Tournament Report

So this past Sunday I joined, Bill, Jay, Chris, Dixon, John, Tim, and Brian on a decently long Road trip up to southern Pennsylvania for a 35 Stone Malifaux tournament. I realized as I got there Brian and I had pretty much the same list. So I made a quick decision and went with Nicodem instead.



List
Nicodem +5 Stones, 2 vultures, 2 Rotten Belles, 2 necropunks, Bette Noir, Convict Gunslinger

Its a crew with great objective taking power and moderate to low hitting power, the highest damage in the crew is 5, but most cap at 3-4. Its also got great control aspects to it.

One quick note about the terrain. Every board had a CRAZY event that happened at random intervals and ruined the game. One Board was a total forest where line of sight was completely limited to 3 inches, no idea why.




So Round 1 I get paired up with Bill who is playing the Dreamer with an Alp bomb. I draw slaughter and sigh deeply. I declare Grudge Match on Lelu, and Kill Protege on Coppelius. He does some tricks and I set up my dudes preparing for him to drop on me full bore turn 2. Dreamer goes to pop up his friends and flips a black joker. This causes bill some concern. So spends 2 stones makes a new day dream, kills it to summon Chompy Bits. Chompy then chomps down on the belle he popped into Melee with. My Gunslinger showed chompy bits how Trigger Happy works and shot him a good 5-7 times. Turn 3 I won init and the Gunslinger picked up where he left off and killed Chomy bits. Dreamer popped up and dropped all his nightmare friends off into melee. The Alsp surrounded my belle and Gunslunger, Coppelius went after Nicodem, and the Twins killed something else... can't remember. Nico went next, Paralyzed Coppelius, and then Dropped and AoE off into the huge melee. it ended up targeting the gunslinger (Unfortunate) who took severe damage, but the AoE killed off 2 Alps. Nico then summoned a Punk Zombie. The twins went next and did more horrible things to the new Punk Zombie. My belle went next and lured Coppelius off the cliff and away from Nicodem. The last alp turned and punched down my Gun Slinger.Turn 4 I won Init and Nico started things off by paralyzing Coppelius again. and blasting the twins killing the girl and aoeing on the last Daydream. Lelu ran up and killed the belle which made me remember I have bette Noir in the wings. She popped up and killed Lelu getting my grudge. The alp went and killed my last Belle. Then My neco punk ran up and hit Coppelius actually doing damage to him. Turn 5 started, I won init again and went with Nico. He bolstered and blasted into the Melee. Healing Bette to full and killing off Copeliues netting me my Protege kill. His next AOE killed the Alp. Bill Ran the Dreamer the heck away so he wouldn't love Body Guard. I ended up killing 40 stones of models, he killed 24. So I got a full 8 points to his 4 (2 for Kidnap, 2 for Bodyguard.)



The now Infamous round 2.
Im not gonna go into the mega details here becasue Im really bitter looking back on this game. My opponent was a pretty blatant cheater. He would misrepresent his stats, when he pulled -flips he would pull all the cards look at them, stack them up and only show me the top one. Im also fairly certain he stacked his deck. I had to start cutting his deck after turn 4 becasue he was holding 4-6 face cards every turn. So the game pretty much sucked. I still almost pulled it out. Had I won initative on turn 6 or had he not had the Red Joker in his Hand I would have won the game 6-2. Instead he won 6-2. Lame Ass Game.



Round 3 I played agains the Tournament Organizer who was for some reason in like 6th place. He had Jack Daw, Pandora, twins, and Candy. On turn 2 he had only 2 cards in his hand so I took my opportunity to strike at Daw. I had Nicodem cast at him 3 times. On the 3rd one he flipped the Black Joker and control reverted to me. I then took Daw and attacked pandora, cheated low to fail the WP duel and let him die. It made me smile. Then I proceeded to WHOMP my opponets ass up and down the tabel. Bette killed the Twins. Nico went Mano a Mano with Pandora and did a decent Job the both ended up living though. but he got burned out stones really fast. I called Breakthrough for a scheme. I set my necro punks up on opposite board edges and they ran their butts off for his deployment zone. making it there turn 4 and then just going defensive stance pass the rest of the game. At turn 6 he flipped and we should have gone another turn, he said Im good if your good. I had 8 points so I didn't really care. As I look back I should have made him play it out. Bette would have killed Candy and Nico would have killed Pandora giving me an 8-3 win. But I was tired and not paying attention. so it ended up 8-7.



