#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 3

A Big Month

In the last blog I spoke about how I had a small month with just Yamaziko, so that I could afford a large month with an extra crew box.

Why another box?

Malifaux's crew boxes are designed to be a good gateway into the game, typically this means you are getting a "bulk discount" as opposed to buying smaller boxes.

With a lot of this year seeing me catch up on painting my other Ten Thunders I decided that it was definitely time to go Outcasts with Misaki and that the more mercenaries the better as let's be honest, I'm an Arcanist at heart.

Month 3 (£15+£18.87) £33.87 :

• Hired Guns - £28.89 from Element Games

Total Spending: £28.89 

Money remaining: £4.98

Even with a new crew box I had basically a fiver extra going into the final month so the future still held a few choices.

Let's keep to the present though.
Hired Guns (which is the Von Schill box) was actually my second choice, initially Hired Swords was where I wanted to go as all bar the Master and Henchman in the box would be useful.
More minions in the Ronin, a better totem and the good old hammer wielding Taelor.

Still that box has seemingly never been in stock when I wanted it, which is a pain so I swapped swords for guns.

Hired Guns

Well I guess while I go through what the box has added to my crew I can start showing the painting which I've completed.

Freikorpsmen 

I may have missed out on Ronin, but Freikorpsmann are a great 5ss minion.

Not as tough as a Railworker trading Hard to Kill for an extra wound, but a lot faster with Wk5 and Unimpeded.

In a fight these guys can be fairly lethal thank to their (0) Reference the Field Guide discarding a card to get the suit allows both their knife and pistol to be powered up for Critical Stike, the Hunting Knife in particular going up to 2/4/5 and possibly 3/5/6 is scary out of such a low cost model.

The other triggers are defensive, either holding ground with some extra Df or pushing away, overall, there is a lot of play in these little guys.

Freikorps Librarian

The Librarian is an interesting model which I have seen on the field plenty of times.
Her stat line is a little weak for a 7ss Enforcer but where I see her aiding the crew is by keeping Misaki alive whilst giving some ranged support.

Furious Casting does allow for the Librarian to go on the offence, three lots of damage which can potentially pick me up some more cards with Surge or blast the enemy to smithereens is very handy and if Misaki is in the thick of it and needs a lifeline then I can always do a couple of Healing Energies.
Not the most efficient needing sevens to cast and only healing 1/2/3, but this can still help, especially for anyone with Hard to Kill.

Freikorps Trapper

For a time this was public enemy number one when it came to "filth choices".

A focused Trapper is able to fire 28" and with the built in positive flip is virtually ignoring cover.

The bullet can be dodged with only a Sh of 5 but this model is fantastic at sniping out those key weaker models early and Critical Strike can allow for that tasty 6 damage which is useful against so many opponents.

Freikorps Specialist

What's not to love about a guy with a flame-thrower, or even cooler the German Flammenwerfer?

8ss is a cost, but the specialist does have a multitude of roles.

The front of it's card has Clear the Area on top of the typical Freikorps bits and a rule for a explosive death, what this does is, with no cards having to be flipped, allow the Specialists to remove all corpse and scrap markers with 4" of it and the end of it's activation.

This in itself can be a headache for many Arcanists, Resurrectionists and more if they have to use two activations for summoning shenanigans.

As well as the knife that all the soldiers seem to be equipped with the Flammenwerfer is the other Attack Action the Specialist has and it is a treat.

Sh6 Rg10 with lots of blasts is tasty, ignoring cover which thematically is obvious is also fairly powerful and then there is a whole host of triggers.

First off you can put Burning onto all the enemies damaged by the attack for each Ram and the weapon has one built in.

Secondly if the extra damage potential of Burning was not immediate enough for you a Tome will cause the damaged enemies to take TN12 Horror Duels allowing for multiple models to become Paralyzed

Finally, arguably the most interesting trigger is Wildfire.

Scheme marker need removing? Well with a crow all of them within 4" of the target are gone. This could be a game changer.

Lastly the Specialist also has a tasty Tactical action that can remove Slow and Paralayzed from your crew in a 10" pulse. It does deal a damage to them, but one less wound for an extra turn in the game potentially is quite easily worth it.

Unless they would die of course.

Good Deal

I didn't paint Von Schill and admittedly, because it is sought after I sold him with his totem.

I won't include that in the allowance but it is worth noting.

The Freikorpsmann box is around £12 which means the other three models work out at less than £6 each.

That's roughly about what they cost before when in metal so overall a decent deal.

Remember though, if you can get money for the Master and Totem (though typically I would keep them) that is lowering the cost even more, making the three single models around a couple of quid.

Bargain.

Painting and Basing

The theme for the crew was still meant to be infiltration, Misaki and her friends invading a town or the like and even her Hired Guns would be doing the same.

