Gaming Done Right

Episode 1 is up, click on the LINK TO AWESOMENESS and enjoy

Moving... Kind of

Im moving a portion of my blog. Not all of it. I will still update here too. Likely with my same infrequent schedule.

But to see the new stuff as well as hear my sultry voice again on podcasts, head on over to http://guessingzero.com/

My second first game of Malifaux.

Last night Mike and I got in our first official game of Malifaux 2nd Edition. We have played plenty of games before, but this time we had actual cards and a real rulebook. Lets just get to it.

Mission - Turf War

Scheme Pool - Assassinate, Line in the Sand, Entourage, Deliver a Message, Distract.

Mike's List:

Zorida, Crystal Ball

Barbaros, Nexus of Power

Bad Juju

Slurid

2x terror Tots

Doppleganger

Dan's List:

Tara, Obliteration Symbiote, Dead of Winter, Kowledge of Eternity

Nothing Beast, Voiceless Words

Karina, Long forgotten Magics

2 Void Wretches

2 Death Marshalls

Turn 1:

Tara kicked things off nice and easy walking up the board, but letting herself reactivate. Zorida's Tots run up the edges of the board, away from all the hateful conflict. A Death Marshal activated and Boxed up the Nothing beast, then strode forward. Most of the the rest of our crews simply moved into place, until Zorida got a Slurid moving quick. He ran up into Tara and slashed at her a bit. Tara finally got the chance to use her reactivate and popped up the Nothing Beast. He then took the Slurid down.

Turn 2:

This began a nice string of Mike flipping 12's and 13's for Init. Zorida got Juju up into the Nothing beasts face and had him take a smack at the poor little guy. Tara went next and dropped out fast. She had to give it to Juju, but also got it on a Death Marshal, Void Wretch, and the Nothing Beast. Tara then proved she has the power to take as well as give, and removed Fast from Juju by making him slow. Juju went and put a hurting on the Nothing beast with Flurry. Nothing beast went and returned the favor smacking Bad Juju around. Both the big guys were at low health. Mike then made a bold and likely game saving move. He had the Doppleganger move around the Nothing beast, Copy Pine Box, and Burried Tara. This kept Tara from Reactivating, and me bury/popping the Nothing beast out for more play. Not pleased with this both of my fast models charged into her. Alas the Death Marshal who had her marked for death cheating in a 13 of rams to hit her got a black joker flip for damage leaving her barely alive.

Turn 3:

Again with a nice init flip he took the reigns and had Bad Juju end the Nothing Beast. I responded agressively and had my Marshal stab the Doppleganger down, and then shoot Juju square in the face. Barbaros made his presence known and started beating on my other Void Wretch. Zorida, took offense to losing her big lug and placed a vodoo doll on the offending marshall and then killed him. Tara and a Wretch both moved up to Zorida, but didnt do anything to her. Both Tots dropped some Scheme Markers, bringing him up to 4 on the center line. Karina took a nice shot at a Terror tot dropping him to 2. And the Last Marshal got a lucky Crit shot off to kill the other Tot. At this point our game was tied 2-2 each of us grabbing 2 points for Turf War.

Turn 4:

Dropping down from his usual 13, Mike flipped a 12 for Init and Had a Barbaros Kill Karina and drop a void wretch to 1 wound. The other Wretch delivered a message to Zorida for 2 points. I didnt realize that not announcing it lost me a point... grumble. We traded blows in the middle of the board, and when it was all said and done, Barbaros was staring down a single marshal, and Tara and Zorida were locked in Combat. No points for Turf war were awarded.

Turn 5:

Likely the last turn of the game. Tara kicked things off By running the heck away. She made it safely into Zoridas Deployment zone, and chilled. Barbaros did the same running into my Deployment zone. My last Marshal went and took out a Scheme marker, and zorida mostly just sat there staring into space. I flipped and the game Ended.

Final score:

Dan - Turf War 2, Entourage 2, Deliver a Message 2

Mike - Turf War 2, Line in the Sand 1, Entourage 3

So we ended up with a 6-6 Tie. Mike played very smart, but Tara was something he had never seen before so I was able to throw him off his game for bit. If not for a pair of ill timed Black Jokers, and not realizing I should announce my Schemes, I might have changed this from a tie to a win. Regardless it was a damn fun game.