I ended up tied for 3rd place and only 2 points out of 1st. I know what your thinking, 3rd place is just fancy talk for loser. But give that Bill took 1st Im ok with it. Also its nice since I was the only won who prevented Bill from getting 8 points. And that Had I not faced cheater McGee in round 2 I might have been able to get more points.

MVP of the Day was Bette Noir. She is just versatile and unkillable. I love that girl.

Pandora

So I know im like 5 years behind the times, but thats just how I roll. So I finally have a Pandora account and we are in that akward getting to know you stage where it thinks that becasue I like Anberlin I like Emo music, or some crap like that. But slowly Pandora is starting to understand that I like a complex mix of Rock, R&B, and Rap songs. But really hate a lot of Rock, R&B, and Rap songs. Its just a rough patch, we'll get through it.

Im not totally behing the times though, I have tried to use Pandora before, but my work computer just wont play songs, it just searches and searches for the "perfect song." Screw perfect I just want a song thats good enough. But now (or maybe 4 years ago) Pandora made a mobile App and that means now, my Droid Incredible is rocking out with badass music for as long as the very short battery life will let me.

The Bracket

So there is a Malifaux tournament this coming weekend at some store up in PA. And I got a kitchen pass to go on up there so I'm down for the event. Its a single list tournament which is actually rare for Malifaux, but not an issue for me. I decide im gonna take Leviticus since I think I can take any on any foe with him. Its 35 Soul stones so I make up a list, and start testing it out. I lose 2 games and draw 1. Its not a good showing for the old guy. This gets me a bit nervous and makes the wheels in my brain start to turn. I decide I might want to take another Master for the event. But Who?! and how do I decide one master over the others? Simple right? March Madness style Bracket! So the first step was to seed each Master in some order that makes sense. Lets take a look.

1st Seed - Leviticus, he's the encumbant Master and I have tested games for him, so he gets the Edge and the #1 Seed

2nd Seed - Seamus, he's my favorite Master and I have played more games with him than anyone else (I think)

3rd Seed - Dr. McMourning. One of the better Masters in the Game, this guy is strong and I have a few tricks up my sleeve for him

4th Seed - Nicodem, I am on a roll with Nicodem lately. It took a while for me to get his tricks down but I've won my past 3-4 games with him

5th Seed - Kirai, If all I cared about was winning I would take her. She is REALLY good at objectives and tough to beat in a time limited format. But since I have already won with her she gets dropped to a lower seed.

6th Seed - Perdita, most likely my most competative choice. I just don't much wanna play her

7th Seed - Rasputina, A really strong Master and one who is fun to play. I just don't know her that well.

8th Seed - Ramos, I don't wanna play Ramos, so he's 8th seed. Maybe when his new stuff comes out from Book 2. But at the moment, hes my bottom master

So Round 1 Looks like this:


Lets dig deeper into each match up.

4. Nicodem vs 5. Kirai - It should have been the closest match up, but the Nico Streak and Kirai's previous Tourney win were too much to cause an upset. Nico breezed into Round 2

3. McMourning vs 6. Perdita - This was an interesting decision. Perdita is DAMN strong, and the list I made for her would likely taken me pretty far in the tourney. But McM is a strong Master too. In the end I chose the Resser even though I felt if I pitted the lists against each other Perdita would have won.

