal of these games here as they progress so that I can refer back and look at what I learned, what I did well, and what I'd like to change in the future.

For this inaugural outing, we played a 0-point game.

"Zero points??"

Yes, it's an odd bit of terminology, and one that's new to MkIII. Just like in MkII, every warlock and warcaster gets a certain number of "freebie" points to take 'Jacks or Beasts, but these freebie points have been bumped up to the point that an introductory game can be played based on just that alone. Ergo, a 0-point game.

We're also going to be making an effort to use scenarios in all our games. I tend to view scenarios with a bit of a jaundiced eye, to be honest. I've watched a couple dozen actual-plays on YouTube and have played a couple scenario games myself, and I have yet to see a game won purely on the scenario's victory conditions; it always comes down to a caster getting killed first.

However, I've recently seen the argument made that, even if you don't win the game on points, scenarios still force you to play the game a little differently than if you were just forming up on the line of scrimmage and charging in. Also, certain casters and models are much more effective in scenario play. That was enough to convince me, so scenarios it is!

In keeping with the simple, introductory nature of this game, we went with the Annihilation scenario, which limits the game to six turns and awards points based on models slain. As it turned out (of course!), the game only lasted five turns, but hey.

Here's the setup:

I won the roll-off and chose to be the Second Player—in MkIII, the Second Player gets to deploy 3 inches further onto the board, and I've found that with Skorne getting out onto the table ASAP is desirable. My Esteemed Opponent chose the table edge on the right of the photo and we were off.

Here's what we fielded:

Skorne

• Dominar Rasheth
• Titan Gladiator
• Titan Gladiator

Cygnar

• Commander Coleman Stryker
• Stormclad
• Ironclad

Due to the small size of our forces, there wasn't a lot of subtlety to our deployments. Stryker and his 'Jacks deployed on the road and I decided to follow suit.

• This may have been a mistake on my part; Gladiators have the Rush Animus, which gives them Pathfinder and 2 inches of extra movement. I could perhaps have deployed further to my right, using the river and copse of trees to cover my advance, moving swiftly up while the 'Jacks tried to negotiate the Rough Terrain.

With the two forces faced off across the board, there was nothing for it but to rush each other.

• What I'm finding is that, when it comes to Titans, it's all about careful maneuvering during the first couple turns. Titans are at their most effective when they can charge in and do a Slam Power Attack. The Rush Animus seems to be a key to executing this, as we'll see shortly.

Cygnar reached the bridge first due to the superior movement of the 'Jacks. Curse those steam-powered devils!

Even worse, I moved my Gladiator on the road too close and got charged!

• One of MkIII's most notable changes is that pre-measurement is now allowed. So I would've been completely within my rights to measure the Ironclad's charge range and then move up to just outside of it. With my Rush Animus, I could've probably then made a charge of my own the next turn.

In contrast to my poor maneuvering on the road, I managed to get the drop on the Stormclad as it attempted to negotiate the river. With Rush Animus giving me an extra 2 inches on top of my Charge bonus movement of 3 inches, plus Pathfinder, I was able to surge forward with my second Gladiator and execute a Slam against the Stormclad, knocking him back out of the riverbed. (Unfortunately, I only rolled a 2 for the Slam distance...)

My Esteemed Opponent dropped Stryker's feat at this point, giving all his guys a +5 ARM, which had a predictable effect on how much damage I was able to deal out.

Meanwhile, I did the best I could with Rasheth. Three out of his five spells are useless against a small, 'Jack-heavy force. Worse, I was stymied in my efforts to cast Breath of Corruption on Stryker and wasn't able to upkeep Blood Mark on the turn when it most mattered. On the other hand, I did make the most of Rasheth's new and much-improved Plague Wind feat. It was too little, too late, but I can foresee future games where it will come in most handy.

The picture above shows what was probably the game's turning point. If I had been able to knock that Stormclad back a few more inches, there's a good chance it wouldn't have been able to re-engage my Gladiator on its next turn. This would have left my Gladiator free to turn and charge Stryker (how that would've worked from a rules standpoint, with my Gladiator in the river and Stryker up on the bridge, is a, well, bridge we didn't have to cross...). With Blood Mark reducing Stryker's ARM by 2 plus Plague Wind reducing ARM by 2 more points along with DEF -2, I think my odds would've been good for a kill and a win.

Sadly, this was not to be. The Stormclad shook off its Knockdown and was able to get back into engagement range. Although my Gladiator subsequently tore off the Stormclad's left arm, the 'Jack gave more than it got. Ultimately, the Gladiator went down from a Disruptor Pistol shot from the bridge(!).

The battle on the road was even more one-sided thanks to some hot rolling on the part of the Ironclad. Rasheth went down the following turn and that was all she wrote.

STYYYYYKERRRRR!!!

