I can’t say that I ever really look forward to gaming on my feet for a tournament day — that’s eight hours with just a couple of breaks. Malifaux games take a long time and three in a day… well.
Each game was given two and a half hours, and that was not enough time for me and my unlucky (to be paired with me) opponent to complete a game. The first two games, we completed three turns. For the final one, just two. Out of five, for a complete game.
The issue comes down to the game rules. Each model — and I run with eight — has a double sided card of actions and passives unique to that model. And this time, I was running a couple of newer models that I’d played with only once before, at our first weekly Tuesday night session.
Sparks LeBlanc is nominally, like all of the gremlins, a member of the Bayou Engineering faction, but, being mechanically inclined, he started hanging around the Foundry until the foreman, Mei Feng, allowed him to stay. He can now be part of the Arcanist faction, with the Foundry keyword.
Rumor has it, that he was the one who first built the Mechanical Porkchop, after which the other gremlins demanded to know what was the use for a pig you couldn’t eat?
With Mei Feng as my leader, and Porkchop as one of my enforcers, it made perfect sense for me to bring Sparks in to replace my previous henchman, Kang. His gift with constructs makes him the perfect companion to Fat Cap, the Metal Golem. He follows six inches behind and heals it, grants it shielding and explosive armor, and lets it take an extra action.
Soulstone Miners… mine soulstones. Soulstones are the Malifaux currency. They are what powers the land, and they are super valuable; the fight for control over the soulstones powers the conflicts in Malifaux and it is, supposedly, what we’re fighting over. By now, of course, the grudges between and even within the factions have taken on a life of their own, but ultimately, it’s all about the soulstones.
Each player is given a set number of soulstones for each game, usually 50 for a regular game, though it can be set to any agreed-upon number. Models are bought from the soulstone pool (though the leaders and their totem — Mei Feng and Spritz the Forgeling for my crew — are free). Any soulstones left over can be used to improve card draw and deflect damage. You only get the ones left over from buying your crew, and once used, they are gone.
Unless you have a model that can give you more. Soulstone miners can do that. Each activation, they can choose to stun themselves — meaning their actions can’t use triggers. If they do this, out pops a soulstone. I had one of them on my team in the Tuesday game, but for the tournament, I chose to replace both my Gearling and Metal Gamin with Soulstone Miners. Two soulstones each turn meant my initial hand was as good as it could be. Unfortunately, with my leader, Mei Feng, being nearly invulnerable (she can eat a scrap marker to shrug off damage) and only one henchman who could use them (Sparks) who didn’t often get into fights, I didn’t have much need for that. But starting off with a good hand was huge.
So my crew for the tournament was: Mei Feng, Foreman, Bubblegum variant; Forgeling, Spritz variant; Metal Golem, Fat Cap variant; Rail Worker, King Crybaby variant; Mechanical Porkchop; Sparks LeBlanc; Soulstone Miner x2, for a cost of 46 soulstones, with four left over.
I posted briefly about the tournament on BlueSky as it was going — BlueSky was the social network where I found another Malifaux player.
After round 1 of the Fall into Faux #Malifaux tournament, my Mei Feng 2 vs her Soniia 1, Flank, Plant Explosives, Espionage, Hold Up Their Forces, I lost 3-2 at the second turn. Blue models in the pics are mine, the red, hers. Women do play miniatures games!
- Deployment: Flank — deployment zone is an L-shape around opposite corners
- Strategy: Plant Explosives — Each crew starts with five explosives that must be placed in the enemy side of the board to score points.
- Scheme: Espionage — Score points for friendly scheme markers on the centerline and the enemy deployment zone. Soulstone miners were tasked with infiltrating the enemy deployment zone.
- Scheme: Hold Up Their Forces — Score points when at least two of your models are engaging enemy models of higher point costs. I messed up by not realizing all but one of the enemy models were the same or lower cost than mine — except for my Forgeling. I stupidly moved Spritz out of the battle for safekeeping and it was impossible to score this point.
Second game in the Fall into Faux #Malifaux tournament, lost 4-2 again, standard deployment, cloak and dagger, information overload, power ritual. One more chance to pull off a win.
- Deployment: Standard — stretches the width of the battlefield nearest you.
- Strategy: Cloak and Dagger — four information drops are placed on the centerline; interacting with it gets information; turn in an increasing amount of information each turn to score points.
- Scheme: Information Overload — Score a point when you have more friendly scheme markers on the enemy side of the table than the enemy has scheme markers anywhere. This turned out to be impossible for me to keep ahead of, as it was always mine on the far side of the board against ALL of his, even on HIS side of the board.
- Scheme: Power Ritual — score points by having friendly scheme markers in corners of the board not in your deployment zone. This turned out to be impossible, as the soulstone miners couldn’t get close in the time they had to get there. Soulstone Miners can’t resurface within 6″ of the enemy deployment zone.
Game 3
I forgot to take a picture for Game 3, and when I asked my opponent to help set the board state up exactly as it was when we ended the game, he just laughed. I was serious. Oh well.
Game three of the tournament was a win for me, 3-2. Corner deployments, raid the vaults, protected territory, power ritual. More when I write the blog. So that was 1-2-0 for me, which was what I hoped for — not to be 0-3.
- Deployment: Corner — a semicircle around a corner
- Strategy: Raid the Vaults — a zone control strategy where the zone values go from 0-2 depending on how far they are from your deployment zone, and the one who has the most scores the point.
- Scheme: Protected Territory — Score a point when two markers, at least 10″ apart, and are more than 3″ from any enemy model.
Power Ritual worked this time, with one miner grabbing a corner, the other the opposite corner, and one of my other models dropping a scheme marker nearer the middle.
We have a lot of games coming up. But I’m most looking forward to putting together a Halloween-themed team… we’ll see if I can pull it off.