2. Seamus vs 7. Rasputina - The Upset! Same as above I bet the Raspy list would have beat the Seamus list if pitted against each other. What it boiled down to though is that despite how much I really do love Seamus, I think he's just too weak. Also Raspy is fun on a bun, I just need to learn her rules more.

1. Leviticus vs 8. Ramos - No contest! I don't wanna play Ramos! it may as well have been a bye. Levi has the easiest foe in Round 1.

So with the Round matches in the books it was time for Round 2!


Shall we explore how this happened? yes

7. Rasputina vs 3. McMourning - This was a similar scenario as McMournings 1st round foe. I think Raspy and Dita may be my best 2 Master at slaughtering my foes whole sale. The down side is I have played Raspy at most 5 games, likely less. Mcmourning I am very familiar with and becasue of that he Advanced to the Championship Round.

1. Leviticus vs 4. Nicodem - Tough call here. I;ve been preping with Levi, but the preparations have gone pretty poorly. Nico is on a roll and that Hot streak had to continue here. in the battle of Old men I went with the Resser and the hot streak. Nico would meet McMourning in the Finals.


Now the Finals were a tough call. I couldn't make it myself so I asked the Community at large for some help. And help they did. In a Landslide Victory:




McMourning was chosen to represent this weekend. So the Mad Doctor has called up a few friends and here is the list I will be running.

Dr. Douglas McMourning -- 8 Cache
Zombie Chihuahua [1ss]
Bette Noire [9ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Datsue-Ba [7ss]
Rotten Belles [4ss]
Necropunk [3ss]
Necropunk [3ss]

My Own Little Slice of Hell

So I picked up the corebook for No More Room in Hell, the other night. I also grabbed a bag of 100 "All Flesh Must be Eaten Zombies" they are pretty much too short to be serious zombies next to a 28mm scale model, but what ever there are 100 of them. The coolest parts of it are you get to make your own group of survivors and it can be run as a campaign.

I ended up reading the rules saturday-monday and realized they are pretty simple so I convinced Eric, Tanya, Ellen, and Mike to give it a whirl on Monday. I made up the characters so we could jump right into the game. I asked everyone to give me their ideas on what they wanted to play and here are the ideas that came back to me.

Ellen - The poor football team in Beetlejuice who isn't quite sure whats going on, but is certainly dead. She ended up with 7 guys with axes and pistols who were total yellowbelly cowards.

Mike - The Three Amigos! They ended up with matching stats and gear, but they each had their own unique skill to seperate them. Lucky Day was the leader, he could pass off his bravery to the cowards around him. Dusty Bottoms can dress up like the enemy (A Zombie) and move freely around among them. And Ned was the quick draw shooter with a fast pistol and a keen eye.

Tanya - Asked me to play a badass spy chick who could kick butt. I ended up making her an ambidextrous sword and pistol wielding death machine.

Eric - Wanted to be the Action hero. So he was pretty much Arnold or Stallone. He had a machine gun, wasn't fazed when he saw his comrades eaten, and could a zombie as easily as a regular human.

Dan - I wanted to be Perdita, so I made her tough, strong, and a good shooter. Just your regular badass Cowgirl with a huge ass gun and Machete.

We started with Mission 1: The first night. The Heros have taken refuge in a farmhouse away from the cities as they try to figure out their next move. But they dont have forever to decide what to do as the undead start to swarm the house. Eric, Tanya, and I started shotting the Undead as they made their approach and we were doing pretty well at keeping them off our backs. Meanwhile the Amigos bolted towards the Truck. Dusty was able to get it started right away as luckily the keys were there and the gas tank was full. They pulled up to the House and the football players piled in and were escorted off the Board. As the truck came back for round 2 of the pick ups the Zombies started to break into the house. The Heros were fighting them off as best we could. The last of the Football Players jumped in along with Perdita and were escorted from the House. Eric and Tanya backed away as best they could waiting for their ride. But things ended up going our way, as Eric was mobbed he fought well and only took a minor scratch from it. They jumped into the Truck and we we're outta there just as things would have gotten suicidal.

