#MFXTOP August Winner and September theme

#MFXTOP AUGUST

Thanks again to Element Games as the overall winner AND best newcomer receive a voucher to spend in their store.

Let's see who had the finest quality Plastic Crack:

Best Newcomer

One of many gremlin entries we had this month,
it ended up being this sweet piece with fantastic basing
Burt and older plastic painted by our newest best newcomer (sweet sentence)
@athousandhats

Third Place

It's @Elessarion30
Eless is one of the great inspirations to me through #MFXTOP

She has entered most if not every single competition, watching her improve
 and learn new things every month makes running this worthwhile.

Tied for Second Place

@Sir_Reeves is actually commission painting a starter box for someone
thanks to #WAAC donations what a gent.
In the mean time he has been painting some fantastic gremlins,
and the finest bit of work yet is this big boss, the colour choice is just excellent.

Also tied for Second Place

@DudeWaaagh
You may remember the amazing Mario themed Dreamer crew,
this I can only assume Baron Samedi inspired Mortimer is
one of the best Mortimer's I've seen and the most original by a country mile.

First Place

This month's winner is
@BigBoyBucky
An early entry which has held it's interest since day one,
Grave's here has such a dramatic and awesome looking face,
the colour choice for the clothes is excellent and little touches,
such as the blood effects on the wood and my favourite bit the tattoo poking out.

Bucky's entry is another close to perfect winner again.

I say near perfect because, what's up with the clear base man?

Haha.

@BigBoyBucky is the Winner of #MFXTOP8 "Plastic Crack"

and August's

Tyrant of Painting.

#MFXTOP Month 9

The usual reminder, but don't forget each month the Winner and Best Newcomer gets a voucher for Elementgames.co.uk 

The Best Newcomer award is for whoever received the most votes and has not entered #MFXTOP before.

Now for August I am shrinking some of the "stretch goals":

• If we hit 20 (previously 25) entrants I will send out something to who comes in second place.

• If we beat 27 entrants (we got 27 in January) then I will send prizes out to second and third place.

• Lastly 30 (previously 35) entrants, is my top goal and I will not only be doing all the above, but I will have a winner from each faction in the game (that includes Gremlins) who scored the most votes meaning 7 total prizes being given away.

As previously mentioned, "entrants" refers to people entering, not the amount of miniatures.

September's Theme

Month number nine, with September's Curse my mind has been elsewhere and I had to think of a theme fast... fast... hmmm....

"Runners"

Another community created theme, the rules:
Paint a model with Wk6 or higher.

If you have any other questions, contact me on twitter where I'll be tweeting rubbish constantly.

Please leave a comment here or on any of the other blog posts I've made.
Also another reminder that I'm still looking for guest posts in the style of the "2 for 1" series, I hope together we can get all those first masters done and move on to "1 for 2"!
I have already had @dumb_luck89 and @joel__henry will you be the next?

All work will be credited to those who enter. I hope that the community can come together for my silly little series, but I obviously don't expect it, writing even a short article does take time from your day.

As always head over to Element Games and listen to that lovely @oldmanmyke and whoever else is staring on Malifools and Fools Daily and lastly...

...if you want to come to my neck of the woods for SEPTEMBER'S CURSE THIS SUNDAY, check out this link here and get on that reserve list.
We have about three spaces left.
We have all the prizes, trophies, vouchers and great games of Malifaux.

-Ben (@psientologist)

#MFXTOP Voting August

The Choice is Yours

This is a page of all the finals entries with the names of the entrant in one place.

Please have a good look over them all and then click the link to the poll at the bottom.

You don't have to have entered or do anything special to vote, just click that link, you get one vote, so use it wisely!

So in alphabetical order (by twitter handle):

@AThousandHats

_________

@BigBoyBucky

_________

@dudewaaagh

_________

@Elessarion30

_________

@floso1985

_________

@LeeBattrick

_________

@mythicFOX83

_________

@oathius

_________

@PanzerHarris

_________

The Father of @PanzerHarris 

_________

@Sir_Reeves

_________

@Therril_83

_________

@Valhallan42nd

_________

CLICK HERE TO PLACE YOUR VOTE!

#MFXTOP August Weeks 3 & 4

That's the stuff.

This month ended very green and outcasty, let's have a look at what we got.

Weeks 3-4 Entries

Early on was #MFXTOP regular @Elessarion30

Hanging around the swampy bayou at the moment,

Eless ended up painting the "filthiest" of them all. Wong.

Also in the bayou I found @athousandhats

Here we see Burt Jebsen, with his massive gun chilling

by possibly the ickiest looking part of the bayou. Nice.

