Painted Emberling

Here is Mei Feng’s totem, the Emberling. It’s meant to arise from the dying ashes of steam engine furnaces (and hence be rather dark) but I like painting bright colours so mine is more like some kind of fire spirit. I’ve been fairly happy with its performance in games so far; mostly using Link to attach itself to either Mei Feng or Kang and pushing them around a bit with Seismic Punch or protecting my crew with Vent Steam. Actually playing with a totem has taken a bit of getting used to as I don’t own any for my Guild masters and the Hungering Darkness, while technically a totem, does not play like one at all. I’m finding it a highly amusing piece, and while I suspect that it has its place and needn’t be taken every game, it has warranted a spot with Mei Feng every time I’ve played her so far.

Next on the painting table: Rail Workers.

Painted Beckoners

Here are the final miniatures I own themed for Jakob Lynch‘s crew: Beckoners.  They hold the dubious honour of being the first ‘ladies of negotiable affection’ in Malifaux who are not also zombies.  To make up for that shocking lapse, they instead are evil sorts whose souls are owned by the Hungering Darkness and do his bidding by the medium of enticing in potential new victims.  The internet appears to love them and I can see why as they really provide an excellent amount of board control and can be quite survivable once all their potential assailants have been made Brilliant.  I’ve also found that a game with Beckoners on both sides gets silly very fast as everyone is suddenly on double-negative flips to do anything at all.

The red Beckoner suffered an unfortunate fate early in her career as a demonic harlot as I crushed her under my knee during a game played on the floor.  My attempts to rebuild her were not entirely successful, notably on the shoulder join where I couldn’t get a nice line up of the pieces.  Other than that, I find myself wondering whether a different colour for the top and the skirt might have looked better.

I prefer the sculpt of the blue Beckoner overall and I feel like this is one of the miniatures which benefitted from Wyrd’s move to plastic as a metal version of this would have ended up with arms like a gorilla instead of the thin limbs here.  The braid (which is not part of the back) strikes me as a potential weak point but has impressed me with it’s durability so far.

Next on the painting table: Emberling.

Painted Mr Graves

Here is Mr Graves, the mighty bouncer of Jakob Lynch’s Honeypot Casino and birthday present from my geek friends. Unlike most of the other named characters in Malifaux, he doesn’t appear to actually have a first name (either that or his first name is ‘Mr’). He looks like he ought to be a tremendous monster in melee, but in the few games I’ve tried him so far he’s been shot without achieving a great deal. This is mainly due to my poor play.

I decided to go for the worlds simplest method of white for his shirt. I painted it white, gave the whole thing a black wash, then drybrushed it heavily again in white. It’s far from amazing up close but it looks surprisingly good at tabletop distance. In fact, so much so that he won an award for best painted miniature at the Bayou Brawl II (though partly this was because most people had already won awards for their painting and hence didn’t put an entry in).

Next on the painting table: Beckoners.

Painted Fennblades

My painted Trollbloods Fennblade unit. Despite saying in this post that I was planning to use Circle Orboros when playing Warmahordes, after a couple of games I could see that they were going to end up playing in a rather tricksy way that would frustrate my attempts to get Mrs Argentbadger involved. So I moved to Plan B: Trollbloods. A bit of reading on them suggested that they would be straight-up brawling types which was pretty much what I was looking for as opponents to Mrs Argentbadger’s Retribution of Scyrah. Sadly, the main Warlock I was interested in, Calandra, turned out to have a signature ability that was amazingly frustrating to play against. I am contemplating Minions at the moment as their perceived weakness (according to Privateer Press’s Journeyman League documentation) shouldn’t be an issue for me. Anyway, pictures.

This chap is the leader, unless you take the Unit Attachment, in which case he’s outranked. In the games I’ve played so far, I have always chosen to take the UA, though I’ve just proxied it.