Nightmare Crew

With Gencon over my ninja shopper returns with a few cool toys. I got the Nightmare edition Tara box set, Miss Step, and the Firefly Board game. I'll get to those last two things later. This is mainly to talk about Tara.

I've known I was going to play Tara for a little while. I even set aside my Undead Death Marshals from the Nightmare Edition Lady J box set for this ocasion. I even have some nice Micro Art Studio bases set aside for these guys.

I took some time to get painting last night and was able to base coat the Void Wretches and Karina. I went a step further with Tara and the Nothing Beast though.

The goal is to finish Karina and the Wretches before I head out ot game today, with the outside goal of also getting another Marshal painted. We'll see how it all goes.

M2E or as I now call it. Malifaux

I like the new edition of Malifaux. This is not something I have been keeping a big secret or anything. But for the most part I just haven't been talking about it. 1st Generation Awesome Mike put up a list of the big changes that we saw get implemented for the new edition and I wanted to take a second to talk about them. This way I can just hash out what I like and what I dislike about them.

Upgrades – This is pretty much the part of Malifaux that I am the most hesitant about. I like that they introduced a way to specialze a crew, I like the idea of optional complexity. My big concern is right now there appear to be auto-include upgrades, and never include upgrades. Not a whole lot of the sometime takes. I really like what this system could potentially be. But as its currently set up I feel like its lacking.

Pre-measuring - Might be my absolute favorite change to the game. No more, I was off by .021421 inches, and therefore my entire plan falls to crap.

Card Format - This is an asthetic change. The cards are now smaller, fitting into the standard card size for most CCG's. Im cool with this change as it means I wont have to go laminate my cards every month when I get a new model. I'll just buy a box of sleeves from my LGS and get to gaming!

Strategy / Schemes - I like them. It seems they took a lot of the best ideas they had over the past several attempts to make the missions and worked out a core few. Balancing 13 missions is really tough. I like that they have a "competative" pack of 5 missions that will more geared towards tournament and the like. Plus I like the feel of these missions. The Schemes are cool in my mind too. I grew to really like the scheme pool. Prevents Body-Guard / Kill Protege every game.

Extra AP - This is a mixed bag. Masters all just flat out get 3 AP now. That is nice and makes them feel more powerful as they should. But a lot of the higher stone Minion models no longer have bonus AP. Thats a bit of a mixed bag for me. In the early stuff Ressers never got extra AP, so to a career resser player this is just evening out the field. But overall I think this move kind of makes some of the more expensive centerpiece guys a little less cool.

Terrifying / Horror - In one fell swoop they made this stronger and Nerfed it. And I love it. They made Horror a lot more regular, then they made it so that its no longer just ignore by 70% of the field, and then they nerfed the penalty for failure. I am 100% down with this decision.

Ranged Attacks - Not really my thing. I dont play shooty crews. Ranges got kinda long. In some cases I feel like they are stupid long. But I also think their damage was dropped a bit. I think in the end Range is a bit stronger then it was in V1, but thats not a terrible thing since in V1 it had a lot of weakness.

Spells as duels - Good change. It was always odd to me that spells were randomly different from the rest of the games core mechanics.

Number of turns - At first I didnt think this would matter, but over the course of several games I saw why it was big. You no longer have the time to ignore your objective early, kill everything and snag them at the end. You have to focus on them all game. Its an interesting change and one Im mostly on board for.

Charges - They seem a bit skewed in powerlevel. Charging is a (2) action. But you get to move 1.5x your speed (on average) and then make 2 melee attacks. your spending (2) ap to get 3.5 ap worth of actions. Its strong. Not sure it breaks the game or anything. But it is one of the best and most efficient maneuvers in the game.

Soulstones - Overall Im a fan of the change to Soulstones. Im not sure I like how many Henchmen there are who can use them. But their uses are all good to me. I like that Master v Master fights dont really devolve into who flipped a better stone card anymore. And I really like the Draw 2 cards ditch 2 cards mechanic.

Effects - The fact that this wsa never defined in V1 always annoyed me. Now its been defined and everything makes a lot more sense. Well done Wyrd.