Stepping out of a less putrid but more, well poop filled

part of the bayou was Lenny done by @Oathius

At least "Pork Chop" didn't is clean from being carried.

 However, avoiding all that filth, the much smarter bayou boss

Som'er Teeth Jones painted by @Sir_Reeves 

Check out his excellent bling suit. Then look at Som'er.

 With the GenCon past and the fantastic Through the Breach out,

@Leebattrick decided to paint a model so many have waited for;

Hannah. Fitting perfectly into his Flash Gordon themed Freikorps, this is a beaut.

Lee was not the only one to get Hannah done.

@PanzerHarris painted the librarian in a much more traditional

military scheme adding extra detail to what she had been reading.

It wasn't all Gremlins and Outcasts, @MythicFOX83

the master of Arcanists added another weapon to his arsenal and

joined #TeamMarcus. A cracking base, magical glow and some blue for pride.

Ressers got a showing too, with @dudewaaagh entering this;

fantastic take on Mortimer in what seems like a Baron Samedi theme.

The basing also tells a great story and perfectly ties up the model.

Ressers also go a showing by a late entry; @PanzerHarris

Well technically it's his Dad.

Check out Ron "Panzer Sr" Harris' entry.

September's Curse

September is not far and on the last day of August I will helping run a Malifaux tournament down in the south of England.

There are still a few tickets available so go a grab them while you can, it will be worth it.

Here is all that linky goodness.

With some free gifts, prizes for almost everyone, trophies for teams, sporting, spoons, podiums and two for painting plus obviously, some cracking games of Malifaux, the ticket is worth it's £10 easy-peasy.

Don't forget to check out the voting thread which will soon be up after and check back Friday for September's theme.

-Ben (@psientologist)

Malifool's Campaign of Carnage Report - Part 4

#MCC Sunday

Wake Up

Sunday morning, was a lovely bright one, the tent had leaked a little but with the preparations we made nothing that mattered got wet.

In waking I had mixed emotions, on one hand I was totally hyped for the day, Saturday was amazing and great fun, it would be awesome doing a doubles game and finally seeing how the campaign pans out, added to that I knew my team had a chance to win. I hoped maybe I would win the poker and my boys would take this thing down.

I wasn't confident about this by any means, but having it within reach made it quite exciting.
On the other hand, I was a little sad, I knew the day would be shorter and there would be no chill out evening as many people, Jan and I included, would have long journeys home.
"All good things must come to an end" they say, which unfortunately is a horrible saddening reality in most cases.

Mostly though I was hyped than sad, so it was up getting some bacon in my belly and down to hall.

Morning all

Everyone was down the hall, slightly tired but ready to play.

Due to news that the storms may be hitting in the afternoon and the fact that the Captain's still needed to play Soulstone Poker, Mike with everyone's agreement changed the day’s rota a little.
We would be kicking off with the doubles game, and then while the captains played poker the rest of the people would be playing best two out of three "Hardcore" versus an opponent for maximum change to get those achievements in.

This would mean we would all be leaving a little earlier than originally planned, nothing dramatic.
Knowing Soulstone Poker would be using our team cache as my starting stack meant I should be inclined to make people save stones, but with fewer rounds now I did not mind what the teams used and so it was on to round five.

One of the many fine tables at MCC

Round 5 

Doubles wise we decided that it would be best to team Mike and Ben together due to some crew interactions they had.

They would face off against Pete Wright (@Temeraire1798) and the Team Cupcake Captain Chris Rose (@chrisrose1).
Myself and Bruno still trying to get those McMourning achievements would be up against John Wharton (@jwharton82) and Mr Stephen Fey (@malifauxstation) in a game of Squatter’s Rights.
I would be using Marcus again, due to my other Master's being jailed alongside Myranda's Uncle Douglas (McMourning).

Stephen would be on Neverborn still but with a Swampfiend, heavy Zoraida list and John would be busting out his favourites the Viktorias.

The game was great and I love the doubles aspect, the only issue it causes is time, something I will definitely make note of if running a doubles event in the future.

Early doors saw the "northern filth" a Freikorps Trapper gun down a Nurse before we even got a turn, the Nurse unable to hide behind the midget Sebastian.
The Zombie Chihuahua luckily kept out of sight, an achievement that Bruno was aiming for.
For double protection I kept Myranda near by for the positive defence flips until her and her brigade of Marcus, Cojo and the Dawn Serpent headed forwards.
McMourning unable to do the tricksy stuff he had planned went "old school" and headed up into combat with the Waldgeists who had deployed on the squat markers.
While this was happening, the Henchman Viktoria was diving in and tearing apart my crew who had just been fighting off Bad Juju.

