Back to the old grindstone......of gaming

So I like so many bloggers, started by getting excited and posting a blog post about every three days.  Then I slowed down to once a week........then once a weekish.........then stopped.  There were a bunch of reasons, but at the end of the day, I felt a bit down because it seems like a lot of places I tried to post, just were not quite right.  I was posting more about gaming in general, instead of Malifaux specifically, and so some of the boards I posted to commented that I was in the wrong place to post.

Then we stopped working.  Abintra Software closed its doors, as we had sold no product, and so I was at loose ends.  I started this blog because of some advertising needs at work, and now that reason was gone.  So I just quit for a bit.  Then I went to a party a couple of our friends host in Cleveland, and someone actually asked why I wasn't posting any more (Thanx Karri).  It got me thinking again that maybe I should still be posting.  So here I am.

So right now I am currently unemployed.  As the company closed their doors, I have been at loose ends.  So I have been watching the girls over the summer rather then having them at day care and it has been a really fun summer.  We have had some friends over during the summer this year and we have gone to the zoo, the art museum, and to the swimming pool.  Spending time with them like this, and taking them to the art museum for the first time has definitely been fun to see.  We also repainted our deck and been trying to take better care of the yard, just try to get some of the projects that collect up over time done.

Not that these are excuses not to blog, just reasons I have been off the computer for a bit.  But now I am feeling the urge again, and so now you see this post.

Besides that I have still been at The Game Room most Thursdays playing games.  Just like before I am playing Malifaux as my main miniatures games, and then a mix of board games, whatever everyone else is playing.  Because of that the last few weeks we have been playing Terra Mystica.  Rules and ordering from z-man games here  This is a resource management games where you collect workers, power, gold, and priests and then use them to terraform, build houses and other buildings, and work your way up the cult tracks.  As in most resource management games, you do not have enough of any of your resources to complete every task you need to do.  Because of this you need to decide how you want to play to get the most points.  You can score points though the game by doing various things, and at end game you score for biggest town, where you are on each of four cult tracks, and   There are a number of difference races that give you different starting values and different special powers.  Overall just a lot of fun and the replay ability of the game just means we keep playing it over and over.  Second in my first game, dead last in my second.  I will keep trying though as often as I have about 3 hours to kill.

The next game on the list, if I can ever get Dave Anderson to bring it when I am there, is Dungeon Lords.  This is a game where you play an evil dungeon owner who is trying to stop the heroes from taking out all the monsters in the dungeon.  I hope that it will be the next game I review.

Next time I will talk about the Malifaux story league that we are currently playing at The Game Room, and the new chaos warriors that Chris Borer kit bashed together for my Nurgle Blood Bowl team. 

As far as the job hunt goes, I have some things on the burners that I think will come together sometime this week.  I will let you all know once I know more.  Thanx for taking the time to listen and I hope to talk a little more often.

So slowing down a little bit.....but still about a game a week.....

   So this is the post that I have been sitting on for about 3 weeks now.  It seems that I got stuck about a new master to write about, and then I got stuck on a board game to write about, and in the end, I wrote about nothing.  So this is me posting what I have written up till now, and moving forward most likely much more slowly.  Part 2 of the issue has been a computer issue.  Even now I am holding the power cord in my hand as the charger cable has to be under tension and in a certain spot to continue charging.  Not being able to write in my comfy chair in front of the computer also added a wrinkle to my writing.
   Now for the reason that I have been writing nothing.  I have not been motivated to write or game or hobby.  I don't know if it is the seeming never to arrive spring, or the changes that I know are coming to my job over the next 6 weeks, but I am just not motivated to do anything once I get home, get the dishes done, help the kids with homework, get snack, etc.  It is 8:45 and I do not feel like getting out of my chair.  See how the not having a computer by my chair really makes the biggest difference.  Beyond this is my post from before the break, so without any further ado, I will let you judge how I am doing, and start working on my next posting.