Model updating - This has to be the biggest change right? Every model in the game is now different. And at the end of the day I love it. You can feel free to disagree with me on this, but I came to feel that there were serious balance issues with V1. Im not saying issues won't crop up in the future, or that they are all gone now. But the big thing here is that we know what we are working with, and we know what is coming. Its rare that a game company is able to see into the future and balance a game to that level. This was a chance for Wyrd to do just that, and they did it. I play a lot of different masters over quite a few factions. And in my eyese not one of them has lost their old flavor. In a lot of cases, such as Seamus, Marcus, and Rasputina, they were able to keep their old feel, but also become competative and damn near playable. That is a big change to me, and one Im damn happy with

Mike did not include the new direction of Malifaux's art in his change list, but I want to talk about it. It is a mixed bag. Unfortunetly most of that bag is bad. Below is my prime example of what I dislike about the Art.

Seamus always struck me as the charming psycho. The guy who could lure someone to their death. Now he looks like the stung out junkie with a white panel van. A complete shift in the characters visual appearance and to me it changes who he is. I am trying to get down with the new art, but so far a lot of it doesn't appeal to me at all.

Last thing for me is the thing that surprises me most thus far about Malifaux. I had been focusing my efforts on Seamus, Nicodem, and McMouring during the Beta stages. I know them inside and out and felt I could help out a lot in balancing them. But as I moved away from testing games and more into just playing for fun, I found that the Master I enjoyed playing the most was Marcus. His new beast crew is just seriously fun! The best part is that beasts with blue boarders no longer blow!

Rockin Renegades

More stuff got some paint on it this weekend. Magnus' can't really be run without his super happy fun rockets. So I got the pair of Renegades painted up. I tried to paint smiley faces on the rockets, but at this point Im not happy with that part of them, so I might go back and just paint over them.

I painted something

I just finished up Magnus for my Mercenary army. Right now Im messing around with his Theme force, which is pretty easy to use. It gives you solid Troop Options. Steelheads, Boomhowler, and Crowe's. Renegades cost a point less, which is solid. And the Solo selection is surprisingly strong. Kell, Gorman, Stannis, and a few others. Starting Magnus will push the Galleon up on my paint queue. He's pretty good with Magnus.  After I get the big guy done I will shift to my Steelheads.  There are quite a few between the Halberds and Cavalry.  Once they are done I think I'll buy Damiano.

Current State of gaming

Its been a while since I posted anything up here. Im going to blame it on my recent move. But honestly I think it has more to do with the fact that I don't really have much to talk about. So I figured I would break down where I stand with my different games.

#1 Warhammer Fantasy/40K. I don't play these games anymore. Its a bit sad since they were all I played for about 3-4 years. I still own some models, but my Chaos, Tyranids, and Dwarves are gone. I own some Orcs and Goblins and Some Space Marines. I have no idea how many points of them I own, but at this point they are just waiting to be shipped out with the rest of my stuff thats being sold. The only GW Army I have that I have an interest in keeping for the moment is my Ogres. The half dozen or so games of Fantasy I have played with them have been very fun. So I have no real desire to part with them just yet.

#2 Warmachine / Hordes. I still play this one irregularly. I generally get in a game about every 2-3 weeks. I really like playing my Mercenaries. The Circle of Orboros is second to them. Drake McBaine might not be a top tier caster, but he certainly is fun on a bun.

#3 Netrunner. This is a side game at best. I like to play it. Its certainly not the best card I've ever played. BUt its easy to keep up with cost wise, and I'm decent at the game. I am usually able to get in a couple games of it with no worry.

#4 Board Games. I play a lot of these so I'll just go over my latest crushes. Archipelageo is a pretty fun Euro style game. I was very enamoured with it after my first play through. But it doesn't stay as wonderful in my eyes after the 3rd and 4th game. Still a fun game and one I will play often given the chance.
Samurai Sword is a re-make of Bang with slight modifications to the ruleset. I really like it, it fixed my biggest issues with bang and seems to give every team a legit chance to win the game. More games are required to understand the meta of what everyone is supposed to be doing.
Last is Spartacus. This is my top board game at the moment. In fact it might merit its own past. Very fun game that gels really well with its 3 phases. It has a bit of a balance issue, but I think there are ways to fix them.