Here are the first three grunts in the unit. I vaguely intended to make the cloth tartan (as per the fluff for the Trollbloods) but I realised that it wasn’t likely to improve the appearance much and could ruin the work I’d done. So I wussed out.

And the second set of three. Facing appears to be important in Warmahordes so I decided to mark the front half of the bases in a different colour.

And the last three. There are only a few different sculpts in the unit, so I tried to mix up which bits of armour were steel and which were bronze just to differentiate them a little.

Next on the painting table: Mr Graves.

Malifaux tournament report: Bayou Brawl II (30SS); 16Mar13

Aramoro, Forkbanger, Furycat and I made the trip out to Livingston for another Malifaux tournament, the Bayou Brawl II. As a brawl, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be too serious since all sort of ludicrous combinations become possible (notably the ‘auto mannequin replacement’ trick for Ramos and Colette), though keeping the game size relatively small (at 30SS) made sure that there were some tricky choices to be made in crew selection. Furycat had only played 3 games of Malifaux ahead of the tournament, all of them against me, so it was going to be an interesting day for him. He was using my Guild forces so I got to try out my Ten Thunders crews; I am still somewhere between the ‘remembering what is says on the card’ and ‘working out how to get anything done’ stage with these guys.

Game 1: Ten Thunders (me) vs Neverborn (Joe)

Strategy:
Master of the Hill (points at the end of each round after the first for having more significant miniatures within 6″ of a marker in the middle of the board).

Schemes:
Ten Thunders: Hold Out (stop the other side getting models in your deployment zone), Kill Protegé (just kill the most expensive minion; the Illuminated in this case), Infiltrate Malifaux (finish the game with at least 2 dual faction minions)
Neverborn: Spread the Light (finish the game with all surviving enemies having brilliance), Seeds of Betrayal (have the enemy master killed by a model under the effects of Obey), Frame for Murder (get a specific minion killed by the enemy master; one of the Beckoners in this case)

Crews:
Ten Thunders: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Mei Feng, Emberling, Kang, 2 Beckoners, 2 Rail Workers
Neverborn: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Zoraida, 2 Beckoners, 2 Silurids, Illuminated, Insidious Madness

I pretty much made the decision before the tournament just to stick with a single crew for all three games as I don’t really know what any of the Ten Thunders miniatures do. Loosely, my thought process went: 1) it’s a brawl, so use two masters 2) Jakob Lynch wants Brilliant miniatures, so take some of them 3) Mei Feng wants constructs, and I only have Rail Workers and 4) Kang is pretty amusing. I took Hold Out as it synergised well with the strategy, and Kill Protegé because the Illuminated is at its best in close combat (where I can kill it). Infiltrate Malifaux was just because I’ve never tried it before and I always figure I might as well have more potential VPs. Joe asked me to choose his schemes for an achievement, so I tried to select ones that I didn’t usually see.

Turn 1: We both have Lynch, Hungering Darkness and Beckoners, so this might get confusing. Joe’s Beckoners move each other and the Illuminated around a bit with Come Hither (we forget that they should be on negative flips against each other thanks to Don’t Bite the Hand). I get Mei Feng right in the middle of the pack and put up Vent Steam to stop line of sight to most of my crew, and the Emberling links to Kang and pushes him forward with Seismic Punch. If I ever get into the alcopops business, I will make a drink called Seismic Punch. On the left flank the Silurids are moving around fast, but one of them is brought into my crew by a Beckoner using Come Hither and Kang duly beats it to death. Zoraida summons a Voodoo Doll (of course), conduits to one of my Beckoners and gets it to charge Jakob Lynch for a couple of wounds. When I get it back under control, I reel in the Illuminated with Come Hither and my Hungering Darkness eats it to complete Kill Protegé.