   I have found that I am actually slowing down on the blog writing over the last few weeks.  I went from posting about every three days, down to what I thought I would start with when I began this blog.  About a once a week posting schedule.  With spring coming around I, like so many others, have found my attention distracted by many other things.  It also doesn't help that I only get to game once a week.  This means that to get in a game or two with a new wave 2 master in malifaux, it is my whole game night.  And because of distractions, like work and home and wife and kids and on and on I have not had a chance to play malifaux for a couple of weeks.
   Just this last Thursday as an example, because my older daughter left her backpack in my car, I had to drive home at the exact moment I had just gotten to the game store.  So after another hour of driving I finally get to The Game Room, and to be honest, I just didn't want a heavy thinking game.  I want something dumb and easy....Munchkin or Flux or Discworld.  A game that doesn't require any meaningful thought, just play your cards and screw your neighbor..... you know just fun.  So Discworld it was.
   As usual I had an excellent time playing, thank you Chris and Lisa, it was just what I needed.  It always helps when you win, and this was the first time we played where we got to the end of the deck and no one had Commander Vimes, so we had to look at points.  For some reason I had my money really going and although I was not the Cresophage I had so much money and minions that I won by a landslide.  I own the game, so of course I should win....lol.
   So how how do you play Discworld you ask. If you want to know that you can take a look at the PDF of the rules here.  I just want to talk about the two innovative mechanics (to steal a line from the d6 Generation) that the game has.  First is that you have a number of personality cards that you select, and each personality has a individual win condition.  Now some of the personality card do share the same win condition, in that case to have minions in a number of territories, or control over a certain number of territories, but it is nice that in a game this size, your win condition will change based on who you randomly receive.  The second, and the part I find the most interesting, is there are two decks of cards that you go through as the game progresses.  The first half of the total draw pile is of a brown color and are less powerful then the gold cards that you get once you cross that half way point.  I like that you stack the two on top of each other, so you are never quite sure of when you will get the bump in power and strangeness.  If you have read any of the Discworld books, you will know about the deans of the school of magic.  In the game they cause "events" to happen, which can be anything from Demons or Troll minions to fires or floods.  They cause big events in the game that can alter your whole position versus your win condition.  If you have not read the Discworld books, then you are really missing out.  They are great funny silly books and there are about 40 of them I believe.  So it is a nice involved series you can read for quite a while.
   After that it was a lot of chatter about a wide range of things.  It is the other half of the reason I hang out at my FLGS is for that hanging out time.  Just talking about movies, or music, gaming, or politics.  Really just about any topic, nothing much off limits.  Some people hang out in bars, or attend book clubs, I like to hang out in a comic book store with a bunch of people who just make me happy to hang out with.  I think that is at least as important as the games we play.  I just saw a meme someone online that said you can play a bad game with good people but it is much harder to play a good game with bad people.
   So when I originally started this blog post, it was to talk about the fact that I am getting down to posting about once a week.  This is in part because I have not been playing the new masters I need to play so that I can write my feelings about that particular master.  I am in the midst of working on a Zoraida post, as I have both played her and played against her, but I felt an in general post would be useful too.  As one of my friends points out on occasion when we are discussing our blogs, I have a conversational style of blog and sometimes when I just need to get something out of my head or off my chest, it can be easier to just write a post like this and clear out some baggage that needs to be let out.  A lot of times I write one of these in general blog posts, and it lets me move a more game related blog out.  It is like this chatty blog post is just sitting in the way and until I get this one out, I don't get anything else out either.  The other funny thing is that I have been working on my Zoraida post for two or three days, and I have about 2 paragraphs, and yet on this post, I have written the whole thing in about 2 hours.
   I think this is about everything I have to say about the how and why I enjoy hitting the game store on my Thursday nights, with a mini review of Discworld.  Sorry it has been so long, and I hope to post a bit more regularly after this again.

Thanx for reading!!

So I thought I would get in a game of Malifaux....but Mage Wars got in the way.....

   So I was all set to pick up another good game of Malifaux.  It was going to be a 50 stone Jack Daw vs Misaki  against my friend Steve.  I wanted to see how he played with a master I knew nothing about.  I have never played against her, and I was in the same position that Matt was in against Jack Daw; I never even read her cards.  I do know from listening to various pod casts that she is a melee heavy master and so I was looking forward to trying a master like Jack against her, especially with hoo well he went against Lady J.

Dueling game from Arcane Wonders

   But I also told Matt that I wanted to try out Mage Wars.  It is moving through our local gaming store pretty quickly and a lot of times if you don't get into a new game, it will come and go before you get a change to try it.  I have missed my shot at Mice and Mystics because I was involved with something else.  So I wanted in.

Lots of bit in the game plus Spell Books

   Now lets talk about what kind of game it is.  It is a card game, and a board game, and you could almost call it a miniature game, but it comes with no minis.  I could definitely see them releasing an expansion with minis to use instead of the cards on the board.  I have heard that many other people say, "Man, if you just replaced the cards with minis you would have a much better looking game".  So we will see what happens in the future.  In this game you are playing a mage of one type of another, and you have a certain number of life points.  You eventual goal is to reduce the opposing mage to 0 hit points.  You do this by attacking the mage instead of the creatures and objects that they have summoned.  The rule book is online for free download, so if you want a much more in depth explanation of how to play, just down load it here. 