John actually inspired me to play the Viktorias’ myself, he was very confident with them and proved what a massive pair of nukes the sisters can be.

Not much really to explain about the game, I used the Marcus defend me tricks with the tar pit that is the Dawn Serpent to hold the line, both the teams had taken Entourage and unfortunately for me even Wk8 was not enough to get Marcus into the enemies deployment for maximum VP.
We had been outplayed and although we did not get all the turns in, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for #SimeTime even if we had.

I didn't get a single Achievement, failing my team and losing us a territory.
Bruno had accrued a few more and it was to lunch.

More MCC table goodness

Early lunch

Lunch was earlier than usual with the storms getting close people would want to pack their tents away.
Packing things away was a simple task up until the tent itself, again like when he put it up there was one simple thing Jan and I were getting wrong and much worse than Saturday the early afternoon heat was frying our brains like a couple of tasty eggs.

Between having a little munch, a few drinks of Pepsi and water to keep hydrated and putting the tent away we headed back to the hall a tiny bit late.
Jan and I arrive into the middle of a raffle.

I failed to mention in part 3 but via lots of spare stuff, donations from companies and people there was a huge raffle that ended up with three separate sessions.
Initially we had raffle tickets in our white envelopes but Mike stopped with that, as there was more than enough for everyone to get two items at least.

What I later found we missed was a charity auction for #WAAC.
A couple of painted crews and some limited edition models raised a total of £350 (you can donate here), which was awesome.
This also meant that with some extra cash Mike announced all the masters were freed from jail.

Wong was still dead.

Back to the raffle. As we walk in we were greeted by Ben Crowe who was quick to say to Jan that his name was called but he wasn't there so didn't get his prize.

"Thanks Ben" Jan said frustrated with me that he missed out on free stuff.
"Sorry mate, I'm not the only one who used the tent though" I replied fairly annoyed at him snapping.
Another name was called, then straight afterwards "Captain... Ben Sime"
Getting myself a big pack of 40mm resin bases (along with some card sleeves the day before).
"Well now I'm not sorry Jan, looks like I timed it well" I said smugly to Jan as Crowe and I laughed.

As names were all called Ben then shouted that Jan did not get anything. Rather than getting just a prize at random, Mike drew two things out and got the room to vote on what he should get.
In the end, it was the (worst prize of the two) CMON pin badge Jan was awarded.

Hardcore in full flow

Mike would briefly go over the "Hardcore" rules for today, to inform those who were unaware and to change it up a little:

• Today's Hardcore would be Master rather Henchman lead
• Still would be 20ss
• The Strategy would be Turf War
• One Scheme would be Spring the Trap

As everyone got paired off against a fresh opponent the Captains were pulled into the TO's room and it was time for Soulstone Poker

Soulstone Poker

The Captain's at Poker

All ten Captains were gathered into the TO's room with the tables moved about for us to start playing.
Soulstone Poker would be the typical Texas hold'em variant with a couple of Malifaux like changes:

• The Black Joker would be in play and would be essentially a blank card
• The Red Joker would also be in play being any card you wanted it to be.

These were some fun cool editions, but I was concerned the RJ especially would be game breaking.
I was not quite the one with the highest stack in the room but I was extremely close.

Sat either side of me were Dave Hill to my left and Cathy Winton to my right.
The lowest starting stack was either Dave Bartley or Mark Pemberton.
I wasn't fully confident I would win the poker, but I expected I would be in for a chance.

As the first lot of cards were dealt I used my rough hand (I believe it was Ace high) to gauge how the table would play, who was going to throw chips in with all the confidence, who would sit back and fold until they had a chance.
Ole and Liz, either ends of the table seemed quite courageous, Rob of the Bananas not quite so crazy but forward, whereas both the Roses; Stephen and Chris were quite timid, which honestly is usually a style I prefer.
Dave seemed to take calculated risks as did Cathy whereas across the table, I was getting a sneaky suspicion that Mr Bartley and Mr Pemberton knew exactly what they were doing.
Mark especially holding back, playing innocent and having killer hands.

As the game went on, my hands got no better and pot would start to diminish.
I feel into a defensive mode as I watched Captain's fall one by one.
Each Captain exiting the table being announced to the entire hall by Mr Spooner.
I was on the ropes.

As players had stolen pots with Red Jokers and I had seen only the Black of two twice I had started to make out to Mike I thought it was a fix.

