Dark Debts (actually painted)

A while ago I decided that while embarking on doing Marcus for the original #ToMB that I would also do Jakob Lynch as Ten Thunders.

I played a fair few games and documented the results, with a few battle reports that can be found on this blog.

The thing is, I built some stuff, but I never bothered to paint it. #ToMB2 however has reignited my painting fire so I decided now would be as good a time as any to go back and actually paint this set.

Jakob followed the paint scheme I decided I would do back when I wrote the #ToMB article way back when. A dapper grey suit with (Neverborn) purple tint along with the (Ten Thunder) Orange under items.

I'm still considering doing his ghostly friend, especially as he'll be emerging from the filthy water as such.

Hungering Darkness. I had a lot of ideas for this guy, at one stage luminous orange was what I was going to go for, but I thought using the purple would be a far superior way to paint "Darkness" as such.

The base and conversion wasn't done by me, this crew I did get second hand from Dom Hook (@snoopdom) and he did a very good job of Huggy phasing through this statue.

Luckily the statue among street basing, or park basing with my #ToMB2 stuff goes together quite well.

Also, I think this is my first attempt at painting bird poo.

This hobby hey.

Next the first of the Illuminated, keeping the grey, orange and purple scheme and screaming out at the dark waters. Also, glowy eyes of POWAH.

Next the lady Illuminated, I'm happy with her hair but I absolutely buggered up her face.

Luckily, it's already kind of buggered with the scary mouth so that's fine.

A bit lighter than the others, I'd pretend that was on purpose... but it wasn't

Lastly, the Illuminated who is particularly offensive looking and has a mini-huggy on his head.

The wash went shiny on this guy, I considered fixing it but it just made him look sweaty which works.

Hard to see due to the leaves, but he is wearing classic red Dr Martins, kind of.

"Everyone say 'Brilliance'!"

Cheers peoples

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 1

What have I done?

That is right I have decided to do possibly my least favourite Master for my Tale of Malifaux Bloggers.

No I don't think she is good. Yes I still love Mei Feng. And No, no way is Misaki as good.

Now that is out of the way...

Why?

To answer this is to delve into the mind of a madman, maybe it's like the quote in Attack on Titan "To rise above monsters, we have to abandon our humanity". In this case the monsters are the "people" who think Misaki is remotely good.

Maybe I plan to take her, play and lose a lot and then report "see, she is well rubs".

To be honest though, none of these are the reasons why.

First of all it's because regardless how poor she is she is still a Ten Thunder, I own all the plastics for the Thunders and outside of the Foundry I have painted none of it.

If I did not do Misaki for my Tale I don't know why I would ever bother to paint her.

Secondly, the model is all right. I still think Misaki looks good, though it's more the crew box, however I don't rate any single part of it I still think the models are great and deserve a decent paint job, or at least a paint job I can do.

Lastly. It's funny isn't it, to watch me suffer. Right?

What's the plan?

The Thunder box is the start I will have, being an older plastic box it actually leaves me with a bit more cash to spend than most others.

At this point I am not completely decided on whether I will actually do Misaki as Thunders or go for Outcasts.

Thunders Pros:

• I already own a lot of Thunders
• After this project they can be used with other masters I own
• Ninjas are cool
• Ten Thunders are one of my favourite factions
• Lots of plastics

Outcasts Pros:

• Lots of cool new plastics
• Mercenaries are good for the future
• Some things are dual faction
• Puts me more in the role of what ToMB is about
• I own a couple of Outcasts already

Due to the fact I am so uncertain as to going Thunders or Outcasts I have a few options to go with:

• Yamaziko
• Oiran
• Ama No Zako

These three are available for hire by Misaki regardless of faction at no extra cost, this means either way I decide to go painting them isn't completely pointless.

We will return to my decision in a bit.

Time for some painting.

Get some paint on it.

So with the Thunder box built, something not quite as difficult as people make out but not a "beginner friendly" box to say the least.

Starting with the Torakage I had to decide what style I wanted to go for.

I was not up for the classic Yellow but I did want to implement orange as the faction colour somewhere on the model.

However Ninja's should not wear Orange suits in my opinion and as a side note I do not like Naruto for those who care.

As always I look at video games for theme ideas. Really I wanted to stay dark like a ninja "should" be.