So what is the gist of playing this game.  In the base game you can play a Beastmaster, Priestess, Warlock, or Wizard.  Matt had a couple of the expansions so he has the added choices of Forcemaster, Warlord, Druid, or Necromancer.  I realize that a lot of you readers don't know me yet, but as soon as I heard Necromancer, I knew what I was playing and Matt chose Priestess and we were ready.  In this game each mage gets a spellbook and there is a basic spellbook laid out for each mage as part of the basic setup of the game.  So Matt passed out the spellbooks that we needed and then gave us the all the action counters that we need.  The action counters are an interesting way to show "tapped" cards for each player as they are small wooden cylinders with a starburst on one end, and a blank on the other.  You just flip the counter over once you have acted, and flip it back on the refresh stage.  Once the board is laid out, the mage is chosen, and the spellbook has been given you are ready to play.  So while the unboxing takes a while, the actual setup is not to long at all.
   Now you take your mage cards, there are 2, out of your spellbook and put
them down on the board.  The first one is the picture of your mage and the second is a lit of his/her stats and special abilities.  The board is divided into 12 squares and you start in the lower right corner.  The turn is then divided into 7 stages.  Initiative, Reset, Channeling, Upkeep, Planning, Deployment, and Actions.  Initiative is just passing the initiative token back and forth.  We found it can be difficult to remember for sure if you passed the token, so when you do play make sure to THINK about this step.  The reset phase is just what it sounds like, every object on the board has the token flipped so the sunburst is on the top.  Channeling adds your channeling score to your mana pool.  The two mages we played started at 10, and you can cast spells to summon objects or creatures to increase that number.  Upkeep phase is when you pay your upkeep costs on any creatures or objects you have summoned.
   Then you come to the Planning phase.  Now this is where you are going to spend most of the time in your game.  This is when you go through your spellbook and find up to two spells for your mage to cast, and if you have any spawnpoints, and creatures that it will cast.  I think i had about 40 spells in my "starter" spellbook, so going through and looking at all those spells to figure what to cast can be a bit time consuming.  Especially when you have to consider what your opponent could be casting, or what he has already cast.  After that you hit the Deployment phase.  This is when you take a spell you want your spellpoint to cast, and cast it.  You can take any mana that the spawnpoint contains and use that, but the remaining mana comes from your mana pool.
   FINALLY, we get to actions where you get to do something.  And what you get to do is a lot actually.  You get a couple little choices about in what order you want to do things.  Your mage can cast a quick action.  Now we haven't talked about the two different kinds of actions, a quick action and a full action.  Each card and/or ability has either a lightning bolt, quick action, or an hourglass, full action.  So your mage can pick any lightning bolt spell and cast it or you can wait and pass your quick action until another time.  You can then use a full action on any creature or your mage, and this is where it can be a little weird. If you are choosing to use your mage, you can cast any full action spell or do a move and a quick action, or if you are using a creature you summoned that has an action, you may move a square if you choose and then use a quick action or if the creature has a full action, then use that.  Most "attacks" are quick actions.  The move always comes before the swing, so no stab and run away.  After that, if you chose to delay your mage's quick action, you can do it then.
   So now lets talk for a second about attacking.  How it works is you look at the attack value on the card.  There will usually be a lightning bolt, a sword (melee) or a bow (range), a number in a red box that is your attack dice, and for some cards an effect number like 8+ to show a special ability if you roll higher then that number on a 12 sided die, finally there can be a trait which is an extra ability that is always active.  When you attack you just roll the number of red dice shown in the box on the card and also the 12 sided if you also have an effect like rot or taint and then take your trait into account if necessary.  There are a number of effects and traits that you can have and each is shown on the specific card that needs to show the effect.  It sounds a lot more cumbersome then it really is and after a few turns you will just be grabbing the dice you need and rolling when you need.
   After you have gone through ALL your creatures and mage, you go back to step one and start all over again.   You start with 10 mana in your pool and you start turn 1just like any other turn, so you add your channeling to your starting pool and get a starting mana pool of 20.  You can do the first five steps at the same time and it can save you a bit of time since the planning step is the longest, but especially the first few times, it is a LONG game.

   For my first game we clocked in 3.5 hours, but I feel it could have been shorter, and it is a good game that I would play again, and look forward to trying a few other mages, like the Warlord and the Beastmaster.  I enjoyed playing the Necromancer, although after reading a few different strategy guides I should have selected either skeletons OR zombies, and I played a mix.  By being more specific with what you summon you can more easily focus your plan.  That being said, I did win in the end, after almost giving up in the middle due to what felt like an unbeatable creature showing up out of Matt's spellbook.  She was a flying angel and I had nothing that could even hit he besides a single skeleton archer I had out.  Once Matt talked me down from the ledge I went on to cast a couple of acid balls, and got another archer out, so with some great die rolling I got that angel out of the game.
   Now to talk about the parts of the game I didn't like.  Honestly there was VERY little of this that I didn't like and i believe that about 80 percent was just how the starter spell book was created.  I felt like it should really be an all comers type of deck, and it just didn't feel like it was. The other problem was the cells on the board filling up. Near the end of the game Matt and I together had about 10-12 cards in a single cell and of course it wouldn't hold it all, so it just kinda ended up being a .....well they are all in this cell, even though they were in 2 cells and off the board.....but that is a very small complaint.

Dreamblade, another Mage dueling game

Now here is the part that is the biggest surprise for me.  I just to play a game that was VERY similar to this game and it was one of my favorite games I have played, so much so that I even break it out on occasion and still play.  It is called Dreamblade and is from Wizards of the Coast.  The difference is that you play with miniatures and a warband is 16 models.  You pick a range of models for the cost and deploy them to spawn points, or where you have other creatures and you score depending on the cell you are in rather then attacking the controller.  But if you have ever played dreamblade, and if you want a GREAT demo with a turn that you can play to learn the game just visit
here, click "Learn to Play" and play a round, you will know exactly what I mean.  With the move and attack actions you can take in Mage Wars it feels a lot like dreamblade.  You have a smaller pool to choose from, but it is the same mechanics.  Trust me, go and try the demo of dreamblade and see if you like it.  Then if you are ever in Toledo at The Game Room, stop in and I will have two warbands ready to go.  Then again if you want to play Mage Wars, you will have to bring the game along because while I enjoyed the game, and I would play it again, I will not be adding it to my collection.  Enough other people in the group have copies and I am sure I can get a game in whenever I want.

