Malifaux’s an easy game to understand. You’re the head of a gang that all have something in common — they call that a faction and a keyword. You have a job to do — that’s called the strategy. And while you’re out doing that job, maybe there’s a couple other things you want to do. Those are called schemes. You hire a crew, you choose schemes from a pool, and work against another crew to complete a strategy. It’s simple.
Or rather, it would be simple if there wasn’t another crew trying to stop you every step of the way.
I’ve written more about the game in other posts — take a look if you’re interested.
I can still count the total number of Malifaux games I’ve played without running out of fingers, but at least I now have to use both hands. My crew is headed by Mei Feng, Foreman. She’s been known to hang out with the Ten Thunders, but with me she’s been sticking with the Arcanists. She runs the shop, and when she comes out, she comes out with friends who know their way around a pipe. A lot of them are more than a little machine.
My crew was the same as last time — Mei Feng 2 and her totem, the Forgeling. Kang is her main lieutenant, and she has a rail worker to throw things around. An impish Metal Gamin is underfoot, and she brings some mechs with her; the Metal Golem, the Mechanical Porkchop, and the Gearling to round out her crew.
In the third league game, the strategy was Raid the Vaults — area control around six vaults placed around the battlefield. You get a point if you have more models contesting a vault that your opponent, and more points the further from your starting zone.
The formation was Wedge, a triangle-shaped deployment zone.
The schemes were drawn from a pool; I chose Deliver a Message, where Porkchop could get up in the enemy master’s face, and Flanking, where I have to drop two scheme markers on opposite sides of the centerline.
My crew’s main ability is called Ride the Rails, which lets my units teleport between scrap markers. Most of my units can make scrap markers and gain special abilities when near them.
So it was unlucky for me that my opponent had a VERY HARD TO KILL unit that stopped me from riding the rails anywhere near the center of the board. I never did manage to kill it. And he had ANOTHER that destroyed multiple scrap markers at a shot.
Robbed of my mobility and markers, I was never going to win this match. If I’d had another crew, I’d have used it — but I don’t. This winter, I plan to go into the December keyword, ice powers. Then if someone decides that they’ll attack Mei Feng’s mobility, fine. They can deal with ice spires making the terrain a wilderness.
I lost, 7-3. This puts me at #9 out of 13, which isn’t great, but it isn’t last, either.
The tournament is in a couple of weeks. We’ll see where I end up. I hope I don’t meet this guy again.