Joe wins initiative and his Hungering Darkness charges Mei Feng, soulstones his attack flip out of sight and drops the red joker on the damage flip. Judicious use of soulstone from Mei Feng keeps her clinging onto life even after a Rail Worker is forced to charge her with Heed My Voice. Mei Feng gets revenge by putting down the Hungering Darkness with some help from the Emberling. In some ways it was not ideal to attack a model that had already activated, but I didn’t have any other great targets as most of the rest of the Neverborn were lurking outside my engagement range. Also, I thought I was likely to lose Mei Feng so I decided I might as well get some use out of her. Indeed a Silurid is next to try and finish her, but I am able to fend off more attacks. Various combinations of Beckoners push / pull each other around the table to minimal effect. My Hungering Darkness mauls one of them, and my Rail Workers put down the other Silurid. I score a VP for the strategy.

It’s all getting a bit thin now for the Neverborn in the centre. My Hungering Darkness kills the Insidious Madness, and out comes Joe’s Hungering Darkness. Mine isn’t able to finish off his, so his Hungering Darkness moves over and kills off my Jakob Lynch. Dang it. So my Hungering Darkness is removed from play too, despite having taken no wounds. He then casts Heed My Voice on Kang who beats up a Rail Worker rather severely. My Beckoner puts down his surviving Beckoner to reduce the number of Brilliant models that Joe’s Hungering Darkness could come out of if I can kill it again. Zoraida summons a fresh Voodoo Doll (which conduits my Rail Worker) but somehow fails to Obey him to do anything. Kang puts the Hungering Darkness down again by throwing hot coals at the monster, and I score another VP for Master of the Hill.

The game is about to end due to timing so I mostly just cluster my models down under the cover of Vent Steam from Mei Feng and the Emberling. Zoraida and Jakob Lynch make a run for my deployment zone (to deny me Hold Out) but are stopped by the clock. I end up taking a 9 – 0 victory, getting full points for my schemes and 3 of a possible 4 for the strategy.

Game 2: Ten Thunders (me) vs Neverborn (Barry)

Strategy:
Supply Wagon (various points available for escorting a wagon to the centre of the board).

Schemes:
Ten Thunders: Bodyguard (keep your master alive, Jakob Lynch in this case), Stake a Claim (nominate a terrain piece on the other half of the board and end with a model touching it), Save Face (points available if neither player can maximise points for the strategy)
Neverborn: A Mother’s Love (Lilith must finish the game with 4 blood tokens), Steal Relic (win a willpower duel against my master when in melee), Frame for Murder (again on a Beckoner)

Crews:
Ten Thunders: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Mei Feng, Emberling, Kang, 2 Beckoners, 2 Rail Workers
Neverborn: Lilith, Nekima, Beckoner, Cherub, 6 Terror Tots

Once again, I took Bodyguard and Stake a Claim because I find them fairly easy to score on. I’m still trying to get the best out of Save Face but it seemed unlikely that this game would be anything other than an unholy blood bath in the middle so I thought the strategy might end up being ignored for most of the time. Like Joe, Barry asked me to choose his schemes for an achievement, apparently I wasn’t paying attention on the Frame for Murder scheme.

Nekima does something to the Terror Tots which will apparently turbo charge them, then flies really far forward. Far enough, in fact, for a Beckoner to bring her into attack range with Come Hither. Barry does a great job protecting Nekima with an Illusionary Forest from Lilith, but I am still able to get Mei Feng into her with a bit of Rail Walking and a Jackhammer kick. After I had done this, I realised that I was really reliant on winning the initiative for turn 2 as otherwise Mei Feng was trapped away from the rest of my crew with a raging murder machine.