   Let me know if you have played Dreamblade or Mage Wars and tell me what you think.  Thanx for reading.  Talk to you again soon.

Time for a battle report...Jack Daw was....interesting....

   So let chat for a bit about how it felt to both fight with Jack Daw, and fight against him.  I got to play against my friend Matt on Thursday night after he got done playing the Star Trek game against Dave.  The Star Trek game looked interesting, but I hate vehicle games where I have turn tracks, so I doubt I would ever play, unless I was needed for a pickup game.  I have played a few games of Wings of Wonder for that reason.  While I was waiting I forced a couple of friends to play a quick game of Disc World.  I lost due to an excellent trick from Dan that had all of us leaving enough trouble markers on the board for him to win.  Good plan Dan!  I have asked Matt to write up his feelings about playing against Jack, and I will write up the battle report and how it felt fighting with him.

   First of all, we were only able to make it to turn 4, so we did not get to the end of the game and after chatting, he thought it would have been a draw and I thought he would have won.  So I guess as you work your way through the battle report you can decide yourself.
  As was reported in the last blog entries, I was playing Jack Daw, so for Matt it was not a huge surprise when I declared Outcast as my faction, and I was equally unsurprised when Matt called for Guild.  We had already decided on 50 stones for the game as we wanted to play a standard game with the crews we would have normally picked (that matter more to the story later).  We flipped for deployment, and Matt won, and than had me deploy first.  As happens many times in the games I have played lately, we flipped for flank deployment, so we got to making the Ls on our corners. I choosing left and he, of course, choose opposite.  I had a two pronged attack with a group at the far right of the bottom of the L, and a second group where the point of the L was.  Matt set up high on the top section of the L, and high on the bottom.   Next I flipped for the strategy, and got a crow, so read out the "Reckoning" entry.  Boiled down we each needed to kill 2 models per turn after the 1st turn.  This is the one strategy that enforces the "kill models" type of objective and to kill two a turn, but not more or less can be a challenge. For the scheme pool we had:  Line in the Sand, Protect Territory, Bodyguard, Outflank,  and Spring the Trap.  I took Bodyguard and Outflank as my schemes, and in the end I found out Matt took the same.
   After all that we finely get to crew selection.  I was playing Jack Daw, Lady Ligeia (totem), Montresor, The Guilty 1, The Guilty 2, The Hanged, Nurse and Hans.  Matt was playing Lady Justice, The Judge, Witchling Stalker 1, Witchling Stalker 2, Francisco, Guard 1, Guard 2, and Guard 3.  While there were upgrades on a number of characters, only the curses on Jack Daw made a real difference.  So now we are finally all set up to talk about how the game went.

The Board at the end of Turn 1

Turn 1
I won initiative and we moved all our models.  Lady J, The Judge, and a witchling stalker all moved up the left side of the board, with Montresor and The Hanged moved against them.  Matt moved Fransisco, a witchling stalker, and all three guards down the right hand side of the map.  Jack Daw and Lady Legeia moved to the middle, and the Nurse with the 2 Guilty moved across the bottom.  Finally Hans just moved down the board to get an angle.

Turn 2

Everyone continued their moves into turn 2.  The Hanged was close enough to move up with his first action, and then attacked Lady J with the second action.  He failed the attack was done.  Montresor used his nimble to move up and then attacked Lady J twice to no effect, including one attack with a Black Joker flip.  On the other side of the board, Matt's group stayed in place and I moved the Guilty and Nurse toward the building, and Lady and Jack moved up the back.  No attacks by that group at all.

Turn 3
   The Hanged attacked The Judge and hits for his half damage attack, and The Judge cannot heal for the rest of the game.  Lady charges and kills The Hanged with 2 attacks plus an Onslaught.  On the other side I attack with Jack Daw doing a point of damage and getting my first curse onto Matt's Guard minion.  Now the curse I played on him was the Guillotine curse that means as soon as a minion or peon model activates you have to spend two cards or the model dies.  Then to "flip" the curse he has to discard a card and spend 2 action points for the penance.  Matt's witchling stalker in the corner dropped a marker showing that he had outflank.
  
   Now if you have been paying attention, you can see that this is the first point of the game. We know technically we both have three points as no henchman or enforcer was killed, but as of now it is still 1 to 0 Matt.

Turn 4
   I won initiative and attacked Lady J with Montresor and gave her a single point of damage.  Lady J then returned the favor, but kill Montresor in a single turn.  Lady J still had time to move up and get closer to Hans, although behind the tree and so out of LOS.  Hans then went a killed the front guardsman in two AP, and then Lady Ligeia attacked the guardsman and ended up getting a severe damage result, killing the guardsman and doing 2 to all other models in the group with the blast.  Jack got back his curse from the guardsman that Lady L killed.  Now this means that with two kills i got a point for Reckoning.  This means that at the end of four, it was 1 to 1.  Now that ended the game, and so I will tell you why Matt felt a tie, and I felt he would have taken it.  As it was going into 5 he still had his bodyguard alive and I did not.  Now Matt thought that with the two pincers I had around the house and his group, I could have taken Fransisco out removing those points from his board, and with that group gone he wouldn't be able to get the other point for outflank, so it would have been a 1 to 1 draw.  I don't think I could have taken the whole group, and so didn't think I could get rid of Fransisco.  To me it would have been a 4 to 1 or if I could have gotten someone to the corner a 4 to 2 loss for me.  If it had gone to 6 turns, which is always a possibility, then i think it would have been more likely, but by then he could have gotten Lady J over there, so you never know.  Always hard to just guess how it would go if you didn't get to play it out.