#5 Malifaux. The big kahuna. Right now I really like where the game is going. Im excited for the release of V2, and I'm looking forward to seeing what sorts of toys show up at Gen Con this year. That all said I am also not sure I want to keep up with 4 factions anymore. Im likely going to start off-loading my Archanists and 10 Thunders this year. Its not a knock on the game, its more I dont have time to play all my models right now so I'm going to focus on Ressers and Outcasts. That Said, Marcus has to this point been one of my top masters to play. I might try to hang on to him and his beasties when I off load the other Archs.

Malifaux Two. Malifaux harder

Wyrd has released public rules for Malifaux the Second and I have been reading them over this weekend, so lets get right into my initial thoughts.

#1 Lets start here, I like what I see. The game still looks and feels like Malifaux did, which is a huge positive.  The game size does not seem to be increasing, which I like.  And the men who represent my faction seem to be getting stronger.  at least on the surface.

#2 Interesting changes that have grabbed my attention.  Soulstones are weaker.  I think for me this is a neutral change.  Soul Stones are now in my eyes used for prevention flips and gaining suites, adding them for +flips in duels not all that worth it.  Scheme pool, this took me a while to think over.  Now I like it.  There is a very specific reason why.  Bodyguard/Holdout.  This standby that people began to lean on like a crutch was pretty annoying.  Now your schemes will have to change game to game.  No more relying on ones you know and have done a hundred times.

#3 New Art.  So far I'm somewhere between dislike and flat out hating it.  Everything feels Comic-bookey gothic.  Nothing seems all that cool to me.  Seamus went from looking like the charming killer who could lure someone to their doom, to a deranged hobo who has to stalk the shadows since anyone who sees him would go screaming for the hills.  McMourning does look cool.  I really dislike the new Vicki's look.

Ok so Im gonna break down the 3 Resser masters and what I've noticed in their new rules, that seems fun.

Seamus - He looks hella fun.  I love his teleport ability, and they friggin buffed his gun!  I would say he continues to be my top choice for playing ressers, but now I will play him in games without the Avatar.  Also his pimp slap is pretty cool.

McMourning - As far as Im concerned he doesn't summon anymore.  Its a bit of a shame, and he CAN summon, but its not nearly the factory that he once was.  What replaces that is the helacious combo of 4 attacks every turn, and an upgrade that says no soul stone prevention for you.  So any damage he deals is sticking, and he can rip some faces off right quick with that scalpel.  Pure Melee master now in my mind.

Nicodem - What a buff machine.  give guys fast, summon new one, always giving out +flips.  He's not the same dude he used to be.  He reminds me of a D&D dark cleric.  But I like almost everything he does now.  My huge exception is summoned minions losing half their wounds.  thats totally lame.

Also I googled Malifaux 2 to find some fun pictures for this article.  This came up and I decide it had to relevant.

Steel phalanx scheme

Check out my new infinity scheme 

Random Thoughts

Its been a little while since I posted up anything so I figured I would restart things with some random gaming thoughts and maybe some new stuff I'm doing.

Bioshock Infinite was an awesome game. The Ending confused me a lot. So I went back and rewatched it. Made more sense the 2nd time through. If you play through it just know that it, like every big Marvel Movie has a small scene after the credits. And if you skip the credits you dont get to see it. So stay until the random girl and dude are done singing. You'll know what Im talking about when you get there.

I've started playing MKII warmachine a lot more. I think in the past month or so I've played 4-5 games. Im pretty much only using Drake McBain. He is awesome. If anyone has any thoughts on how to run him better I'm open to suggestions. Right now all I know for sure is that Boomhowler and the Nomad are awesome. The rest of the list is in flux.

Wyrd announced their 2nd Edition Malifaux to the world. As many of you know I pretty much quit warmachine when MKII came out. So I am cautious about changing any game I like. But that said Malifaux could benefit from a streamlining of the rules and a rebalancing of some models. So I will be optimistic for now.  I assume thats candy in the picture up there.  She went goth i guess.

Ok so thats where things stand for right now with me.  I think once we get 2nd Ed rules in hand I will have a lot more to say about it.

Wild West Exodus

In case you haven't had a chance to take a look its up on Kick-Starter now - WWX Kick Starter

So this has piqued my interest quite a bit. To the point where I've pledged already.