So I went to Ninja Gaiden for inspiration.

The original Xbox game of this was one my favourite games (probably in my top 5 for that console) and it always springs to mind.

What Ryu Hayabusa the protagonist wears in this game though, black and metallic may look cool but I wasn't feeling it, especially for painting.

This meant I leaned on what Ryu once wore, in "Shadow Warriors" over here.

Blue.

I would use blue but keep it dark, looking at blue I did start also considering Strider another fantastic video game and character, but maybe another day for him.

Hayabusa (he's also in the Dead or Alive games) has even worn the blue costume as an alternative.

Even Yaiba from the recent (not very good) game wears blue.

This was more like it, I could keep the blue dark, and have patches of black, it would dark and stealthy but not impossible to see.

I took some "artistic license" in the fact I didn't want the red or to have it on the arms and the orange implementation would be the masks.

I will also admit to taking a lot of inspiration from Mako's Thunder crew, check it here.

Ototo would follow this colour scheme too, however his hair was something I deliberated over for a while white felt striking and would tie into some other ideas I had.

You may notice only two Torakage have been painted, am I cheating, skipping on the third.

No, as I have done with other sets of three in the past the third I had decided to play around with doing another scheme, another Video Game ninja.

Shinobi.

More specifically "Revenge of Shinobi" the classic Mega Drive game was my inspiration.

White and red, not particularly stealthy but a striking colour scheme

Looking through images of the original sprites and some images from the newer games I figured I'd do red arms, red scarf (like the PS2 game) and yellow for the mask, mimicking gold ( like Shinobi on the 3DS).

This lead me into Misaki.

I will admit I did enjoy painting parts of this model, but I am not keen on the pose whatsoever.

For Misaki I wanted her to stand out amongst the crowd and having the plan for her totem in mind and just painting the Shinobi Torakage I knew what I wanted to do.

Oops, I still need to sort out that foot. Awkward.

White costume, orange bits and the blue on anywhere else that needed a third colour.
I think she came out fine in the end but she may be the one I am least happy with.
I just hate her I guess.

Lastly, the worst totem in the game?
Shang. Clearly a Kitsune from Japanese folklore is a very cool model, the nine-tail fox would make you suspect me to lean on Pokemon.

Not this time, I have gone for an all time favourite of mine.
Amaterasu of the PS2 game; Okami.

Now I will admit I am not the first person to have done this. Good friend of mine Chris Tomlin of The Black Sun Podcast has done the exact same thing for his Nippon army project.

Check out Chris' and many other awesome Warhammer projects here.

Simply, paint Shang White, keep the recesses extremely black to emulate Okami's sumi-e ink painting style.
Then try to copy the red markings.

I did hope to make Amaterasu's weapon, but nothing I made myself really fit the bill.

The "Little" Extra

Going back to my choice of additional box to purchase, my decision was actually made fairly quick.

Oiran I think are mostly poor and I didn't know really if I'd have the time to paint three extra models.

Yamaziko, I like this model a lot, in game I feel she has some uses but after painting The Thunder I didn't feel this would be interesting enough for me to see it through.

This left me Ama No Zako.

When delving into Ama I searched the Internet as I usually do for inspiration, nothing really popped out to me and I was pretty sure I wanted orange or yellow on the model again.

In my head I bounced around ideas for Orange skin rather than the red most do.

However when researching the Amanozako from Japanese mythology, I never saw a real reason why she would be red.

Also reading that one translation was "Tengu Deity" made me consider that Ama's skin would be something I'd consider painting the feathery Tengu models whenever they were released.

As is the case with a lot of models, I just got out my brushes and paints and went at it.

In the end the darker Blue (though lighter in this case) would be Ama's secondary colour and I ended up going for a grey flesh.

Once mostly finished I realised that the colour scheme I had done on Ama was very similar to a popular Anime series main protagonists outfit.

This did help me decide Ama's hair should just be black all though I was told by Aaron to go for Super Saiyan hair.

Even though in this form Goku would have normal eyes I wanted to do the glowy effect which I had first tried on my Rogue Necromancy on Ama.

Although Dragon Ball fans may have said to do it teal like the eyes of SSJ2 Goku (that's like a level 2 power up for non-fans) I went for yellow. I wanted the Outcast colour somewhere.