Sadly, I don’t win initiative, and Nekima unleashes her full fury upon Mei Feng. I use soulstones like they’re going out of date and Mei Feng somehow survives on a couple of hit points (note: Barry remembered some additional ability after the turn that might have been enough to finish the job so perhaps I just just lucky here). Mei Feng then turns Nekima into a fine red mist and Rail Walks back to my lines looking rather battered and bruised. As in the first game, I was using this activation to play for activation control and force the Neverborn to come into my engagement range. Lilith and a Young Nephilim charge into the Hungering Darkness but leave it on a single wound. The Cherub then goes for a very long shot to Transposition Lilith out of danger but it doens’t come off. I use a Beckoner to move Hungering Darkness out of melee with Lilith so he doesn’t get killed off by Black Blood (actually, as he’s dual faction Neverborn I think he would have been immune anyway…). A Rail Worker then drops two outrageous hits on Lilith with Implacable Assault, red joker-ing the second to kill her off in highly improbable style. Barry tries a cheeky move getting a sacrificial Tot near to Mei Feng so that the nearby Young Nephilim can move into Black Blood range due to brood as I inevitably kill the little chap. Kang swats him out of melee with a spade, but Mei Feng is using up a lot of soulstones just staying alive.

One of the Young Nephilim charges Mei Feng but still can’t quite seal the deal, while the other one kills off the Hungering Darkness. Kang kills off a convenient Brilliant Terror Tot and Hungering Darkness pops right back into the game, scaring a few Nephilim for good measure. A Terror Tot does eventually kill the Hungering Darkness again, but by the end of the turn I’ve finished off the last of the Nephilim. Of note is my forgetting about Frame for Murder and getting Mei Feng to kill the Beckoner as part of spree where she also took out two Terror Tots. We run through the activations for the rest of the game and I get a 9 – 2 victory.

Game 3: Ten Thunders (me) vs Outcasts (Jonny)

Strategy:
Land Grab (various points available for controlling more sections of the board each turn).

Schemes:
Ten Thunders: Alternate Route (put markers down in a line across the board), Breakthrough (have more models in your opponent’s deployment zone than they do), Frame for Murder (Hungering Darkness)
Outcasts: Assassinate (kill enemy master; on Mei Feng), Grudge (kill Kang in melee with a minion), Eye For An Eye (end the game with the same number of models as the other crew)

Crews:
Ten Thunders: Jakob Lynch, Hungering Darkness, Mei Feng, Emberling, Kang, 2 Beckoners, 2 Rail Workers
Outcasts: Hamelin, Leviticus, Nix, Obedient Wretch, 2 stolen, 3 canine remains

With 6 of the possible schemes already used up, I was way outside my comfort zone here, and pretty much just chose whatever seemed amusing. Alternate Route is always entertaining as you build a little railway across the board, and I thought that Breakthrough went fairly well with it. As for Frame for Murder, I figured that since both Hamelin and Leviticus are so powerful there was a decent chance that they would put the final blow on Hungering Darkness.

Various members of Jonny’s crew attack each other or are sacrificed to turn into Rats, Waifs of just generally into corpse counters for later use. My Rail Workers get started on my Alternate Route Scheme.

This turn is where I make a lot of big mistakes. Leviticus uses up a lot of soulstones on Mei Feng, who is forced to use a lot of her own to stay alive. My Hungering Darkness charges Nix but achieves very little due to Nix’s aura of negative flips. I then spend most of the turn trying to put Nix down with no effect as he mauls my crew and then is Obedienced by Hamelin to do it all again (I hate Obedience, as it is like Obey but with all the restrictions removed). In the end, Mei Feng and Hungering Darkness are both down. I should have just left Nix alone and concentrated on getting some points for my schemes, or moved up for position next turn. A Stolen sacrifices Levi since he forgot to die.

Nix attempts to charge Kang but gets held up on a Rail Worker’s disengaging strike, so Hamelin just casts Obedience until he gets away and kills Kang. Jakob Lynch finally shoots Nix to death while my Rail Workers put down more Alternate Route Markers.

Hamelin casts Obedience on my Rail Workers to attack each other and move them out of position to put down the last Alternate Route marker but they don’t die quickly enough to stop me from achieving it. Levi kills one one of them, who finishes off the last Canine Remains with his Slow to Die action. I get desperate and make a Rat Brilliant with a Beckoner and then kill it to bring out Hungering Darkness on a single wound. Embarrassingly, a rat then kills the big beastie.