The only problem is, Im' a bit torn on the Factions. Going to walk through a break down of the 2 I like. Warrior Nation and Outlaws.

Bosses - Slight edge Outlaws Shapeshifter and gunslingers are likely my two favorite ideas for this game. But Dudes firing off colt 6 shooters is just too friggin cool

Under Bosses - Might be a tie. I like the Eagle dude best and the Guy on the Cannon horse the least.

Side Kicks - Edge Outlaws. I like Apache kid the best. But hes an outlaw. Im not sure how I feel about the new WN guys. they each appear to be 2 models.

Hired Hands - Tomahawks vs Pistols... on the one hand tomahawks... on the other pisols... Edge Outlaws. Not enough Tomahawks in the Warrior nation group

Heavy Weapons - Edge Outlaws. I like the Sniper looking rifle over the Gatling Gun, and the Shotguns are a wash

Light Support - Big time edge Warrior Nation. Those Horses look awesome. Easily my #1 Cav

Heavy Support - Again a nice edge to the Warrior Nation. That Elk looks pretty badass to me. Much more so then the hillybilly wagon of the Outlaws.

I think it breaks down like this. Small dudes favor the Outlaws. Large dudes favor the Warrior Nation. Outlaws got more head to head wins I think though.


** There should totally be a few wwx pictures in this blog, but blogger doesn't agree and won't add it**

Malifaux Attrition Tournament

So I had been talking about my 10 Thunders and getting them painted for the 2/9 Tournament. I ended up falling 3 models short and made the decision to take my outcasts instead. I could have fielded the 10T for the tournament and either not worried about painting or not taken Jakob since it was him and the Beckoners that needed paint. But I opted to grab Levi and the Vicks instead.

A look at my Outcasts, plus the 25 Stone Crew I entered for the Paint Contest


Game #1 Shared revised Line in the Sand vs CJ and his Ressers.

I brought Levi just for this mission. So I took Levi, Alyce, a Dog, Collodi and his Dolls, and a Belle... wait thats right I packed, Ryle, Ashes and Dust, and a bunch of other crap, but forgot my Belle and my Hodgepodge Effigy. So I took a Steam Punk Abom instead.

CJ brought Nicodem, a Grave Spirit, Dead Rider, 2 Crookedmen, a Belle, and some Necro Punks

The game went well for me from the get go. Levi would wander up to a model and blast it to pieces and deny him his corpses. It wasn't until Collodi went into the Crookedmen and Dead Rider that started getting his corpses. I snagged 3 Dynomite and played defense with those markers getting myself up to max points. I killed Nico with a Rapid Firing Alyce, and won the game 8-2. CJ is a strong player, but I know Nico very well so that helps to counter his shennanigans.

Game #2 Shared Reconoiter vs Aaron and his asshole Hamelin

My Crew - Vicki's 8 Stones, Von Schill, 2 Ronin, Student of Conflict
Aaron's Crew - Hamelin, Obedient Wretch, Nix, rat catcher, some Rats, and a Stolen... I think

We both royally screwed up this game. It also went to turn 8. In the end I won 7-6. Instead of giving the play by play here are the top screw ups. Sword vick killed 6 models in 1 turn. I drew 0 cards off Body Count. Hamelin died. He forgot about his stolen. I attacked his Rat Catcher with a Ronin's Melee Expert, and forgot to use her regular AP. There were more then those as well. I grabbed 1st Blood and Kill Protege by turn 3. And had snagged 2 Recon VPs right off the bat. He clawed back in the game, by getting 4 points for Reconoiter after I already had 2. So has we ended on turn 6 it would have been a 6-6 tie. Turn 7 a 7-6 win for him. Turn 8 ended with a 7-6 win for me. Crazy strange game.

Game #3 Shared Claim Jump vs Mike and His crew that looked like my crew.

We started grabbing crews and then realized they were pretty much an exact Mirror. So we made a deal. I would drop Von Schill, and he would Drop the Vicks. We both agreed that likely favored me, but then he said himself he was way bette then me, so I guess it was fair.

Crews - Vicks 7 Stones, Student, 2x Ronin, Convict Gun Slinger
Him - Von Schill 3 stones, and his box set.