I somehow kept myself into the final four with an all in I was forced to make due to the increase in blind size we were running.
One mediocre hand was enough to win me that pot but still not enough to just it all on the next hand and fall out of poker in third.

The two finalists, the two men with the smallest stacks.
As I went to check on my team, the winner was announced.

Mark Pemberton, the champion of Soulstone Poker, his prize?
The chip total in VP for his team.

While this was cool as it was exciting it then flipped the entire campaign on it's head.
With hundreds of points gained, my team had been bumped down to third and now the gap between Mark's Red Dino's and Dave Hill's Purple Dino's was very close.

Could the hardcore rounds change the tide and take Dave and his dominant team from the top spot?

Admittedly I was a little disappointed getting knocked out in the poker, I didn't have the luck I needed and I felt I had let down my team who at that point had been racking up lots more achievements than I had contributed.

It was a shame to miss out on the hardcore rounds, especially as I would finally get a chance to play with Ramos.
It was no worry though and the poker was an epic fun way to finish the campaign for the captains.

The Results

The hardcore rounds were finished.
Everyone started to pack up their things, cars and put tables and terrain away while points were being totalled.

I was pretty certain we were now only third, this however, I felt was a strong placing and was excited to see how the others did.

Everyone stood around in a crowd near the stage area.
Mike thanked everyone for being there and we gave him and the team all a big "hip-hip hooray" for running what was one the greatest gaming weekends to ever happen.
Thanks again to Mike, Conrad, Lee and Matt for running a damn crazy yet smooth event.
The weekend was more than good for me, a full three days away from the terrible parts of "the real world" where I not only had fun and was accommodated but also felt cared for and looked after.
The event was a huge inspiration in how I went about doing some things for September's Curse (there are still tickets for 31/8 here) and if that tournament can be anywhere near half as good as MCC I will be very happy.

Announcements started.

First up was not the Wooden Spoon but the "Well Done" award for scoring the least achievement points.
Taking home this prize was James.

Well Done

Up next was the "Highest Achiever" the person outside the winning team who got the most achievement points.
The winner here was Scott Porter. Ben Crowe again being a bridesmaid being a mere few points behind.
Well done Scott.

Highest Achiever

We then were followed by "The Artist" award for best-painted crew and this came to team #SimeTime in the form of the amazing painting of Bruno Santos.

The Artist

It was a pleasure to see his stuff but also kind of funny in our doubles game when I get out some of my nicer models I had recently finished, feeling quite proud and then seeing...
...just what I can only describe as beautiful art.
Congratulations to Bruno.

The big one, the winning team.
In third place was #SimeTime with our Bumblebee hats, so close yet so far.
We knew it was now between the dinosaurs.
Note to self, Dinosaurs are obviously OP, if a Dinosaur is released in Malifaux buy it.

Would it be the Red Dinos of Mark and his Poker winnings or the Purple Dinos of the highest ranked captain Dave?

With the announcement that Joe Wood of the Purple Dinos was the actual single person with the most achievement points, we were then not surprised that.

• James Winton
• Joe Wood
• Jake Barlow
• And Captain Dave Hill

The Purple Dinos took down the event and won the trophies.

The Winning Team

Congratulations to them, seeing James excited reaction was more than worth the Purple Dinosaurs taking it down and was a lovely end to a great event.

That's it for #MCC

I could go on to go about the drive home, the highlight of which was eating some KFC and low light being a knackered Jan taking a wrong turning (or two).
We got home safely if quite late, but it was great to chat about the event relax and my bed was very welcoming when I got home.

I've thanked the TO's again already, I would like to thank Jan for simply being "my bro" and an amazing mate, it was a shame it was only the two of us from the Poole area but I'm glad that if anyone could come he was one that could.

Thanks again to everyone who spoke to me, introduced themselves to me, played against me, with me, gave me a present, gave me a handshake.
Conrad for some of his lush Chinese rice during the last round of the Saturday.

My team, Ben, Mike (who got a promotion, whatever that would be in my team) and Bruno (the "employee of the month), I couldn't really have asked for a better group of lads to represent the #SimeTime name and I'm glad that although MCC was not really about winning or losing we got results that represented the strong bond we had.

MCC was an incredible experience, as dramatic as it sounds for me it was life changing, if you read this and groan then fine, but it was important on a lot of levels and I would never give up that weekend, it's memories or the impact it has had on me personally for anything.

Love this community and I cannot wait to hopefully get a ticket to "Mystery of the Tyrant's Heart" aka #MoTH next year.

Thank you to anyone who got through all four parts of this huge adventure and I hope you continue reading all these rambles I write.

Fin.

-Ben (@Psientologist)