Lessons Learned

• The Rush Animus is really key to effective play with Titan Gladiators. It allows me to use terrain to my advantage to get the drop on enemy forces and mitigates the Skorne's piss-poor Movement rate. The Gladiator that used Rush and terrain got off a very effective charge; the one that didn't got drop-kicked into oblivion.
• Rasheth isn't very good in small games—most of his abilities and spells are unusable. Hopefully I can get Makeda painted up before our next game...
• On a positive note, I've gotten a good feel at this point for the ebb and flow of Fury in the game: rile your Beasts, then pull the Fury off and use it to fuel spells and such from your caster. Good stuff!

Another Bolt Action Outing

This week I had Steve, my regular Bolt Action opponent, around to my game room for another session of WWII action.

This time I fielded my 1,000-point Brazilian list in a (very) late-war scenario. The time: April 1945. The place: northern Italy. As German resistance collapses, the Allies surge forward to try and bag the withdrawing Axis forces.

In order to simulate the situation on the ground, we played the "Envelopment" scenario with my Brazilians as attackers. We decided to try another play variant introduced in the Ostfront supplement: Steve took half the points value, but I only had half the normal number of turns to secure victory. Steve took a much-reduced platoon of Luftwaffe Field Division troopers, heavy on the anti-tank weaponry, as he knew I was going to run a vehicle-heavy list.

Indeed, my list has gotten even more vehicle-centric after a bit of play-testing revealed some weaknesses in my original design. Gone are the MMG and mortar teams, along with the (technically illegal) partisan team. Now, everything is vehicle-mounted, which I figured would help me with my race to get off the far side of the table.

(If you're unfamiliar with the Envelopment scenario, the attacker gets 1 VP for each enemy team destroyed, 2 VP for finishing the game in the enemy's deployment zone, and 3 VP for exiting a team or vehicle off the enemy's table edge. The defender gets 2 VP for each enemy team destroyed.)

Steve was considerably worried about his prospects as he saw me pour all my activation dice into the cup, but it turned out that only having half the normal number of turns proved the perfect counter-balance. I ended up winning the game, but only because I was lucky enough to roll for a bonus turn at the end of Turn 3. Had the game ended then instead, I think I would have been lucky to squeak a draw.

And despite my victory, the LFD did manage to deal me a pretty bloody nose, taking out my Greyhound armored car (with a really lucky long-distance panzerschreck shot!) and forcing the crew of my M10 to bail out and run for it.

I wanted there to be plenty of blocking terrain as well so it wouldn't be a total cake-walk.

Because of the river, I was obliged to send most of my forces up the road on my right.

The first wave rolls onto the board.

That infantry gun blocking the road proved a tough nut to crack and really slowed me down!

The Panzerschreck team takes their shot at the Greyhound. They needed a "6" to hit...

Kaboom!

One of my two "close combat" squads debark and engage a German squad on the hill.

After a sharp exchange of fire, the hill is cleared and taken.

The M10 fords the river and attempts to flush out the 'Schreck and a sniper team, with no success.

On the final turn, my units pour towards the opposing table edge, their way clear. The final Victory Point tally was something like 16-6, but the game was much loser than that indicates.

Recent Battles Wrap-up

With the thawing of winter and the return to temperate weather, I've managed to get back to the minis gaming table a couple times this month. What follows aren't proper battle reports - just some random photos accompanied by brief recaps and further musings on the games.

Bolt Action: Soviets vs. Germans

First up, I got to put my freshly-painted Naval Infantry platoon on the table for a game of Bolt Action with my regular opponent, Steve.

One of the things I really enjoy about gaming with Steve is that he cares as much as I do about historical fidelity. Bolt Action is going after the 40K crowd with its design sensibilities, particularly in regards to its point-based army lists, and I know there are people out there who bring that "40K tournament" attitude to the game and their force construction, but Steve is not one of those people. My list is modeled on Spring '42, and so he restricted himself to that period as well even though it meant not having access to a whole passel of vehicles capable of dealing with my KV-2.

But that's part of why we play historical wargames, isn't it? Steve got to have that experience of being a German platoon leader up against a beast of war that none of his own armament was able to easily overcome. He even abstained from taking air support, as he's highly ambivalent about its use in the sort of scale of engagement BA models. A man after my own heart!

The game ended in a draw. We modeled a dawn assault over muddy ground, which severely limited fire and maneuver for the first half of the game. Essentially, we ended up with a hunkered-down firefight over much of the table, with the bloodiest action occurring over on my right flank - Steve tried to move up a squad of combat pioneers under cover of hills and woods to take out my KV-2 in close assault, but before they could close the gap across the road my tank's howitzer spoke and it had nothing nice to say: it took out the whole squad with a single shot!

Steve got a bit of revenge later in the game as I moved up my People's Militia squad to cover my KV-2's flank and they were annihilated by one of his Heer squads, operating in tandem with a halftrack.