Recently I have been getting my tufts, including these fantastic flowers from War-painter on ebay

I decided that colour coding my flower beds was something that I would be sad enough to do, recently Graves has had his "buttercups" replaced with "lavender" and in the future McCabe and his friends will have a bunches of "roses" nearby.

My idea for the Freikorps would be that they were not even within the city, but creeping through the fields at night, the Trapper laying in the flower beds taking shots at his prey.

Overall the basing is simple but I really like it.

Colour scheme wise, it was faction colour coordination again.
I wanted to include grey to reflect real life Freikorps and other German military and all though arguably blue bits may've made sense the yellow of Outcasts was too obvious for me.

Also, I quite like the "studio" scheme and mine is just a brightened version. Plus hey, they're hiding in fields of yellow flowers.

The red lenses all got a little gloss too to help the models pop on the table.

Overall painting these guys was enjoyable but it was strange to "batch paint" with Malifaux.

Into the Final Month

Month 4 is the final month for this Tale of Malifaux Bloggers.

With around £20 to spend I will be looking through the plastic outcasts to see what I could get.

I'll leave you with a list of models I'm considering, and if you read this and have a suggestion, why not tell me on twitter or the forums.

• Bishop
• Hannah
• Strongarm
• Convict Gunslingers
• Hans
• Lazarus
• Malifaux Child

Killjoy and Johana have already been painted, those two will also feature some point in the future as a bonus extra.

Thanks for reading.

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 The Thunder (Ben Sime) Month 2

Why am I doing this to myself?

Month 2 for me is seemingly a very simple and small month.
I have painted one single model. I should rephrase that.
I have painted a single model to count towards my Tale.

During this month I have actually painted several models that I could hire with Misaki.
Toshiro, Chiaki, Killjoy and even some Wastrels.

However these don't fit my plan, or at least the one for the near future.

Plan?

It occurs to me that I may not have put up my cash spending total from Month 1.
Remember the limit was £40 for month 1 and £15 for each following.

Month 1 £40:

• The Thunder - £20.40 from Element Games
• Ama No Zako - £9.35 from Element Games

Total Spending: £29.75

Money remaining: £10.25

The advantage of going with Misaki as she was one of the original plastic boxes it is a little less full but a decent amount cheaper. 

Seeing that her crew box only just cost over half my limit it gave me some ideas.

Here is where I reveal my single model. Keeping to the same restrictions of month 1, being able to be either Outcast or Ten Thunder with Misaki.

Month 2 (£15+£10.25) £25.25 :

• Yamaziko - £6.38 from Element Games

Total Spending: £6.38 

Money remaining: £18.87

Yamaziko is a useful piece in Misaki's arsenal, being a Henchman with all that benefit and a 3" melee range she is a decent model for denial.

Thematically she had to be added really, also being one of the few Last Blossom I can hire her regardless of which direction I go with the crew.

You said "plan"?

Going into month 3 I will have £33.87.
This allows me a lot of options but financially one of the best will be to buy another crew box.
Crew boxes tend to be around the £25-30 mark meaning that I should be able to pick any I fancy either based off of what would add the most to Misaki on the tabletop, the aesthetics or most likely a combination of both.

This no only gives me plenty more to add to Misaki's crew but I will still have a little extra going into month 4. 

It's good to have options.

Painting.

Unlike the last month there was no real outside inspiration for how I painted Yamaziko.

The main thing was using a similar palette to the rest of the crew.

As you can see I went for two colours for her clothing.
The colour split is the opposite to Ama No Zako's, not only does this change it up a little but the cloak (which I feel went a little too bright) should be the darker colour to disguise herself, the infiltration theme still in my mind.

Yama like Ama is stepping in from "outside" or gardens into a city, feeling a little less of an "evil" model than the Oni I opted for a lot more flowers on her base.

Her lantern is similar to Ama's though I did not opt to add any stars (maybe I should have).
It is probably the worst part of the model mind you, I'm glad it's behind her.

Weapon wise I aimed for the staff of it to look a little like bamboo, something I have also done on Toshiro (I will endeavour to blog about that painting soon) simply by doing very obvious lines.

Her hair as you can see is white. On the box art she has dark hair and though that could've worked I preferred the idea of white to stress that she is the Kung Fu Grandma but to also reflect the white hair flowing from the back of Ototo's head.

Month 2 done, on to Month 3

Month 3's hand in date will be my Birthday, otherwise known as "Star Wars Day".
May the Fourth.

A crew box is on the cards, but which one?
I will have to decide which way Misaki is really going to go.

Also, painting will be a lot more difficult with Cow Wars 2 on the horizon and wanting to game more than paint.
Still, I managed a crew box+ the first month so I can do it again...

...can't I?

Apologies for the poor photos, they were done quickly on my phone. I hope that next month they will improve.

See ya.