It wasn't overly late so we went straight to Mission 2. Escape the Highway. We were travelling along nicely piled tight in our Red Pick up when we ran out of gass on a Highway leaving a crowded City. We needed to get off the Table on the far side of a narrow highway festooned with zombies. We ended up splitting up around the middle of the table because there was a growing hoarde of zombie approaching us. The Amigos and Perdita went left, and ended up drawing most of the zombies. The Team and E&T's Heros went right away from most of the zombie hate. It took some slow going and some helpful shooting from Eric's Machine Gun but we made progress down the Highway and were Very close to board Edge. Seeing safety was close at hand, Dusty started shambling and moaning and left his other Amigos behind. The Football Team charged into a group of Zombies and did pretyt well, I believe they killed 2-3 and lost 2 members of their own. A final Zombie stood between the Amigos and Perdita and safety. It charged into Perdita who lost it, flipped out and cut the poor zombie into mush. That ended up being our ticket to safety as we fled. Eric ended up hanging back just a little too long and that "growing Hoarde" I mentioned earlier was now 60 zombies strong and caught up to him. He fought well, killing 2 of them, but somewhere around zombie number 15ish they dragged him down for a nice snack.

game is a total blast, and a little bit creepy. Im looking at getting 28mm Zombies from Wargames Factory or somewhere, but after using 100 zombies and realizing it wasn't enough Im not sure i'll bother. I will however be getting some new 28mm Heroes for this game. Hasslefree Minis is pretty awesome for that kinda thing, they have a section dedicated to Zombie slayers and the like. Here area few that caught my eyes.

Oakley
How many weapons does 1 zombie hunter neer? A lot. There is also a bit in the pack to make his arm a chain-saw, but thats been done, and no one is as cool as Bruce Campbell.


Suzi
Hot girl, sword, mini skirt... nuff said.


Dionne
Badass chick with huge pistols and a trenchcoat.


Ray
Shot-Gun? check... Cricket Bat? check... Awesome dude in a tie killing zombos? thats a big check. Also ray comes with Zombie Ray. Guess he didn't make it too long in the Zombiepocalypse.

Nicodem!

In honor of the old guys first win, I figured he could use a coat of paint, so without further ado here he is, fresh of his victory... Nicodem!!!!

A couple Malifaux games

Last night I finally got out to Huzzah to play malifaux. Its my 2nd tuesday of the year, and last time I only played Infinity, so this was nice. Also Bill got in our V2 cards so Im really excited about all that, and Im looking forward to getting them laminated and ready to rock.

Game 1 vs Mike.

I decided to randomize my master for this game. I ended up getting Seamus, so I made a crew for him I haven't used in a long while.
Seamus, Sybelle, Grave Spirit, Belle, 2x Necro Punks, Bette noir - 6 Stone Cache
VS
Dreamer, 1 Day Dream, Coppelius, 2 Stiched together, Teddy - 5-6 stones, Im not sure how the dreamer works all that well.




Our missions were simple, Deliver the Message for me, and Slaughter for him. He added in Kidnap and Body Guard(I think) I took, Framed for Murder (Seamus) and Kill Protege (Teddy)

Turn 1 was the usual dreamer nonsense. I activated a crew, he activated 2 models.

Turn 2. I lured up a Day Dream with my belle, so I could have a shot at killing him. Said Day Dream then scooted up a tad and dropped Teddy on one of my Necro Punks. Teddy then killed, said necro-Punk. I popped bette out right then and took Teddy down to 3 life. Dreamer went next and and did his nightmare trick. Chompy, 2 stiched, and Coppelius came out, and Teddy went away. Chompy killed bette who burried herself. Then he was all done so the Dreamer came back out. I took a shot or two at Coppelius to try and weaken him up, but to no avail.