In turn 5, Leviticus finishes off the last Rail Worker and smites Jakob Lynch with a couple of Unnatural Wastings. Time is called but with only two Beckoners against an almost untouched crew, it is all over anyway. Jonny takes the win 5 – 2. I had a great time but I didn’t really put up the fight I was hoping for as I was fixated on getting Nix and he just mangled me. It didn’t help that I lost initiative in every turn, allowing Nix to get his negative flip aura running before I could attack him.

The scores are in and I come in third behind Jonny and Gareth who made a great foray into the world of Malifaux. As a group, we made out pretty well as I also got best painted single for Mr Graves (who I haven’t yet taken a photo for) and Forkbanger took best painted crew and an award for getting the most achievements from a list. So all in all a good day of playing with toy soldiers with three fun, close run games and plenty of hilarity all round. Thanks to Joe, Barry and Jonny for three great games and to David KS for doing all the work to organise the whole thing.

Painted Jakob Lynch

Here is the final member of the Dark Debts boxed set, Mr Jakob Lynch. He is the owner of the Honey Pot casino in Malifaux and general pawn of the Hungering Darkness. His crew is themed around the Brilliance mechanic, but he doesn’t have anyway of handing it out himself, nor can he get it (thanks to his Never Touch The Stuff rule). In practice, I don’t find that he does a great deal apart from hide at the back and try not to die so that the Hungering Darkness doesn’t disappear at an awkward time. A local player (who is much better at the game than me) seems to have considerable success using him to interact with markers in strategies like A Line in the Sand or Destroy the Evidence, so perhaps that is the route I should take.

He is meant to have some sort of weird magic skeleton thing coming out of the palm of his hand, conjuring trick-style. But that looked weird so I resorted to the Wife Test, which showed that it looked better with the open hand. Overall, I think that this is the miniature where I am most happy with the painting job. It is still somewhat lacklustre compared to other local talents of course. I decided early on that I wanted him to wear a cream coloured suit, and after a bit of thinking about it, I realised that the dark brown skin tone would be the perfect complement. Sadly, it does make his weakly-sculpted facial hair even more difficult to pick out, but in practice I only see the back of him on the table top.

Next on the painting table:  Fennblades.

Sabretusk conversion

I like Sabretusks in my Ogre Kingdoms armies, as they’re cheap, fast redirectors who occasionally manage to kill something useful before their untimely but inevitable demise.  Sadly, I don’t really care for the Sabretusk miniatures, as they’re sculpted in a strangely angular style which is almost totally absent from the rest of the range.  So I decided to convert / kit bash a couple to use.  In the Warhammer Fantasy line there is only one sensible choice of plastic large cat: the lions from the High Elf chariot kit.  But, of course, they look very stylised with the High Elves, with no particular reason to be used by the Ogre Kingdoms.  However, such an animal might well be enraged to the point where it would throw itself into an enemy unit  (i.e. act as a redirector) if it had something annoying it… lets say something small and green and given to carrying pointy objects about its person.  A Gnoblar rider would be a perfect option in such a case.  The work was easy: I just chose the two Gnoblars left over from the Ironblaster kit with the most splayed legs, cut one off and placed it astride the lion, then glued said leg back on and sculpted the missing part with Milliput.  The legs don’t look amazing as the riders are meant to be sitting on a cart rather than the back of a wild animal but they aren’t bad enough to detract from the piece overall.

I’m not sure about the thing sticking out from the mane; I assume it’s part of the chariot assembly.  For the time being I plan to leave it as the pose is dynamic enough to justify a bit of rope streaming out behind but if it annoys me when I’m painting then it’ll have to go.

I deliberately selected the riders to look like they had no way to control their steeds, though of course that isn’t too hard with the Gnoblar sculpts as they are all somewhat comedic.

The rest of the chariot will eventually become another Tuskgor Chariot as I have the necessary crew and draft animals available.