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 Bound by Law (Martin) Month 2

ToMB 2 - Month 2

So month 2 of ToMB and I really struggled to decide what to do next for my Lucius crew. The more I look at his options, the more I think I prefer him as a Neverborn Master rather than a Guild one. The problem with that is that, one of the main things I’d like to take with him are The Illuminated and these are currently only available in the Dark Debts crew box (or build your own from the multi part kits). In the end I decided I would continue with Guild this month with a low spend and save the bulk of the money to see how I feel in month 3 and whether to spend out to get The Illuminated or not.

Therefore, after much procrastinating I finally settled on a Guild Guardian (cost £8.10) just so I can test it out with Lucius’s Commanding Presence Ability. I’ll let you know how it goes. This means that, with the £3.56 left over from month 1, I had £18.56 available and spent £8.10, leaving me with £10.46 to add on to my month 3 total (yay)!

Not much else to say really except that I have played 5 games with Lucius now and feel like I’m starting to get to know him a bit better. He’s not much of a front line Master in terms of what he can dish out but he is quite hard to take down when he is in the thick of things. I think he may be at his best in a ‘Ball of Death’ crew, in a similar way to say Hoffman or Nicodem but this is something that will be played out numerous times before I work out the nuances of it.

Hopefully next month I will have more to show and write about. I’m still aiming to take Lucius to a tournament at some point this year, so keep watching this space to find out how he gets on.

- Martin (@MartinWodehouse)

Gertfaux

Bristol Vanguard's first Malifaux event

Previously in Tournament Reports. 

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

...

"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 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"

The Night before and travelling to Bristol

Liam Hall and his Vanguard are based in Bristol, for those as bad at Geography as me Bristol is about a two hour drive from Poole.
This was amazing.
Not only did it mean the event was a lot cheaper it would be one of the very few times that myself and the Western part of SMP (joined by Mike Asquith) could just leave and return from an event in the same day.

With being so close I stayed at Jan and Aaron's the night before to make lifts easier and got a little practice in, well, a single game of Collect the Bounty which I had not yet played.

I managed to beat Aaron although his deck was his best friend and I felt that I had a decent grip on the Strategy.

Having the schemes and strategies announced prior to the event made for a different and very interesting lead up experience.
Creating a pool knowing exactly what the games would be meant in the end I "reverse engineered" my hundred soul stone list based on 4 lists and a sprinkle of "just in case".

Not sure this is the way to go, I know Ben Crowe for example didn't approve or schemes being revealed a head of time, but I commend Liam for trying it out and it saved me lots of time on the day, only one game did I not get 5 turns in.

Marcus' Pool

As this was a 100ss fixed master pool event I should explain what I took with me here:

• Marcus
• Imbued Energies
• Imbued Protection
• Arcane Reservoir
• The Trail of the Gods
• Feral Instincts
• Seize the Day
• Jackalope
• Myranda
• Mechanical Rider
• Moleman
• 2 Silurids
• 2 Night Terrors
• 2 Canine Remains
• Arcane Effigy
• Johana
• December Acolyte
• Dawn Serpent
• Rogue Necromancy

The list is 100ss, having to pay for mercenary tax but not duplicate upgrades.
Originally I had a single soulstone miner in the list for Stake a Claim, but being Flank deployment it wouldn't prove the best for it.

I would speak about my thought process with lists, but as I took exactly what I expected each round I can do that later. So let's get on with the event.

Round 1

Liam had actually already posted the first round pairings on twitter, the funny thing is I would travel to end up playing the gentleman who was driving me.
Mike Asquith.

Now Mike is fairly new, I was the one who demoed him so all in all this should be an "easy win".
I didn't go in expecting to lose but I knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park.

Mike was fielding Ramos and the Strategy and Schemes were as follows:

• Headhunter, Standard Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Distract
• Cursed Object
• Breakthrough
• Spring the Trap

This was a fantastic scheme pool for Ramos. I also knew that Mike had a pair of Soulstone Miners.

He announced Breakthrough (obviously the Miner's job) and had a hidden scheme. This had to be Distract or Cursed Object in my mind, most likely the latter.

My crew was:

• Marcus
• Arcane Reservoir, Trail of the Gods, Seize the Day
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• Dawn Serpent
• 2 Silurids
• 4 Soulstone Cache

Mike's Crew was something like:

• Ramos
• Arcane Reservoir, Combat Mechanic, Electric Summoning
• Electrical Creation
• Howard Langston
• Imbued Energies
• 3 Metal Gamin
• 2 Soulstone Miners 
• 7 Soulstone Cache

Howard is scary, but was really the only thing I expected would kill any of my crew unless I got aggressive with Silurids.

The only other fear was quadruple magnetism against Mechanical Rider, I knew I would have to deploy on a flank and be prepared to run away if I deployed first.

I had also declared Breakthrough and had a hidden scheme, mine was Spring the Trap.
I knew Ramos could potentially magnetism away, but he would help by killing his crew for me if so, also Ramos is pretty slow other wise and I had the means to keep pumping out markers.