As seen here on Kid Goku, a lot of the time Goku has some Kanji on him, as do many other characters.

Sometimes it's on the back but I wanted to do a chest logo and gave it a go.

The Kanji I went for was "Oni". Amanozako is three characters so this felt the most appropriate.

The final touch was Ama's lantern, which I've not glued down as I'm still unsure she looks better with it, for this, I made it resemble a Dragon Ball itself.

The first two stars I painted I felt came out well, the third, bottom left, came out a bit chubby.

All about That Base

For basing I decided to keep away from the traditional, "let's make Thunders have really Oriental basing".

After all, these lot are infiltrating Malifaux, not earthside in the Three Kingdoms.

On top of this, it wouldn't be best going with extremely Oriental basing if I was doing Outcasts necessarily.

In the end I made my own bases.
This was my first attempt at doing bricks/ paved bases simply using green stuff, a modelling knife to make the pattern and then, just paint it.

I could add to these, maybe a some tufts, but I have had something I haven't used for years begging to go on some bases.

Fallen leaves. Element do have these but are out of stock. 

Mine I have had for almost a decade so I cannot begin to remember where I got them from.

Probably off of Mike Asquith (@moustache_rides) to be honest.

This would be the equivalent to how you may place tufts or clumps of static grass.

Simply it breaks up areas, but makes a lot more sense on a street that grass growth (not that that could not happen).

Overall the leaves would big in small patches but also drift onto curbs as they do.

You may have noticed in the end I didn't simply just keep the basing just paved, I also went for near by "gardens" or "parks" to give that real feel of the ninjas sneaking in.

That's Month 1

Well I hope it was worth my pain painting the worst master in the game and possibly the weakest starter box.

Overall I'm happy with the models however so I am happy this Tale has gotten me to do so.

Strangely, it's re-lit my painting fire and I've done the entire Dark Debts box I should've done during the original #ToMB, so if you enjoyed this I shall be posting them up soon too.

Also please note, if some of this blog seems disorganised or the pictures and text are different that is simply because I started this before finishing the painting (stupid I know).

Byeee

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 Bound by Law (Martin) Month 1, Part 1

ToMB2 – Month 1 Progress Report

A brief update on how I’m getting on.

I assembled and undercoated the Lucius Crew box and the Doppelganger in a single evening, yay!

As you can see, only two of the models ended up on the ‘butterfly’ bases; The Scribe and Lucius himself. I decided on this for a couple of reasons; firstly, I wanted the models to be interchangeable between crews, so wanted something more generic for them and ended up going with some Microart Cobblestone bases that I acquired a while ago. Secondly, I felt limiting the butterfly bases to Lucius and his totem, it would help them to stand out on the tabletop.

I’ve already started painting the models and I will be putting up another post soon with progress. I’ve yet to play a game with the crew but I am hoping to do so very soon! In the meantime, I have already started looking forward to what my next purchases are for the crew. I’ll finish then with a few thoughts on this.

If I stick with Lucius as a Guild Master, Guild Riflemen are high on the wants list. Their abilities fit well with Lucius and Dashel, so I’m keen to find out what they can do. I’m also looking at Austrigners, Guardians, Pathfinders and Guild Hounds, as they are all Guardsman and would similarly benefit from Lucius presence in the field. I also really like the look of a Guardian. It’s not a Guardsman but it is a Minion and is Immune to Horror Duels, so would be able to benefit from Lucius’ Commanding Presence without any drawback.

Moving in to the Neverborn side, things are a little less straightforward. I think a lot of the models normally found in a Jakob Lynch crew (Mr Graves, Mr Tannen, Illuminated and Beckoners) would all bring something of value to Lucius, especially the last two of these. I also have had some thoughts around Candy, Kade, Nekima and the Hooded Rider but these synergise less for the most part than minion models. I have found a couple of combos that I really want to try out in Neverborn though, so stay tuned for more on that in the future.

That’s all for now. There will be another update within a week though, so don’t touch that dial!

- Martin (@MartinWodehouse)

The League of Extraordinary Henchman (Sunday)

LoEH: Let them Fight Again (and add a dash of top level)

Previously in Tournament Reports. 

"Final round of the day and I was one of the few people who was left yet to lose."

...