Chad's Thoughts
Now this is the heart of Matt's complaint about the Jack Daw curse mechanic.  He brought the witchling stalkers because he could use them to clear conditions that the curses created.  The only problem with that plan was that the curses do not cause conditions, they add a characteristic and an ability.  This caused Matt to discard 3 cards from his hand and use a minions full activation just to clear the curse.  Now I do agree with Matt that this is a powerful ability, but it only affects minions, and causes no damage if it is cleared.  It is an all or nothing power.  Now Matt cleared the curse, flipped it over, the first time I used it, costing him 3 cards and 2 actions.  It only cost me a single action to give him the curse, and although that action was an attack and caused a point of damage, it was one of Jack's AP.  Now Matt could have let the minion die and kept the resources in his hand, so to ME, this doesn't feel any more powerful then any other master who can kill a minion (on average) in a single turn, like Lady J.  I will say though to start it did feel like it was very easy to get off, as it is a trigger that auto-completes.  The other two possible curses will work on any model even including a leader, but those two only "fire" after a tactical or attack action, and so only cost you 2 AP and a single card.  If you let the other 2 effect the model it also only causes 2 points of damage, not an auto kill usually with a secondary effect. Take a look at the curses as this is a very interesting mechanic.

Matt's Thoughts
   I had not looked into any of the wave two models . So going in blind I had the feeling that I was going to get demolished. I remember from Malifaux first edition that Jack Daw was super tough as were his lackeys the hanged. So going in I knew that I would have a tough battle. As the game started and Chad started using his abilities, specifically the cusrses, I knew I was in trouble. With some misunderstanding on my part on how the curses worked I did not believe that I had a chance. I had the understanding (wrongly mind you) that there was no way to get rid of the curses. They are tough and expensive to get rid of (two actions and one card).
    As the game progressed I started to think that the curse was powerful maybe to powerful, but he is a master. I started to take back my stance a bit as the game was getting closer to conclusion. All Masters are great at something and Jack Daw is good at getting you to lose your cards. I would like to play another game to conclusion to get a second opinion of Jack Daw. I am sure Chad would be willing to do that. After 2/3 of a game against Jack Daw, I would say a solid master.

Final Words
   I will say that I will definitely be playing Jack Daw again as both his crew and the mechanics of his play are both fun and interesting.  One of these things Matt also said was that part of the problem was the surprise of playing against Jack without first reading all of what he could do.  As stated earlier Matt would have changed a choice or two during his build if he had known what Jack could do.  He also said that he would not play against Jack at all, if more than one member of his crew could take the curses.  I think we will need to play a few more games before we know if it was really a negative play experience or just that he never say him play before.
   I hope you enjoyed this write up, I have never written a battle report before, so I would love to know if I need more or less detail, or what if anything is missing.  Thanx for reading!!

So Jack Daw....isn't he hanging around somewhere??

My Jack Daw only primed

  So with the start of the wave 2 we got our first new outcast master, Jack Daw.  Jack is the master seen on the hanging tree, which is the big tree in the center of the square in Malifaux City.  In the first edition, he was just a character in the outcast faction that could take hanged models from the resurrectionist  faction.  He was almost impossible to kill due to his special rules, and the back of his card read like an encyclopedia entry.  The text was packed on there even in a smaller font to cover every special rule.  The other interesting thing about Jack was that he was a mercenary, so he could be hired out of faction for 10 stones, instead of just working with the outcasts.  Another special rule allowed you to hire the Hanged for their standard cost as well.  If there was one thing that adding Jack to your crew did, it was add special rules.
   Now before I start this new paragraph, I just want to point out that this is my opinion.  I enjoyed playing version 1.5, but it was hard to be really casual about playing, or the crew you played with.  In version 2.0 I feel like I can play a number of different crews as each model has fewer options, while still keeping their individual flavor.  This is one of the biggest points of contention between 1.5 and 2.0.  When you look at his card, it is a perfect example of being to complex to play.  In Jack Daw's 1.5 card, there are 19 individual entries from attacks to special rules to abilities, some of which just control what happens when certain card are played.  It means you constantly had to be checking his card, or knowing what was important every time he attacked, or was attacked.
   Now in 2.0 the biggest change for Jack is that he is a master.  The second biggest change is that he now has 8 entries on his card, 2 (0) actions, 2 attacks, and 4 abilities.  This means just starting out you have 11 less things to learn, and combine with his crew.  With his upgrade cards adding a bit of trouble you can include a few new attacks and an added ability.  Jack Daw's new upgrade ability is to attack cursed upgrades to other models, and then make them pay action points to flip the upgrade back over.  Most of the "curses" mean giving damage when the model tries to do an action or walk.  It makes it very difficult to attack, walk, anything as long as this upgrade is attached and face up.
   I have had very little time to play during the wave 2 beta.  Because of this I have set up a game to play on Thursday with Jack Daw.  This is my first crew list that I will be trying out.  A couple of outcast, and a few other tormented models.