Luckily Mike lost the deployment flip so had spread his gamin out. I deployed Mechanical Rider in some trees opposite Ramos ready to take advantage of the scheme marker dropping trigger from the Chain Spear.

The rest of the crew was in Myranda's defense bubble bar possibly a Silurid on a flank behind some blocking terrain.

Mike had Howard fairly central, and I knew that my best bet would be to bait him into a fight and wipe him out in a single turn.

I set the bait, it was the Dawn Serpent, with Myranda's help and then Alpha too activate again and regain wounds Howard who had blown his energies upgrade turn 1 to get the dragon, he destroyed my hand a bit and I even had to drop stones, but not my models.

Marcus then used the Bear and Snake forms to hit Howard consistently "4 damage" "minus one for armour so 3"... repeat this 4 times, dead Langston.

With Big H being dealt with, Mike's main offense was gone and I knew that meant it would be a lot harder for him to score Strategy points without some trickery.

As the game continued pretty much everything went to plan. Mechanical Rider shot at Ramos to drop two scheme markers while a leaping Silurid dropped the third to score my full Spring the Trap points.

My Beasts continued to smash there way through Mike's tiny constructs, before dying though Mike's arachnids out numbering me were still able to hand over Cursed Objects.
Mike was smart, never wasting AP he had to give more people objects making it impossible for me to completely deny him the scheme and 3VP.
The Sabertooth was embarrassing on one turn as it couldn't kill a Metal Gamin and Marcus with extra combat AP and extra damage also couldn't kill another who was heading towards my deployment for Mike's Breakthrough.

As the game got into turn 4, Mike finally had his two Miners appear. An interesting tactic and one that would definitely give him a great chance to score his Breakthrough.
Mike made a big mistake here though, attempting to avoid Marcus and possibly my Dawn Serpent he put both Miners quite close together.
Mechanical Rider had not used it's Energies yet.
This allowed me to charge and engage both, I however also made a mistake, letting one escape with Mike cheating a Red Joker when I also had one in hand (6 vs 5 on stats). There was nothing else the RJ needed to do and this allowed Mike to secure an extra VP I could have denied him.

With my crew picking apart Mike's and the summoned Gamin all leaving markers behind I secured my full 10 VP. Mike in all the commotion was still able to use Ramos to grab Heads too and got himself a few points, but not enough to tie with me.

Win 10-7

10-7 is a nice win, in a sense I was fairly happy not to smash Mike 10-0 or something, closer games are much more fun and my last round 1 10-0 didn't work out well for me.

Round 2

My next opponent would be the lovely Mr BendyBoards himself, the svelte Lee Battrick:

• Reconnoitre, Corner Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Assassinate
• Bodyguard
• Take Prisoner
• Plant Explosives

My crew was:

• Marcus
• Arcane Reservoir, Seize the Day, The Trail of the Gods
• Jackalope
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• 2 Canine Remains
• 2 Night Terrors
• Moleman
• Arcane Effigy
• 4 Soulstone Cache

Lee's Crew was something like:

• Seamus
• 2 Rotten Belles
• Madame Sybelle
• 2 Necropunks
• Flesh Construct
• 2 Canine Remains
• Soulstones and Upgrades

My crews plan was simple, lot and lots of little beasts to go hide in corners and win Strategy while Mechanical Rider did the same and would be my Bodyguard.

With Lee not having Mad Haberdashery I wrote Assassinate down immediately, Marcus and Myranda (with possibly help from the Jackalope) would fire straight into Lee's crew, carving a path through his models to help me further out number him and eventually kill Seamus.

From my single practice game I realised that the two Canine's should head the same direction, as they would help each other with poison.
The Moleman would follow but stay close to my original quarter and a single Night Terror would threaten Lee's.

A similar contingent headed the other way, dog, Arcane Effigy (doing the same as Moley) a Night Terror and Mechanical Rider acting very cagey.

Myranda though, she acted far from cagey as I ran directly into the centre of the board.
I knew there was a risk and I hoped that Lee would activate Seamus before he did as the main thing I was afraid of was that man's gun.
Still with Df7 and stones I had faith Myranda could survive and that she did.

My Myranda missile was a success and Marcus was able to join in.
Lee used stones and cards to avoid Seamus' death, hoping that some failed Wp duel my side could heal him into a somewhat healthy state.
Unfortunately, a enhanced Marcus and Three-headed Sabertooth Cat are enough to take almost anything down.
It took my entire hand (which the Flesh Construct enjoyed) but I locked in 3 VP for Assassinate and also importantly kept a lot Lee's crew boxed into his corner locking me in VP for Strategy and denying his.

This game, which I was unsure about due to not playing Lee before, Recon without Ramos and Seamus a master I have not faced much meant initially I didn't have faith it would be going this well.

However, this game, it highlighted an important lesson. Have a plan.