"Well while the top players were busy I almost snuck in a tournament victory, I was very happy with this result, especially as I didn't expect much from this event, really thinking it would be a warm up."

...

"This is the "Worst SMP" shirt, the forfeit for coming the lowest at an event (with at least three of us participating).

It's yellow as a dig at one of the original Malifaux teams, "The Tractor Massive"..."

The Night before

Typically in these reports I would write about the journey up maybe preparation. Well I was already here as you may have seen by the fact there is a blog with an almost identical title.

I left the last report off from the results, but we didn't go home. We all went for an awesome meal.

Thanks to Joel Henry for organising this at the last second! Without him doing so I'm not sure the weekend would have been anywhere near as good.

Food and Drink

Thanks again to Joe Wood, Aaron, Conor Rooney, Philippa and myself all got a lift to the Brewers Fayre which was attached to a hotel some of the attendees were staying in.

We were there earliest, but I was happy to get some drinks down me, especially as my throat was (and still is) feeling worse for ware.

Eventually others started turning up, Joel being one of the first and then the rest of the Masters and LoEH attendees (and organisers) which were going to be taking part in Sunday's gaming.

The rest of SMP turned up and Aaron and I had got a table for six for us all to sit at.

At first I kind of felt bad for doing this, I wanted to chat with different people but it just felt right being sat with the team, especially as I needed Aaron to pay for my dinner (and pay him back later).

Drinks were not the cheapest but the bar had Rekorderlig, a favourite brand of cider of mine. More excitingly for me they had the "Winter Cider".
Wanted some at Christmas and couldn't get any. Apple, Cinnamon and Vanilla!

I have to thank the "two Mike Marshalls" English Mike Marshall for buying me a drink and Mike Marchal aka "Le Jerk" for offering me one. Never met the guy until that day, lovely bloke, want a gent.

Prior to this SMP gorged themselves as did many others and it was funny to see that a lot of the typical groups/teams did do a similar thing with seating.

Once Aaron and I demolished a sharer and both had our Lamb Shanks we chatted more and people just started to mingle.

I sat with Blutac, Mark Byrne and Mike Marchal for a bit.

Maria, John Wharton and Mark Byrne (he was getting everywhere) were at our original table for a while.

I even sat with Mike Marshall, Greg, Conor, Connor... the list goes on.

Basically everyone got up and swapped about, the definition of mingling and it was great catching up, sharing stories and generally having a lot of laughs with a lot of fantastic people.

If I didn't mention you, I obviously hate you...


...or just haven't remembered while typing, you decide.

And who is David Golden?

Supposedly there was a Pyjama Party afterwards. Originally set up by I believe, Aaron, Maria, Mark Byrne and myself... however when Oz, Aaron and I went back to our room, we chilled out and Aaron almost instantly fell asleep cuddling his bed cover.

I should've taken a photo!

Sunday Morning

After round two of Austin's snoring we were up again in a similar fashion to the day before.

Another lift from Joe Wood even though he didn't have to be there as early, making it out of the Master's Group Stage, we got there in good time, hauling a little more as we would not return to the hotel again.

We all signed up, got our new pack and had 32 people for the Sunday tournament as some of the people who didn't make the second day of Masters would join us.

Blutac, John, Maria, Rob, Doxey, Scott and David "who?" Golden would spice this tournament up a treat.

Round 1

I would be up against the lovely Nathan Chenery.
Him and his Yorkfaux team were all in shirts over the weekend which was cool and it was good to see Nathan again as we got to play at M2GT.

He was running Outcasts again as before, this time with his old 1.5 love Hamelin:

• Stake a Claim, Flank Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Distract
• Protect Territory
• Frame for Murder
• Plant Evidence

My crew was:

• Marcus
• Arcane Reservoir, Trail of the Gods, Feral Instincts
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• Soulstone Miner
• 2 Silurids
• Moleman
• 4 Soulstone Cache

Nathan's Crew was something like:

• Hamelin 
• Sewer King, The Piper
•  The Stolen 
• Ama No Zako 
•  Oath Keeper 
• 2 Crooligans
• Malifaux Rat 
• Nix 
•  Oath Keeper
• Obedient Wretch
• Rat Catcher
• Soulstone Cache and possibly another upgrade.