•  Jack Daw - cache 4 - Firing Squad, Guillotine Injustice, Writhing Torment
• Montrerer - 9 - The Creeping Terror
• Lady Ligeia - 4
• The Guilty - 5
• The Guilty - 5
• The Hanged - 9
• Nurse - 5
• Hans - 8

   So lets see if I can explain this mess.  I am using the first three to stop the other side from reaching their goals, The Guilty and the Hanged as objective grabbers, with the nurse backing them up, and Hans for board control, both stopping the opposing crew, and getting markers down when needed.  With what Jack can do I don't think that I will have any issues shutting the crew down, as long as I can get close enough to get those curses on them.

My proxy for Hans, just because I don't own him

   Now this crew choice does bring up another interesting point.  There are no models for about 2/3 of my crew choice.  I have Jack, The Hanged, a nurse (Miss Pack) and that is all. I am going to proxy for the rest as long as my opponent will allow it, just using some other random models I have, and in the case of Hans, using the Freikorps Hunter. Without actual crew out for all the models in wave two, I think this will come up more and more especially as I look at "new" masters in the 2nd edition.
   So now how can we improve on this already great master with an avatar?  We get another way to add the tormented characteristic to an enemy.  So in his premanifest we get a 7 versus willpower new attack to give out the condition.  After manifesting, he gets a bit better.  First of all, a + flip on all duels.  Now this is pretty big considering that everything except a damage flip is a duel, so all attack and defense gets that extra card, which makes it easier to get that positive flip on the damage also.  He then makes everyone in a 4 inch bubble insignificant, and so they cannot take interact actions.  Finally he gets a new attack against models that he has attached his cursed upgrades to with a cast of 7 and a sweet 4/5/6 damage spread.  If he happens to kill the model, he get to draw 2 cards on a tome trigger.  Overall a very nice improvement to the model when he changes to the avatar state.  At a cost of three soulstones, I would still call it a deal easy.

   So this has been my least favorite kind of post, Theoryfaux.  This is where I decide things will work a certain way before I have even put a model on the table.  When I get to these kind of posts on the forums, a lot of times I just skip right over them.  So here is what I am thinking.....  It has been a rough month for me as far as gaming goes, and I have not gotten to the game store in about a month....however, I will be headed up Thursday night and I already have a game with this crew planned.  So what I am thinking, is along with my Theoryfaux, I will put up a battle report for my next post see if what I THOUGHT would happen actually worked on that way.  The thinking is that I will either prove my theory and can hold my head up high, or that I suck and I will have to make sure from here on out that I play games with masters before I open my big mouth.  I should have that battle report out on Saturday, so until then I hope you enjoyed reading and I will talk to you again soon!  Thanx!!

Everyone loves playing Pandora right?? Anyone?

Old metal sorrows hanging out with the replacements in dayglow green

Favorite Baby Kade sculpt

    So lets talk about everyone's favorite Neverborn, Pandora.  Now you will have to bear with me a little, as I have had a bit to drink and am writing up my Pandora blog.  Not that I am trying to be a malibro, but I am having a Red's Apple Ale with a shot of caramel vodka in it.  A Red's caramel apple, and it tastes great.  I might have to have a second one.....but I digress. 

   I have always enjoyed playing Pandora, because she was my first master.  It wasn't for her, not that she didn't look great, but it was Baby Kade that drew me right in.  I am sure that I uttered the phrase "That kid's got a knife" when I first saw it.  The second model that I wanted was Teddy.  Now he is a great addition to the Pandora crew since Kade had a skill called "Where's Teddy" that will allow him to be placed into base contact with a Teddy within 15 inches of him and them move Teddy 6 inches.  So this moved Kade's threat range up and gives Teddy a free move with a cost of two.  Now this is expensive, but it is a nice way to get Kade out of a sticky spot, or give Teddy a little more threat, sense they both have abilities that give them a free attack if they are within 6 inches of a model that either ends a move that isn't part of a move action, or lose a willpower duel.

My Teddy Bear Collection

   Without Baby Kade and Teddy I might not have gotten started in Malifaux at all.  Once I got a good look at the Pandora box set though, I liked all the models and just as importantly how they worked.  I like the death by a thousand cuts style of play.  I like the lack of direct confrontation in this crew also, I could do damage from far away based on my opponent just failing a test.  Now my usual opponents are guild players, so I end up facing a lot of Lady J and Perdita.  Now any Neverborn player will tell you that those are just about the worst masters you can face, as they counter most of your strengths.  In 1.5 the biggest problem I had, was the insurmountable number.  Now Perdita could ignore the Pandora rule about needing to take a willpower test to shoot her, which means her standard shooting attack of 7 against my defense of 2, with a soulstone for a second card, getting into the 30s as a target number, when my best possible number would be 13+14+2 with the same soulstone and the best cards in the deck.  It would be relatively easy to take me out in a shot or two.
   So for most Pandora players, it would surround yourself with sorrows would could take a hit for Pandora, and then move up the board with some push trick she had, hit whoever you wanted for a few points of damage and then get back under cover.  I was ok at that, but it was never anything that I excelled at, so I ended up losing more games with her then winning.  That was usually not a big problem for me as I enjoyed playing the games, even the ones I lost.  This is not the experience that most people have against Pandora, but now who cares because there is now a new version, and she is both more fun to play and more fun to play against.
   So now lets talk about Pandora in 2.0.  This is my typical 50 stone build:

• Pandora - Aether Connection, Fugue State - Cache of 4
• Primordial Magic - Totem for Pandora
• Candy - Best Behavior
• Baby Kade - His 7 defense is usually enough to keep him safe without upgrades
• Teddy
• Sorrow
• Sorrow
• Sorrow

  
   In version 2.0 Pandora can substitute her willpower stat for her defense (df:3 vs wp:7) in any opposed duel and she considers it a willpower duel.  Now if she wins the duel, she can push herself 4 inches in any direction.  This means she can choose to either move up closer, and with a 3 inch threat range she can engage a lot of territory, or she can move away possibly getting out of the range of the character attacking her.  Now all of Pandora's attack actions have a willpower resist and that means if she is within 6 inches of the model she is attacking, the model will take damage from the attack, and also take a separate point of damage from Misery.  You also do another separate point of damage for each sorrow within 6 inches.  Now I like this better than the 1.5 version because in the old version while Pandora's Misery range was 12 inches, each sorrow's range was only 3.  Now, they are all even at 6 inches, so the potential for more damage stacked up is even better.  So this is why it is such a good idea to take sorrows with Pandora.  Now we already talked about what Teddy and Kade can do as a pair, so I am not going to repeat that here.

  Pandora's henchman is Candy and she is just as sweet as her name suggests.  Candy carries both sweets and sours in her little basket.  This means she can both heal and harm depending on what you need.  Healing in a crew is always handy to have, and her damage profile is normal for neverborn.  She  is much more useful to control your opponent's activation order.  She has sweets/sours that either give her control over a model, or can paralyze a model depending on how the model is activated.
   The way I usually use this crew is in three groups.  I like to keep a sorrow or two around Pandora, and then Kade and Teddy are a group, Candy and a sorrow, with the Primordial Magic as a floater.  The sorrows are not as good at being hard core objective grabbers, however, they can do damage to the enemy crew without spending any AP to do it.  With the Misery ability, just being within 6 inches will add that point of damage every time Pandora hits something so they can spend their time moving and placing scheme markers.  They can also be useful to tie up opponents models.  They have a 1 action that will put them in base contact with a model for a 5 or better card, and then they have an ability to do 1 damage just from being within a inch.  Like I said, it is all about little bits of damage over and over.
   This is also a good crew to take against a high armor opponent.  All the damage that you deliver is considered a separate damage point.  What this means is that if you get him by Pandora, and you lose the willpower duel, with the setup I talked about, you will actually do 3 points of damage to the model even if he has an armor value of 8.  Pandora and each of her sorrows do a point which armor reduces to 1, but since you are only doing 1 anyway it doesn't matter, and that big bad construct takes 3 damage in that single action. 
   So now lets talk about her avatar.  I do think that it is interesting that they have created the avatar for Pandora based on the model that was created.  I wonder if the version of the avatar would have been different if there had been no model made for her.  Either way, I like the upgrade, although I am hoping that the numbers on the Premanifest side move up a bit.  Target numbers of 11 and 12 against the standard WP of 5-6 seems a little low, but I have never had a lot of luck with those kinds of tests, usually just being a nuisance to my opponent.  But it is always good to force duel and use cards, and if you happen to get a 6 or 7 out of your opponents hand, that can be useful too.  Once you manifest, you not only get to keep the Paranoia ability, you can Anathema so removing immunity to a number of effects, and you gain a new attack.  Another nice 3 inch melee attack at a 6, which is nothing to sneeze at, plus a 2/3/4 damage track, and force another horror duel, so a possible paralyze.  Then there is the trigger which forces all of the opponents models within 4 inches of the model you hit to pass another horror duel.  Since that is a 1 action attack, you have the chance to pass out quite a few horror checks all in the span of a single activation.


   I need to get a few more games under my belt with Pandora in version 2.0 before I feel really comfortable with her on the table.  I did pick up the green glowing Pandora crew in plastic, and I would love to get them built, but I will probably just field the green sorrows, because I like the old metal Kade better.

  I was going to try and go back and chat about each of the masters that I had already reviewed if the avatar changed, but because of the length of this already and how much some of them could change, I am going to hold off and revisit once somewhere in the middle.

  I hope you have enjoyed the read, and I hope to hear if you did or didn't.  Thanx for reading!!

So lets start with Von Shill........

