I’d say you never know what to expect when you’re going into a Malifaux match, but I’d be wrong about this one. I knew I’d be facing Cadmus this week, and I had time to prepare.
Cadmus is a hive mind crew, led by their queen, Nexus. They invade models with parasites, that, over time, makes enemy models into friends. Nexus hides herself behind normal looking scientists and citizens who seem to be going about their normal lives, but make no mistake: they are all just extensions of Nexus, and if you take down some of the citizens, she’s ready to infect more and send them, too, to their deaths.
Last week, I saw Cadmus being played on another table. The player had a bunch of cards lined up on their side of the table, because Nexus just keeps adding more unwitting citizens to her crew. The idea here is not only to overwhelm the other player, but, because all the models are linked, any damage to one can be shared with nearby models, making them very hard to kill.
My goal in this match was to kill all the newly infected citizens — the Eyes and Ears — before their infection turned them into Berserker Husks — doubling their health and combat power.
That did not go well. I did set up a couple of Winter’s Strikes — an AE attack easily powerful enough to clear out at least a couple E&E and damage a couple others — only for two of them to be destroyed by Black Jokers. And in a few cases I just had bad draws. Not being able to nip infections in the bud meant I was always playing on the defensive.
Bashe and new model Snow Storm, my tanks guarding the left and right lanes, were both infected, which meant they now shared damage I did to the enemy and could be used for any action my opponent needed a friendly model for. (Naturally, I couldn’t share any damage those models took with any other Cadmus model — it goes just one way).
Snow Storm — in previous editions, two models named Snow and Storm, now together with Storm riding Snow — replaced Ceddra in this match, and I replaced the Soulstone Miner with a Kaltgeist, an ice spirit. Several of my models grab soulstones from the corpses of their kills, and I expected to get a lot of kills off the Eyes & Ears, but that did not work out. I was on a soulstone deficit the entire night.
Deployment: Standard — could deploy anywhere along our table side.
Strategy: Raid the Vaults — vie for control of a number of fixed points.
Schemes: I chose Outflank and Deliver a Message; he chose Deliver a Message and Hold Up Their Forces.
I didn’t make any strategy points; I did get one Outflank and Deliver a Message, and so we agreed to end the game after Turn 4 with the score 4-2 Cadmus. It was getting late and he just had so many models that each turn took forever.
Not sure of the matchup for next time, but there aren’t many of us in the league this time around so I imagine it will be Arcanist vs Arcanist and I will face Toni Ironsides’ Miners & Steamfitters Union. Kasul decimated her last night with his Yan Lo crew. Toni was almost my first master, though I ended up going with Mei Feng. She’s a bruiser and I think that will work well with Rasputina’s distance attacks. I’ll have to set up some better healing for the tanks.
The store we played in is closing, along with every other store in the Enfield Square Mall, marked for demolition. Everything was on sale, so I bought a couple boxes of Performer, my next crew, and a t-shirt. Look for Colette DuBois to take the stage sometime this summer!