Still feeling quite tired and a little rough I opted to not on pick exactly the same crew I played against Nathan with last time but schemes that were practically the same; Protect Territory and Plant Evidence announced.

Nathan also announced Plant Evidence but kept his other scheme hidden.
He may have gone for Distract, but the more likely one felt like making one the Crooligans a "sucker".

The game started with me trying to avoid Nix and Ama and target the Crooligans which Nathan had deployed in the opposite corners to our deployment zones (inside my half).

Even though I did think Nathan might have Frame for Murder on one I wanted to get rid of them as soon as.
My crew was built to dominate this strategy and the only way I could see losing it would be due to creepy undead children.

Mechanical Rider went after one and took a shot, failing to kill it. The other was hunted by a fully powered up Marcus, having the right amount of movement, AP and damage to one shot the lost.
I was worried at this point that I would be quickly giving Nathan 3VP but I believed it worth while.

On top of this the two Silurids bounced forwards keeping to cover, one dropping a marker for my single Moleman to snap to.

Myranda shot up the board and transformed into a Sabertooth Cerberus straight away, this had me in range to Leap with the mask in hand and a high tome (and another thanks to Energies) and attack the Ratcatcher. I didn't know much about these guys but I was certain they had a "don't mind me" type ability and were reasonably key to the Hamelin crew.

Between all this, many Rats were thrown and summoned and Nathan was already starting to generate Rat Kings. Hamelin was commanding things into position with Obey which I soon realised would give him the speed to possibly keep up with me on Strategy.

Marcus battered the Crooligan and it wasn't a "sucker", perhaps the other was, I was relieved that at worst I was giving Nathan 2VP now.

The cat with extra cards made quick work of the Ratcatcher and I was very far ahead straight off the bat.

In the end the Miner appeared to have a charge on the second zombie child as Ama seemed to have her sights on my Rider.

The second turn the Miner immediately killed the Crooligan and... no scheme reveal. I was now confident that I would have to mess up bad to lose, but still puzzled as to what that second scheme was.

The Cerberus carried on it's rampage as did Marcus, going for the Wretch I believe.

Silurids kept to cover and placed markers.

Ama locked up with the Mechanical Rider who didn't have the card (or luck) to Revel in Creation, halting me a little and not allowing me to make another model.

This fight wasn't all bad though as it gave a Silurid a chance to escape but was very cautious about Nix who had gobbled up the Moleman.

As the game went on Rats would be made and Nathan would have two Rat Kings which would be off trying to place markers. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't keep up with the swampfiends and the Wk8 Marcus.

As the game moved on the Rider also escaped the clutches of the Oni to fully lock up all the schemes, while the Miner locked up with Nix to give my other stuff a safe exit.

In the end Leap would win me this game handily.
I locked up all my points and Nathan only got his announced Plant Evidence.

Win 9-3

We didn't quite get turn 5 in, which did mean I lost out on a VP but I wasn't going to complain.

In the end it turned out Ama had Frame for Murder which Nathan said he immediately realised it was a mistake and admitted to then bluff he had it on the Crooligan that he originally considered to make the "Sucker".
That one decision was big, not only did he not get 3VP from Marcus killing the Crooligan but Nathan could've spent more time Obey'ing Ama No Zako to be in position to place claim markers.

Round 2

The problem with winning big first round, as I discovered at Malifolk 3 is that leaping to table 1 means someone mean is there waiting to knock you straight back down.

The "meanie" this time would be John Wharton who you may remember completely and utterly destroyed me at M2GT. I knew this game couldn't be any worse for than that but I was not feeling confident.

John was using the Viks as usual and would be all day as he loves them.
Strategy and scheme wise:

• Guard the Stash, Standard Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Breakthrough
• Protect Territory
• Cursed Object
• Spring the Trap

My crew was:

• Ramos
• Arcane Reservoir
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• Soulstone Miner
• 2 December Acolytes
• Electrical Creation
• 5 Soulstone Cache

John's Crew was something like:

• Viktoria of Ashes
• Viktoria of Blood
• Vanessa
• Malifaux Child
• Freikorps Librarian
• 2 Freikorps Trappers
• Strongarm Suit
• Soulstone Cache and filthy upgrades

John's crew was near-identical to the time I faced him before, just a Strongarm Suit rather than Lazarus.