   I have to start with the fact that I got Von Shill as an accident.  Two years ago for Christmas I told my lovely wife that I would like a new Malifaux crew for Christmas.  Now I could have sworn that I told her I wanted Som'er Teeth Jones, the Gremlin master, however when she got to my game store, The Game Room, she talked to my friend Bruce who was working there and he told her I wanted Von Shill.  When I opened it Christmas morning, I was surprised but happy and starting working on putting it together.
   Once I had everything together it sat in my bag, getting occasional play, but mostly just primed  for a while.  Once I decided I wanted to paint them, I started talking to my friends, Chris Borer and Brian Sobb.  They are both very good painters, with Chris winning something like 23 golden demon awards from GW and if you remember back a bit to a few Rotten Harvests ago he painted the Grateful Dead teddy pictured here.  His website showing all of his best work is at Full Borer Miniatures. 
   Brian has won two silver golden demons, a gold rogue demon (adepticon before it was crystal brush), and a bronze rogue demon.  Sobb has done a lot of good painting work and always has a good tip or two that helps me a bunch.  So you can understand how it can feel to be working with my skill next to some really great painter/sculpters.  So they helped me with any number of things, starting with color schemes and painting tips, on to using washes to get all the lines between everything.  Of anything I have painted I believe that Von Shill and his crew have been the best work I have done.  I also need to thank Chris for putting Von Shill's eye patch on, the librarian's book mark and other small items in the crew that I know I am forgetting.

   Now lets talk about how he and his crew play.  Not really a tactica, but just how he plays for me.  My typical 50 stone crew looks like this:

• Von Shill - The Shirt comes off, Engage at Will - Cache 3 stones.
• Steam Trunk - I use a metal mimic trunk from the old AD&D miniatures, and I call it luggage.
• Hannah - Scramble, Spoils of War - Proxied with the Librarian on a 50mm base
• Freikorps Specialist - Flamethrower
• Freikorpsmann
• Freikorpsmann
• Freikorpsmann
• Freikorps Trapper

   This is a crew that definitely needs to be together in a tight group.  With Freikorps armor you don't have to worry about blasts, so you can keep them clumped up without worrying about losing the whole crew to someone like Rasputina.  Since you are moving them in a group, the order that you move them in is important.  You need to keep as many people as possible within the 4 inches around the Steam Trunk.  Anyone within 4 inches of the trunk can use its 3 zero actions as their own.  The steam trunk's zero actions are all condition removers, so you can get rid of poison and heal, remove burning, and removing corpse/scrap markers.  This along with the blast protection protects you from crews like Sonia and McMorning that rely on handing out conditions to remove your crew from the board.  With them being set up in a 4 inch bubble around the Steam Trunk, you are going to have trouble with your objective grabbers.  You can always send out the odd Freikorpsmann out on a run to drop an objective marker or get into position out of the bubble, because of their unimpeded ability.  Since they can ignore severe terrain, they have the ability to get their full 10 inches of movement in most situations.  Nothing worse then seeing a freikorpsmann rushing through a big piece of forest terrain through to the other side, out of your range, and you can't even follow.  At 5 points they can even be lost if needed.
   You might want to keep 1 in the bubble though, since with Spoils of War upgrade you will get 2 soulstones each time your Freikorpsmann can kill a Henchman, Enforcer or Master.  It is a handy way to bump up your cache, even though he is no where near as stone intensive as he used to be.  I find the main use for soul stones is drawing those two extra cards after you look at your control hand, and the odd damage prevention flip, but with the healing flip you can get from the trunk, that is only occasionally needed.
   Now for his avatar upgrade.  This will be based off the 2/17 update for the avatars.  Von Shill turns into the avatar of conflict. During the premanifest he gives his crew a bump as he often does by increasing the change by 2 inches and melee by +1 if the crew member is charging a model that Von Shill is engaged with.  Now with his engagement range of only 1 inch, it isn't a huge advantage, but nice fluff of a soldier rushing to the aid of his commanding officer.  He also gets another way to heal with a 2/3/4 and a place effect within 8 inch.  It being a place effect rather than a push means that intervening terrain doesn't matter and you place Von Shill anywhere in base to base with the friendly model (doesn't even have to be a Freikorps model).
   Now once he manifests he get a nice bump, mostly going to his crew rather that helping himself.  He grants all his Freikorps Companion, if a Freikorps dies within 6 inch Von Shill gains reactivate, and finally he gets a pulse within 8 inches that will cause his Friekorps to pass a willpower duel and heal 1/2/3.  All handy things in the middle of the game to help the crew with any troubles they are having.  This is a good example of an avatar I wouldn't want to manifest until turn 3 or 4 when my crew is starting to get a bit hurt.  I like how Von Shill's avatar helps his crew more then himself and reenforces that bubble concept of his crew.  He already has so many attack options, that having those kind of healing options is a nice change.
   With all the teamwork and options I find that this is a great crew for a starting player, who wants to learn the rules of the game without a lot of difficult choices at to what they want to do.  It also helps that it is a hard hitting, good armored crew that will last long even against another hard hitting crew.  The Von Shill crew is a lot of fun to play and I highly recommend it as a good fall back crew for anyone to play.

   So this has gone on longer then most of my blogs, I feel like I got out everything I wanted to say...which is just about a first for me.  I hope you enjoyed reading, and in the next I think we will talk about Pandora and how I play her crew.  Thanx for spending some time....have a good one.