Turn 3&4 (they are jumbled in my head) Seamus and a Necro Punk started the turn in B2B with the dreamer, so I was in good shape on my message delivery. He won Init and started with a stiched together. He started attacking my hand, rather well in fact, and then tried to gamble lives with Seamus. Seamus laughed in his face and dealt 7 damage to the doll, killing it. Seamus went next, and companioned his Belles, then he gave the boy his message, it read something along the lines of, "Dude there is a party tonight at Zorida's place, you in?" The belles went next and despite attacking Coppelius a combined 5 times didn't kill the jerk. Coppelius went next and dropped paralyze on Sybelle. My necro punk also tried to get in on the kill coppelius action, but he too failed. His 2nd Stiched together tried to gamble lives with Seamus, and met the same fate as his buddy. But he was able to gamble for cards and almost totally replenish his fate hand. Then Chompy popped up and went to town on Seamus, I ended up living through the barrage with 3 life and 1 soul stone left. But it was for nought as Teddy then came in and finished the job (costing me 2 vps as he was not in fact framed for murder) Bette popped back up and finished off the bear. Coppelius went again and paralyzed both Sybelle and my Belle. Chompy came in and killed off Sybelle and Bette (who went underground). My Necro Punk then came in like a super hero and killed off Coppelius.




Turn 5. I won Init and my necro-punk booked it away. Chompy then Ate my belle. and returned to kid form. Mike informed me that killing my belle got him his Kidnap.

Turn 6. We count up vps for slaughter, he is up on me 23-18. Even killing my Necro punk wouldn't net him the points he needed, so we called it there. thinking back on it I should have tried to go for a kill with a Bette Re-pop. I lose nothing by attempting it, and if I killed Chompy or the Dreamer i would have won... but alas, it was a 6-6 draw.

MVP has to go to Bette, she took out Teddy and didn't give up points for Slaughter, honorable Mention to Seamus!




GAME 2 vs John
I again went for a random Master and this time it was Nicodem... ugh.
List time!
Nicodem, 2 Vultures, 1 Dog, 1 Belle, 2 Necro-Punks, Bette - 8 Stone Cache
Marucs, Jackalope, 2 Razorspine Rattlers, 1 Shikome, 2 Molemen - 5 Stone Cache




So the first turn I maneuver around set up a bird to arc through and NecroPunk to grab the treasure. Forgetting who i was dealing with, marcus charged both of them turn 1. the bird lived, thats a poor flip by Marcus. The NecroPunk wasn't so lucky.

Turn 2, the bum rush continued as Marcus ran into Nico, and the Shikome and a Snake got to my belle. Bette popped up as the belle died and cut the throat out of the Rattler. Nico went and arced through a bird back into his combat with Decay. It was damaging Marcus (who prevented all of it with stones) and healing Nicodem. I ran my 2nd Punk and My dog into the 2nd Rattler, but ended up not doing so much.




Turn 3, Things got worse. Marcus kept thwacking Nico with his club and then made him a beast with -1 to his flips. Bette tried to kill off the Shikome, but the spirit thing made it pretty tough, and left it with 1 wound. It too came to wail on Nico, who by the end had only 1 wound. Nico bounced back into the fight with more and more Decays. Again healing Nico up a few wounds and hurting Marucs and killing off the Shikome. he also raised the nearby corpses into Zombies so next turn he could shunt off some hits. The molemen and Jackalope also popped into my dog and Punk. (Who were also backed up by a few zombies)

Turn 4, Things turn around. I won Init and instantly went with Nicodem. I blasted back into the melee and either targeted myself or a Mindless zombie every time. In 3 casts Nicro healed back to full and Marcus bit the dust. We called it there since I had Nico, with full hps, a strong number of corpse tokens, Bette, and he was down to 2 molemen.

That is my first Win with Nicodem. I never really understood just how great Decay is, until last night. Had I more time think I definetly would have blasted Marus with a Riggor Mortis and paralyzed him. But most times I was better off just nuking the Combat.

Game MVP is a toss up between Bette (who really saved my bacon) and the Vultres who REALLY saved my bacon.