My crew, I really don't know.
I was flustered, I knew the type of crew I wanted, I knew I'd want ways to deal with Trappers, ways of sneaking scheme markers about. Basically all but the Leader.

Mei Feng and Vent Steam would be good against the early ranged attacks, also her rapid small attack style could work out OK against the Hard to Kill master.

Marcus was quick, he could take a Vik due to 4AP of melee attacks also, it also meant I could actually get in Silurids, good for pretty much all the schemes.

Ramos, he makes spiders and that helps activation control and also opens up Cursed Object to be more viable as well as go score strategy.

Overall it's like Turf War, I don't think there are many masters that particularly excel at this strategy over others, and only playing it once I ended up leading on Viktor and his arachnids as I had won at this strategy before.

I apologise to John because I took ages deciding and I was racking my brain through out whether it was correct or not...

...Ramos did not help me feel I was right.

First turn even after using a soulstone to help shape my hand the best card I had was an eight which was not a tome.
I was unable to make arachnids with what I had and after a little movement from the both of us and the usual magnetising of the electrical creation I opted to use a stone to make a single arachnid.

I Black Jokered.

I'm pretty sure that John is just a bad luck charm for me. A shame as ignoring the craziness of variance when I play him the games are great, he's bouncy, excitable and a great laugh.
He even gave a replacement dry marker. Top bloke.

Game wise I tried to refuse one flank and was going to spam the other Stash marker with arachnids late in the turn, with no Spider engine and the Mechanical Rider making a Metal Gamin and fleeing this was never going to happen in this game.

Myranda did a top job of sneaking up the board, becoming a killer kitty and maiming a trapper but it was all too late.
John had locked most bits up and I was lucky to lock up one scheme. With more time the lone Cerberus may've been able to score both.

Vanessa had the Soulstone Miner locked down, I was never scoring Strategy and John had his schemes locked in which were Breakthrough and Protect Territory just like mine.

My time at table 1 was shorter this day and overall Sunday was already proving worse than Saturday results wise.

Loss 3-8

Still need to get my head around this Strategy and I still need to get a real game in with John, though I was thankful this was a lot closer. Again, top bloke, ace opponent and rightfully so that the "aggressive" Masters competitor would keep me off the top.

Time for lunch.

Nom Nom Nom

Not much to report, it was pretty much the same as the day before just with me grabbing a bit more for the journey home.

Joel's son's cakes were still on sale which does deserve another shout out and we were all happy to know that Ben Crowe was in the semi-finals.

Round 3

Back from lunch and I was up against friend of SMP James Reeves.

James was running Levi who is quite a scary master but I was feeling confident about the Strategy and Scheme pool:

• Squatter's Rights, Standard Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Assassinate
• Bodyguard
• Vendetta
• Murder Protege

I would be bringing out Marcus again and took the same crew for the strategy as the day before:

• Marcus
• Trail of the Gods, Arcane Reservoir, Feral Instincts
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• 2 Silurids
• 2 Molemen
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• 6 Soulstone Cache

James' Crew was something like:

• Leveticus
• Rusty Alyce
• Taelor
• Flesh Construct
• Johanna
• 2 Hollow Waifs
• 2 Necro Punks
• Soulstone Cache and upgrades

James kept both of his schemes secret and although Bodyguard was in the pool I suspected the killing schemes as Leveticus is all about "deleting" units.

I announced A Line in the Sand, I felt I should be on the markers faster than James and would be "defending" as such.
The other scheme I took was the less than fancy Bodyguard on Mechanical Rider.

Early doors sees me setting up Leap and Moleman teleports where James uses Rusty Alyce to give Reactivate the Necro Punks. This was pretty cool and the first time I had seen this, never seeing Alyce on the table before.

Mechanical Rider snuck around one flank to start firing at a very far forward Punk, hoping to get a Tome to put down an early scheme marker.

Now where as the reactivating punk trick was smart, I just took the opportunity to kill both, possibly within the first turn and certainly by the second.

After some of the hammer wielding ladies moving forwards it was clear the Strategy at least would go as expected. Me, trying to undo what the Necros had done and hold the line.

As the game moved on it was very clear James had Assassinate and in a way this at least helped because it kept my Mechanical Rider from being the only target.