I'm still enjoying Bolt Action (especially as I slowly master the rules - more on that topic below), but I'm also interested in trying out some systems that are a bit more "simulationist" in their approach: Chain of Command or Combat Patrol. BA's arcade-style mechanics can sometimes feel a bit jarring (particularly with scenario objectives and the like). Steve and I are going to play a game of Operation Squad soon, too, and I'm very much looking forward to that.

Warmachine: Cygnar vs. "Cygnar"

Another fresh force from the Challenge was my contingent of the Cygnar rebel Magnus and his two 'jacks, along with the mercenary contingent of Croe's Cutthroats. After a couple cancellations (one due to me, one due to him), I managed to get my regular WarmaHordes opponent Dave over for a 25-point (well, actually, 24-point) game.

Alright, so, as I mentioned above, part of the enjoyment in playing miniatures wargames is becoming comfortable with the rules. Unlike with RPGs, which encourage but do not (usually) demand system mastery in order to play (particularly if you are on the player-character side of things), with wargames you really need to have a good grip on every aspect of the game in order to really enjoy yourself. And because wargaming is fairly secondary to my primary tabletop hobby of RPG gaming, I usually find myself with weeks or months separating a given game, which means I'm usually pretty rusty on any given rules set when I do get a chance to play. In addition, what miniatures-related time I do have in between those sessions is usually prioritized to painting my figures or working on terrain instead of studying the rules, as is my bias.

From my first game I've been aware that WarmaHordes is a particularly demanding mistress in regards to system mastery. Probably more than any game I've ever played, to be honest. I can understand how dedicated players get so obsessive about nit-picking every little aspect of the rules, even if I don't necessarily agree with the attitude.

At any rate, my awareness of the system's demanding nature meant that I've always understood that eventually I'd start enjoying my games a lot more. Well, that time finally came last night, and it was due to one HUGE OVERSIGHT on my part finally getting corrected.

As we set up our forces, I made the casual observation to my opponent that he seemingly always managed to field more forces than me. He furrowed his brow, realizing I was right and that my force looked particularly anemic this night. Perhaps it's because this was the first time I was fielding a proper Warmachine force (as opposed to Hordes), and he's much more familiar with the former, but he asked me a couple questions and it soon emerged I was wholly ignorant of the bonus Warjack/Warbeast Points you get with your 'caster selection!

Essentially, this meant I'd been cheating myself out of at least 5 points (i.e. around 10-15% of the points total) every time we'd played. No wonder I kept losing!

Yes, I am an idiot.

To be fair, even now knowing what to look for, it took me a good five minutes to find the relevant section in the rulebook. As far as I can tell it's only mentioned once, and not in the section on 'casters but in the section on force building. That's what I get for reading the rulebook in bits and pieces and skimming over certain sections.

Now, the funny thing is that this discovery actually ended up re-firing my enthusiasm for the game. After all, my last couple defeats were very close-run affairs - imagine what I'll be able to do with a "proper" force!

So this realization (which fortunately happened before we started playing) left me 6 points short. I didn't have any other WM-friendly troops to field, so Dave suggested I field my Croak Raiders this time out. Six points was enough to buy me a small unit, and off we went.

Well, all I can say is that I immediately felt the difference. Without those Raiders, I would have undoubtedly suffered another drubbing. With them, I was able to get a bit tactical and force some of Dave's units away from his 'caster.

His effing Hunter 'jacks (how I hate them so) messed me up pretty good, but in the end I pulled out a victory with the stars of the game, Croe's Cutthroats. Holy shit, these guys are brutal. Stealthy and deadly as hellll. They scythed right through his unit of Sword Knights, which was, I think, rather unexpected for both of us! This was chiefly due to Magnus's "Calamity" spell buffing them the whole game, and their poisonous "Murder Weapons" being especially effective against living targets.

The game was won when Dave sent his 'caster, Captain Victoria Haley, forward to chain-lightning the Cutthroats only to look on in horror as I informed him that their Stealth ability prevented ranged or spell attacks beyond a 5" range, a range they were currently comfortably beyond. The next turn I bum-rushed poor Captain Haley and that was it.

Dave did get one last bit of revenge before that, though. His solo hero, Allison Jakes, was close enough to get in a shot and basically blew Croe's head clean off (Dave rolled boxcars for damage!), but the end was inevitable by that point.

As I indicated above, this has really got me fired up to play more WarmaHordes. I'm fairly itching to try out my Rasheth "Chain Gang" list - after the game, I did some calculating and realized that, after factoring in the Warbeast points and dropping a couple smaller units, I can field it with a full unit of Nihilators and a full unit of Croak Raiders!

(The Croak Raiders proved a nice distraction in last night's game - they ended up getting pretty much decimated by ranged fire and Dave's Stormblades - but I can see potential for much mayhem at their webby hands in the future.)

Also, I gotta think about what mercenary unit to order to fill out Magnus's now-anemic list...