This game was going pretty much as well as I could ever hope for, it was "how I wrote it up".

Lee continued to try and push forwards, a canine remain killed by Ramos and another taken by my pack.
The Necropunks pressed forwards but this was not enough and the Jackalope also attempted to run interference.

The Effigy and Moleman did a little dance each turn making sure I held on to VP and the pile of Gamin Mechanical Rider had made kept him surrounded and safe for me to lock in my other scheme.

Sybelle had been fairly useful throughout the game, allowing the Lure of the Belles to be too much and get him his full 3VP for Plant Explosives.
In the final turns of the game she had a good go at Marcus.
With the Rotten Belles even getting their nails in it felt like a last desperate attempt at Assassinate from Lee.

Turn 4, Sybelle engaged with a battered and bruised Marcus. "She'll pass".

Take Prisoner, Lee had tricked me, but not remembering the rules for the full 3VP didn't finish of a single wound Night Terror and only scored 2.

With time not being my friend we didn't get our 5th turn and I couldn't get the full 10 twice in a row.
I had scored as much at the point as I could and though Lee had locked in a similar amount of VP for his schemes I didn't allow him to score a single VP for Recon.

Win 8-5

Outnumbering Lee was the key, and as a funny aside, maybe the only reason Lee and I couldn't fit all five turns in (that and the amount of activations) was originally Lee had only selected and deployed 40ss.
I did think his crew looked small, but I wasn't certain. Lee checked and I obviously allowed him to deploy the extras. A very funny thing to happen, but another reason I tend to use "The Breach" app on my phone as I know I'd end up doing something similar.

Lee was a great opponent and at the time I was meant to have him as my round 1 opponent the following week at Isle of Faux, Spoiler, Lee couldn't come due to other commitments which was a shame but I hope to give him a chance at redemption in the future.

A Huge Pot of Yum

Bristol Independent Gaming was a great venue and lunch was held in what will be the main gaming hall.
This bit was huge and I look forward to what people like Liam will host there in the future.
Lunch was simple yet effective. Chilli Con Carne.

A genius way to fill a big group of gamers belly, a big bowl of tortilla chips a huge vat of tasty chilli and a lovely bowel of grated cheese. Plates, forks, help yourself. Beautiful.

In the hall was also a throne, I had a sit even though I was doubtful I would be King of anything.

Round 3

Back from lunch and time to play a new opponent.
David Edgerton-Smith who would be playing Neverborn:

• Collect the Bounty, Close Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Breakthrough
• Distract
• Vendetta
• Plant Evidence

My crew would be quite different from the last game:

• Marcus
• Arcane Reservoir, Seize the Day, The Trail of the Gods
• Jackalope
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• Rogue Necromancy
• Imbued Protection
• Dawn Serpent
• 4 Soulstone Cache

Unfortunately for me, David wasn't just running Neverborn, the faction I believe I have the least experience against, but he was running the killer Lilith in a killer strategy, something roughly like:

• Lilith
• at least Living Blade
• Cherub
• Terror Tot
• Mature Nephilim
• Retribution's Eye
• Teddy
• 2 Illuminated
• Stones and Upgrades

Hmm, this crew hits as hard as mine and the Rider I had feeling would be targeted by the Mature if I gave David the chance.

Breakthrough was revealed by both of us, with Close deployment you do not have to go far to drop the marker.
We also both had a hidden scheme, I decided that I would have the Rogue Necromancy Vendetta Teddy. Hoping to get an early shot for a locked in 1VP and aim for 3 but take the 2 if push came to shove.

With a hidden scheme I guessed that Teddy or the Nephilim would have Vendetta on Mechanical Rider.

I lost the flip for deployment, I kept the Rider on a flank and the rest was in Myranda's bubble all 12" on and ready to fight.
The thing of note from David's deployment was the Mature mirroring the Rider (though it had a Tot friend). At this point I took that as an indication that the Mature was picking the Rider to kill.

Due to the fear of Vendetta I started the game with the Rider actually running towards (and behind) the bubble of Beasts, if the Mature was coming I wanted it to get stuck fighting something else first and hopefully never killing the Rider.

Unfortunately for me, Teddy was hidden and David did not activate it until the Rogue Necromancy had to go, even with a beautiful shot on an Illuminated I simply moved, I really wanted to lock this VP in.

David's Neverborn kept their distance early avoiding the Dawn Serpents breath and opting to shoot with the Illuminated.

The Tot sprinted and dropped a marker and it was on to pretty much the deciding point of the game.
The second turn.

Teddy, Myranda, Marcus, an Illuminated, the Dawn Serpent, another Illuminated, the Rogue Necromancy and eventually Lilith all got involved in one big scrap.
Unfortunately the Neverborn master turned the tide, I had got my first VP for Vendetta but the low defense three-headed undead beast was bested.