A key point in the game was Alyce giving Marcus slow, I was not too bothered about this and due to the lack of Tomes in my hand it all but made my decision on what Marcus would be doing.

Alpha time. Marcus could see Johanna and I had some horrible memories of my Octoberfaux game against Crowe.
I would turn the mercenary into a Beast and make sure this time to Alpha first. I had the cards and with only 2AP and Instinctual 0s this was easily the beast course of action.
All went off with no Black Jokers in sight and I also Chaunted at her so she was now more vulnerable but also more deadly.
Johanna moved and smashed up the Flesh Construct.

This was enough to almost allow a heroic kill from a Moleman who Red Joker'd a Damage flip against the monster but failed to hit the second time and finish it off.

Eventually Marcus would be defeated, but not before the Cerberus would kill Rusty Alyce and he would Alpha Johanna to finish of the Flesh Construct.

I had secured the Squatter's markers for all the turns we could score them and I started to place schemes.

Interference from the enemy leader himself halted my progress as well as trying to space them out.
The Outcast Master also took action against the Rider who decided to flee, this meant unfortunately only 1VP for Bodyguard due to time but that was enough to keep me ahead.
The Line in the Sand just pushed it further.

Win 5-3

James is a great opponent, his crew was beautiful and he is hilarious.
I hope this doesn't come across as cocky but I just had a plan that I stuck to and it succeeded.

Maybe James could've gone for Strategy harder but I guess Marcus refusing to die did not help.

During this game, Ben Crowe passed me, he didn't seem positive about how his game was going and that the best he would get was a draw. Being against Greg who had done better on the first day of the Masters this would mean Ben wouldn't make the finals and the dream would end there.

As we were tidying away preparing for the final round of the weekend Mike made his announcement.

"First Masters finalist... Ant Hoult"

a small pause and another announcement "and Ant's opponent in the finals..."

"Greg, Greg, I know it's Greg" I said to myself.

"Ben Crowe!"

Awesome, I was glad that Ben was wrong and had turned out he got a sneaky Take Prisoner for the win.
The self proclaimed King of the South would be in the finals of the masters.
None of SMP would be winning the side-event we were all in but I would hope to at least go 3-1 again like the day before.

Round 4

Last round of the day and would turn out to be one of my favourites of the weekend.

I would be up against the previous days "silver medalist" Graham Allington 

• Extraction, Corner Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Distract
• Bodyguard
• Entourage
• Plant Explosives

Graham was also an avid Arcanist player, I saw him fielding Ramos the day before and quite likely was doing so again. Ramos is a legitimate Master for the Strategy and the Scheme pool was good for him too. Distract is nice for a master who should have activation control as is Plant Explosives, also with models like Joss being a usual Ramos pick Bodyguard is also fairly decent.

I could've had this as a true mirror, but I had what I believed was the mirror-breaker.
Mei Feng...

...well Kang

• Mei Feng
• Seismic Claws, Arcane Reservoir, Vapormancy
• Joss
• Imbued Energies
• Kang
• Imbued Energies
• 2 December Acolytes
• 2 Metal Gamin
• 6 Soulstone Cache

Graham's Crew was:

• Ramos
•  Arcane Reservoir, Bleeding Edge Tech, Electric Summoning
• Electrical Creation
• December Acolyte 
• Howard Langston
• Imbued Energies
• Joss
• Imbued Energies
• Metal Gamin
• Steam Arachnid

Both of Graham's schemes were hidden, this had me considering three schemes he could have as they would all be decent choices.

I declared Entourage with Mei Feng, keeping my other scheme of Bodyguard on Joss hidden.

I started off with an early advantage, winning the flip for deployment and initiative had Graham place his Acolyte first so my two joined her in combat.

The position of the Acolytes was good for me, not only should two beat one, but they had a good view of the Informant Marker and Kang would be able to join them to give out the positives against the constructs.

Graham took his first turn using Joss to make scrap and Ramos making a pair of Arachnids and healing them through regeneration.

My crew did it's first turn thing of making stepping stones for Mei Feng to Railwalk off of and set up a Vent Steam.

One of my metal gamin scouted around the side who had Graham send Langston his way to him down.

As the game moved on I started to think that maybe Graham had Bodyguard on his Joss too, his was holding back and firing a lot more, so that made me decide that Mei's route would go through him and off she went.