We really wanted to have a game that was more then an initative flip. We failed. I won turn 3's init with a 13 and killed Von Schill. had he won Init he would have taken both Vicks out. He did something awesome later, when he detonated his Specialist Tank. It took both Ronin to their hard to kill, dropped the Student to 1 wound, and Gun Vicki to 3 wounds. My awesome move was to have Ronin A sepukku, and then gun vick used "Another one" to summon sword vick back. I won the game 8-4. WOOO

So we ended up with 2 undefeated people, but my differential was pretty strong as was my accumulated VP's, So I won the day. (GO DAN!)

So Mike and I agreed to split that gift card, I got some Infinity stuff, he got terain. I passed the Santana off to a Guild Player. I dont need her, and I think He'll enjoy having her. A-Ramos got exchanged for a Laser site marker that I gave to Aaron since he and I had such a wonky game that he very well could have won, had he remembered his stolen.

The most awesome part of my victory was the overall scores of the Huzzah guys were good enough to keep both the Top Malifaux store on the east coast Plaque and Best Store in NOVA Trophy at Huzzah, where they belong!

Challenge Failed

I only needed to paint 3 more models. I could stay up for another or two and do them, but Im tired and unmotivated.

As a result for the tournament I'll be going in unprepared and with a total surprise. Should be fun.

I'll write up a report later on this week.

Also Izamu broke in two places while I was trying to put him in my case. Im a bit pissed

Update #5

Ok this is going to be a massive post of Pics. I re-took all my previous shots with a much better Camera.

Added in we have Yan Lo, 2 Ashigaru, Izamu, The Soul Porter, and the Desperate Mercenary.

PICS GALORE!!!!

Update #4!!!

Wooo. Got 2 more models done.

I'll be 100% honest I think these are the worst models I've done for my 10T crew. There wasn't a lot of detail on the models, I guess most of their depth comes from shading and what now. But I wasn't feeling like doing that. so... yeah PICS!!!

And finally the list (9 models left for the ninth):
Jakob, Yan, Soul Porter, 2x Ashigaru, 2x beckoners, Izamu, Desperate Merc, Chiaki, Kang, Graves, 2x Rail Workers, Metal Gamin, Illuminated

Update #3? Lets say 3

I painted up 3 models. Stiched Together and Illuminated for Jakob. I like the cheap fairly strong Models that Jakob can take for his crew, these two hit that nicely.

And last is Mei Feng's firs rail worker. Im not a huge fan of these guys, but she needs people to jump around to, and hes the best option she can take for 10T at the moment. Plus he was easy to paint.

Phone won't take very many clear pictures lately. I might go back and take some better ones with my actual camera.

Last but not least THE LIST!!!! (10 Models left for 2-9)
Jakob, Yan, Soul Porter, 2x Ashigaru, 2x beckoners, Izamu, Desperate Merc, 10 Thunder Brother, Torkage, Chiaki, Kang, Graves, 2x Rail Workers, Metal Gamin, Illuminated

Distractions

No paint update. I played Borderlands 2 instead.

There is a chance I will be able to get maybe 1 model done today, but that might fall short too. We'll have to see how much time I have when I get home before bowling.

Over the weekend I will be making the trek up to Glen Burnie to play in Games Comics and Stuff's Infinity ITS event. Should be a good time. I have a nice 300 points of painted Ariadna ready to rock. The only draw back here is I likely won't get any painting done Saturday. And Sunday is the NFL Playoffs, so again not a great chance to get a lot of work done paint wise.

Monday is MLK day so I'm off work, might be a good chance to do some painting catch up. Or instead of that sleep in, play video games, and waste time with friends who also don't have to work. We'll see how things go.

If I get around to painting today I think Izamu might be top of the list. Or maybe Jakob's Stiched together since I think that will be a pretty easy model to paint.

Still going Strong

I got 2 more models done... but learned a valuable lesson. Drinking and painting dont mix so great. Im on my third martini and not exactly at 100% mentally. Still I think these came out ok.

To be honest Im not sure the Emberling looks that great, but he looks decent.

And finally the updated list.

Jakob, Yan, Soul Porter, 2x Ashigaru, 2x beckoners, Izamu, Desperate Merc, Stiched Together, 10 Thunder Brother, Torkage, Illuminated, Rail Worker, Chiaki, Kang, Graves, 2x Rail Workers, Metal Gamin, Illuminated