Marcus attempting to save Myranda used Alpha on her, and rather than turning into a Sabertooth instantly I went to attack the Teddy.
I failed the Terrifying check, I didn't have the card to pass, what a waste, what a mistake.

This little pile of fighting continued into turn 2 and as the Mature at one point got involved and never revealed a scheme I crossed my fingers that the (now dead) Teddy had either chose the Rider.

David scored the VP for Strategy on 2, Marcus killing 2 Illuminated in a single activation allowed me to tie and hold us both from scoring on 3.

The Tot continued to sprint and drop markers, the Jackalope failing to Leap every time to charge the baby.
Eventually Mechanical Rider gave it ago but the Tot's df6 and my low card flipping meant that it's marker dropping days were not over.

As the ruckus continued the Dawn Serpent had been slain as had the Cat form of Myranda.
With Marcus alone and the Mechanical Rider being held back it was up to him to "tactically retreat" and go place markers where David would not have time to remove them.

As we were in turn 4 the Mechanical Rider all but killed the Mature, I would easily take it's final wound in the last turn and Marcus was in "the top left" corner right by David himself.

Unfortunately time had kept me from a decent score here and David revealed his hidden scheme.
Plant Evidence.

I never suspected it, the Tot had successfully placed five markers to score 6VP in schemes, without the extra turn Marcus was prepared but had not placed his and Mechanical Rider could not obtain another VP for a victorious slaughter.

Loss 7-2

Never afraid to speak the truth I have a couple of complaints about this game.
First off, I have nothing against David personally, he came across like a nice chap and gave a little banter, however he seemed on edge all the time, like I was trying game him or something.
Maybe I was getting negative vibes that were not there.

During one of the first turns David took a trigger that was built in, but he never declared it and I was unaware of it.
Now triggers don't need to be declared until totals are decided but I feel it's good etiquette to say.
If you disagree that is fair. However taking your trigger once you've dealt damage but you never declared it is against the rules.
"It's built in" is fair enough, but you still need to declare.
I told David this, in a polite and friendly manner, I said I didn't mind but "for future reference"...
He did not seem to like this and considering if I were to play by the book and not be a reasonable person I could have him not get the trigger. I wouldn't do that though.

The thing I need to have a little whine about (yes, get out your tiny violin) is time.

David is fairly new to the tournament scene I believe so he may not know about the ongoing conversation about time.
I will also say that I do not believe he was a slow player.

However I feel I should've spoke up. David broke his Mature Nephilim during crew selection.
While the round was going he looked for glue and spent time fixing his model. This ate into the round.
I say, just ask if you can use the base for the moment. Nobody in their right mind is going to say "no, I won't let you use that model you just broke".
David also went to the toilet during the round, sometimes nature calls and I cannot take that against him, but considering the time already wasted and that he (rightfully) looked at my cards quite often (I applaud this, do this if you don't know your opponents stuff people) he ate into a good chunk of the round, easily enough time to get us our full 5 turns.

Now I will say it here as I did on SMP Radio, I still think even with an extra turn I lose.
However 7-2 is very different to 7-5 for example.

Yes "it is only toy soldiers" and this has hardly made me want to quit, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I do not begrudge David, I hope to get a rematch against him sometime, he seemed a very capable and tactically minded guy, but unfortunately he was an example of a few things not to do during a tournament game.

With a loss I was not going to go and sit on the throne downstairs again, but I would still hope to secure myself a positive record.

I stared at the Best Arcanist trophy as the one thing I could get but I realised that many people were above me, most notable Martin Wodehouse who is the "Best Arcanist" in the UK Malifaux rankings and he was on three wins.

At this point I will quickly cover where the rest of SMP were.

Ben was, to no one's surprise on three wins.
Aaron was on two wins and a draw (his draw also on two wins and playing Arcanists).
Oz who had taken a loss to Aaron was on 1-2
Jan with his Gremlins trying to stop Oz from winning best in faction was on 2-1.

Round 4

Last round of the day, Stake a Claim, a favourite of mine with Marcus.

Who would I be against?

Jan.

Sorry mate.

• Stake a Claim, Flank Deployment, 50ss
• A Line in the Sand
• Protect Territory
• Breakthrough
• Frame for Murder
• Outflank

My Crew

• Marcus
• Arcane Reservoir, Seize the Day, The Trail of the Gods
• Jackalope
• Myranda
• Imbued Energies
• Mechanical Rider
• Imbued Energies
• 2 Silurids
• Canine Remain
• Moleman
• 4 Soulstone Cache

Jan's Crew was something like:

• Somer Teeth Jones
•  Encouragement
•  Family Tree
• 2 Bayou Gremlins
• Burt Jebsen
•  Dirty Cheater
• Lenny
• Lightning Bug 
• Merris LaCroix
• Rami LaCroix
• Slop Hauler
• 4 Soulstone Cache

I was surprised Jan wasn't using his new favourite toy here, the Pigapult.
Not as an offensive weapon but as a Gremlin firing device which would make it a lot more difficult for me to take 4VP for Strategy.