Spiders continued to crawl out of Scrap as Kang started smashing through things and the Acolytes had both survived taking out Graham's solo infiltrator so started gunning down Arachnids also.

A few magnetisms were shot about and Howard charged in for a kill on the Metal Gamin.
Graham opted to not use his Imbued Energies, however he could've used that extra AP leaving the tough little minion on a single wound.
At this time I took an opportunity, a slightly calculated risk.

Joss used his energies, to take down Langston. This would be risky as if he fought back he could kill Joss and deny me 3VP.
Luckily for me though Joss' axe was handy enough to carve through Howard, giving Graham four extra cards but one less scary Enforcer.

Positioning was good now, there was not much that threatened my Joss.
Mei Feng was dealing with Graham's Joss with a little help to Kang and we were both scoring strategy points.

As we moved on through the second turn though Graham had Distracted some units, Joss included and now I was guessing between the other schemes.

Eventually the scheme was revealed as the many arachnids placed some markers along with their battered Metal Gamin friend and that was enough to explode into 3VP for Graham.

It now seemed that Mei Feng was pointlessly risking herself but all was going well.

As the game moved on we both continued scoring strategy, but the difference between this and the vanilla turf war would come into play as the many many spiders would allow Graham to shift it.
Eventually enough spiders would surround Kang that he had no room to move or smash his way through as the Informant would move away.

Thankfully a few triggers from the Acolytes allowed me to push models with the area to continue scoring.

Once Bodyguard was revealed Joss had become a target, for two reasons.
Denial of the scheme but also strategy.

I looked at the table, I couldn't stop Distract and there was no way I could hold enough models out of the scoring area to keep Graham off the 10VP.

Mei escaped and hid in the corner amongst some steam and at this point I thought I would end the day with a draw.

However, with Graham's attention turned to Joss it was possible he would seize a 10-8.
Luckily for me an Electric Creation and Arachnid that started a fight with Joss did so in the wrong order. The electric touch happened first, giving Joss reactivate and enough AP to smash an Arachnid, which laughably Joss had been having a hard time doing in earlier turns. Maybe he only would kill large arachnids.

Whilst Joss survived and was the second model needed for strategy his lack of wounds would keep me off the vital third Bodyguard point and that would be a loss for me.

Loss 10-9

This game was awesome fun, Graham was a great opponent and the fact we both knew each others crews so well meant the game had a lot more time thinking about tactics rather than rules confirmations.

In the end I had "the mirror-breaker" but Graham's crew was probably better for the Scheme pool and quite possibly for the strategy considering how it is different to Turf War.

I think I made a couple of mistakes during the game but overall I think the arachnid swarm was the true mirror-breaker.

Results

In the end I would finish a very mediocre 16th place.

Aaron repeated the previous days placing of 17th.

None of SMP would do much better with Jake getting 23rd

and Austin would keep a hold of the yellow shirt in 24th

Jake was so close to wearing it.

We didn't go away empty handed though as Aaron won Best Painted:

John Wharton was just kept off the podium as it was:

Paul Butler in 3rd

Andy Winton is 2nd

Martin Jones as the Winner

An unexpected result before the day started with no masters competitors on the podium and Martin going from 23/30 one day to 1/32 the next.

Congratulations to him and Yorkfaux.

Conclusion 

This weekend was another corker and due to great Saturday night and I guess my strong result on the first day as well as Ben making (but unfortunately not winning) the Masters finals it was one of the best I have had. Possibly better than the GT itself.

Every opponent was great and it was awesome to meet new people as well as play them.

Thanks again to Mike, Lee and Joel again, to SMP and pretty much everyone who attended.

Long Journey home

Thankfully for Aaron and I, Mark Elwood was nice enough to give us a lift to the train station.

It was super cold, but we had plenty to chat about while waiting for and riding the trains.

Our journey was a long one, a late train to London and over an hour wait there until we could leave for Poole.

Though I had an amazing Burrito so it's not all bad.

Eventually we got on the (much nicer) South West train, with a chance to charge our phones and eventually be home.

It was Monday morning, gone 2am but it was worth it and however much I was happy to be home I was already thinking about my next event.

Malifaux hey? It's pretty good.

- Ben (@psientologist)