We both revealed Breakthrough, I also had Protect Territory and Jan had a hidden scheme.
My assumption from previous games was Frame for Murder on Merris.
I have triple walked and attacked her with Marcus in many games before. He and I both know her importance, especially with the Strategy and Breakthrough.

I do not want to be horrible, but this game was a dismantling.
Jan knows I am fairly confident with this Strategy and I had nothing to fear.
I joked he should just give me the win and we go and chill. Obviously and thankfully Jan refused and took me on.

Early doors Jan made a questionable move with Rami being deployed 18*9 on, as I deployed second I put Mechanical Rider in the nearest corner of my flank 18*9 and the first turn used fast to charge, kill Rami and place a marker. Rami had at least killed a Moleman before his time.

For a few minutes I did wonder if Jan had baited me into a Frame for Murder.
I was game, as this would only be 2VP and I'd still be far a head, also a dead Rami is better than a live and kicking one for me.

Mechanical Rider would be gunned down eventually, by the Bayou Boss himself, but not before killing the Lightning Bug and placing yet more scheme markers. A glorious death.

It wasn't Jan's "sucker" and the game continued on, Silurids leaping in opposite directions. Marcus and Myranda making a b-line towards the Gremlins.
The zombie dog headed towards the direction of Merris, if she was Jan's "sucker" I wasn't going to kill her with Marcus that's for sure.
Also the dead dog could also follow and undo any work Merris attempted.

Somer doubled his bayou buddies and the Slop Hauler kept everyone fresh.

As the game moved on Myranda dived towards Burt and in a quick change of outfit murdered him as a big kitty cat.

This left a free zone for a Silurid to continue on and start locking in those Strategy points.

This game would show me that the Jackalope is great vs Gremlins. Where normally the 6ss of Canine Remains plus Jackalope is a Soulstone Miner I was glad this game it wasn't (a concious decision anyway due to Flank).

Ml4 isn't great, but nor is Df5, 3 damage minimum however against 4 wound models which may not be on full wounds anyway is excellent.

The Jackalope killed a Gremlin who dived at Marcus, this turned out to be the "Sucker".
Thanks to the totem doing the work Jan only got 2VP for this but then allowed Marcus to make a quick U-turn and go find his best pal Merris.

As we continued the Jackalope would kill a Gremlin a turn, protecting the centre line from ever being crossed.
Silurids would start placing scheme markers once the Strategy had become too far out of reach for Jan and the Sabertooth Cerberus.

Well Burt wasn't enough, it then killed Lenny, the Slop Hauler (maybe a Gremlin) and eventually fought Somer.

At this stage it was turn 5. Marcus had used his Hare speed to meet Merris, show her the back of his Shillelagh and pick up all those Scheme markers she dropped.
What a pal.

Somer killed the Cerberus as I then didn't bother cheating and went for a charge with a Silurid for a laugh as I had some high rams for Blood Frenzy.

The Bayou Boss survived the swampfiend, but he was all that was left of Jan's crew.

The Silurids were protecting territory and some spare markers were getting my other 3VP giving me a nice round 10.

Win 10-2

My Cerberus did get a little lucky in this game to kill as much as it did, but just like round 2 I had a plan, I stuck to it and got my 10VP.

This would leave me on a decent VP difference but with Martin about and Tim Porter also on 3-1 I did not believe that I would be getting any trophies this weekend.

Still a decent result and all eyes on the rest of the team.

Results

In the end I had knocked Jan down to 20th place.
Travel buddy Mike Asquith came 14th

Aussie had got a win and with that Best Gremlin and 11th.

My 3-1 was enough to get me 6th a fine result and only a few VP from Martin who got best Arcanist.
Just 3VP...

To the podium...

Wait...

Controversy. Liam had only trophies for the winner and runner-up.
Now while this was his tournament, once this was announced I was not happy about it straight away.
This event had 36 players signed up, why not have a podium?

In the end this would mean that a team mate would be affected and although I know he was very chuffed with his placing and I was super proud the lack of silverware was a gutter.
Aaron won Best Guild and Third Place

Second Place was Adam Perry (@Kogan_Style) who was the one who drew with Aaron earlier in the day but had a better VP differential.

The Winner?

Well who would have expected anyone else but Mart...

SMP's own Ben Crowe in First Place and now UK No.1

Huge congrats to the big man, prior to the GT I was already impressed by Ben, I would grill him for it but consistently getting 2nd place at events was/is incredible.
It now seems he consistently is getting 1st.

Time for the rest of the team to pick up the slack.

Jan didn't go away empty handed, Austin took the Best Gremlin Trophy he wanted but gave him something else.
The Yellow Shirt.

Conclusion 

Great event, great people, great venue.

Thanks to Liam Hall for putting on a great event, I will 99% likely be at any Malifaux event he runs in Bristol.
Just have trophies for the podium yeah?

Shout outs to Alex Hill for winning best Ten Thunder and finally letting me put a face to a name (though he is just Rargleblarg in my head still).

Shout out to the Wintons, Andy is doing very well at the moment, James also won more than anyone else monetary wise with people tipping him for defeating Spooner and also I believe getting a prize in the raffle.
Finally of the Wintons, Cathy, she went 3-1 with Mei Feng (as did Tim Porter) helping prove that my favourite master clearly is not rubbish.
Also, Cathy inspired me to get on a paint a model I've had since I started Malifaux.

Willie, tee hee.

It was also good to see some of my tournament favourites, Zac Goldenhall, Martin Wodehouse, Lee Battrick, Mike Marshall and many others.

Thanks to Liam for allowing me to steal some photos (and one from Mike A).

Apologies for the delay, my Isle of Faux 2 report will hopefully be out soon.

- Ben (@psientologist)

#ToMB2 Bound by Law (Martin) Month 1, Part 2

ToMB2 - Month 1, More Progress

So I’ve painted the crew and even managed to get in a game with them now. I played my good friend Luke Cocksedge (@Shakes1066) in a Guard the Stash game. I’ve promised him I won’t reveal what he was using, as we will both be attending a tournament soon (Gertfaux) and he’s scared that people will get the drop on him! ;0)

Anyway, I lost 9-3. Perhaps not a huge surprise as Luke is a very good player and I was limited by only taking the ToMB2 models I have. I was also quite reckless with my crew, throwing them in to see what happened. It was a good learning curve though and although I can’t do a battle report as such, I can write my thoughts on how the various models in my crew performed.

Starting with the Scribe: he’s a 2SS totem, so I wasn’t expecting great things. His built in trigger on his Ml attack did force Luke to cheat a couple of times to avoid its effects. I didn’t really get much else out of him though, the conditional removal option for Lucius could be handy, assuming he can keep up with his Master that is!

The Guild Guard were lacklustre. What I feel really let them down was their lowly Sh and Ml values of 4, they just never got to do much for me. Perhaps if they went later in the turn, when my opponent was low on cards, they may have achieved more. I never used their Menace tactical action but could see usefulness for it. The suit requirement does limit it coming into play though.

Guild Lawyers by comparison, were great! Okay, they cost 2SS more than a Guild Guard but I was able to make much better use out of them. One particular highlight was when one of Luke’s models killed a Guild Guard and then died itself due to the Lawyers casting Special Damages on it. I also made use of their Impassioned Defense (0) Action and all of the Abilities on the front of their card.

The Doppelganger was good but not great. The ability to cheat the Initiative flip was rarely used but I still think it’s a very useful ability to have. Mimic is also another very good reason to take the shape shifter but sadly I didn’t have many useful things nearby to copy most of the time. I must remember to keep her near to things that are worth mimicking in the future.

Dashel was resilient and was good at handing out Slow with his Baton but the low damage track meant that he was never really going to be much of a threat. His buffs to nearby Guardsmen were nice but overall I’m not sure I would value him at 9SS (12 if you include the upgrades I gave him)!

Lucius himself was great. Well, when I say great, I mean that he seemed to be quite difficult to get rid of primarily due to his Highest Authority Ability and high Df/Wp (Luke did eventually kill him in Turn 5). Other than that, I didn’t really use him as well as I could have. I did enjoy his (0) Hidden Sniper from the 2SS Secret Assets upgrade but most of his other Abilities and Actions didn’t come in to play.
So, what do I think so far? Well, I think on balance that I’d prefer to play Lucius as a Neverborn Master rather than a Guild one but for now I’m keeping my options open. A couple of things that I’m keen to try out are as follows:

1. Take an Illuminated and give Lucius the Wings of Darkness upgrade. This would allow me to use a Soul Stone to draw 3 cards rather than 2 after drawing my new hand at the start of the turn. I could then use the Devil’s Deal ability to put 3 wounds on the Illuminated and get the Soul Stone back. The Illuminated can then Regenerate 1 wound and Brillshape the other 2 in its activation. If I combine this with the Primordial Magic, I’d effectively be drawing 10 cards and discarding down to 6 at the start of every turn.

2. Take the Doppelganger and 2 Guild Austringers. With Lucius nearby, I can get 4 focussed shots out of this group a turn (1 each from the Austringers, 1 from the Doppelganger Mimicking and another from Lucius’ Commanding Presence walking nearby. With an 18” range at Sh7, ignoring LoS and cover, it should be quite tasty against anyone foolish enough to come too close. Of course, Dashel would make it even more effective but I still think he’s too expensive, so not sure I’d take him.

Anyway, that’s me for now. I’m starting to think seriously about my month 2 purchases, so stay tuned to find out what happens next!

- Martin (@MartinWodehouse)

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)