It was our second open game day at Twilight Cards & Games in South Windsor. Last time, my daughter stopped by and played a demo game. This time, we got a couple of people asking questions. Maybe next time, they’ll try it out for themselves.
I’m still switching my team around to find the best mix of units. This game:
- Colette du Bois, Smuggler — AKA Colette 2. Her team uses decoy markers to escape danger and can generate soul stones in a wide variety of ways. It’s not important to start the game with a huge soul stone pool. Her crew card gives all friendly Performer models the ability to spend a soul stone to create a decoy marker in base contact, and then reposition up to 4″ away. I use this a lot. She can fight with the power of her enemy’s soulstone pool, and do a double whammy attack that deals damage twice.
- Angelica Durand — Colette’s “Totem” / Assistant. Angelica has some combat abilities, but her main job is tossing decoy markers out for others to use.
- Envy — not a Performer model; he is one of the Crossroads Seven, seven models who have sold their souls to the devil in order to make the bitchingest band in the world. Envy plays a pipe organ that has gatling guns built in. Since he is not a Performer (and, seriously, all the Crossroads Seven should be performers, it’s what they do), he can’t use the “get out of engagement range free” card. He is one of my two DPS models. He has a special move that can make the friendly soul stone pool equal to the enemy soul stone pool, once per game.
- Arcane Emissary — this is my other DPS model. He can also be used by any friendly Performer model as a mobile starting point for any magic spell cast within 6″ of him. Useful for getting a little more range or a better vantage point.
- Shadowlark — she can fly! A melee-only model who is extremely useful for scheme running. Her melee isn’t bad either.
Those are my core crew. I’m still playing with what the rest of the crew should look like. Last time I used the three Showgirls, but they were somewhat hampered by the strategy. So this time:
- Blackbirds (2) — these are Shadowlark’s minions. I used them for scheme running, and one of them even survived the game. They aren’t really fighters, more like warm bodies.
- Gearling — I had some extra soul stones to spend, so I hired a Gearling. I also used this for scheme running. It almost slipped into the enemy’s area of control before they noticed it. There is some pulling of units around, but I didn’t use it.
Jakob Lynch, Dark Bet — Honeypot keyword
I’ve never played against Honeypot before.
All friendly Honeypot models gain the following abilities:
Deal Me In: When this mdoel declares the Prepare action, it may gain a Brilliance token instead of other tokens.
I’ll Raise: When this model declares an attack action, it may remove a Brilliance token from itself. If it does so and succeeds, it receives an addition raise.
Friendly unique Honeypot models gain the following action:
A Debt Called In — signature, requires a soul stone, magic attack, range 6″, attacks willpower at stat 6, 2 damage. Once per activation. Damage from this action is irreducible. Look at the top three cars of the target’s deck and put them back in any order.
So there was a lot of Lynch rearranging my fate deck for me, which was awfully considerate of him. He could also use Brilliance tokens to hit harder, and add Brilliance tokens to my models to give them various bad conditions. For instance, it can cause one of my models a damage when I cheat fate, or my models can be moved against my will, etc. There’s no way for me to remove this condition from one of my models. And he can make a lot of them, as easily as Performer makes Decoy tokens.
The Game
Strategy: Plant Explosives. Every non-peon model gets a bomb, they have to drop it on the enemy side of the board, at the end of the turn, the person with the most bombs on the enemy side of the board wins the point. Two points if two of the bombs are in the enemy deployment zone.
Deployment: Flank, an “L”-shaped area on opposite corners.
We weren’t using the app, so I don’t know what the full scheme pool was, but I know we both took Scout the Rooftops — get two or three (for extra point) scheme markers on terrain of at least height 2, more than 6″ from your deployment zone with no enemy models within 2″ of the scheme marker. It’s incredibly obvious when someone has chosen this scheme, so we both spent the first turn juggling this around.
Envy got an early kill on one of the Honeypot models, putting me ahead on models 9-7. I also made the strategy and scheme on the first turn, putting me ahead 2-0 at the end.
Lynch kept his scheme for turn 2; I moved to Detonate Charges — when this sceheme is revealed, remove two friendly Scheme markers that are within 2″ of enemy models to gain 1 VP. Remove three such for 2 VP. I failed on this one; Lynch figured out what I was doing and moved his master out of harm’s way with the ability of another of his units. On reading the card, I could have counted scheme markers on any units, didn’t have to be the same one. I know there were enemy units near other of my scheme markers. I might have actually made this point.
By this time, Lynch was pinning down my models and making me play too many cards to withstand his attacks; he was also careful to keep out of line of sight of Envy, and very much desired Emissary dead and got his wish. I was not having the same luck killing his models with Envy neutered (by Lynch surrounding him with models making him unable to use his guns) and Emissary dead. Colette was doing her best but had some devastatingly bad flips. Carlos was also targeted and killed, so my mobility was pretty much gone, with Shadowlark doing her best to stay safe and keep generating soul stones on the other side of the board.
For turn 3, I abandoned Detonate Charges and moved to Runic Binding, as I pretty much had it on the board at the start of the turn — a fact that did not go unnoticed by Lynch, who moved his master out of the runic triangle to deny me the extra point, but I did make it. I worked my best to get my explosives dropped, but he still manage to outpace me while pursuing my lesser models. I think Angelica bought it in turn 3.
I started Turn 4 with only four models left of my starting nine. I had Ensnare on the board, so I took that even though Lynch noted that I had Ensnare. Lynch moved early, so I stacked scheme markers on him since he could not move, and my last Blackbird also had Ensnare made, so I was safe from having that scheme ruined. Shadowlark was able to drop those two scheme markers at Lynch’s feet, but not being a Showgirl, she couldn’t simultaneously be engaged in combat with him, so did not get the extra point.
Lynch got the strategy three times and five points for schemes, so the game ended 8-4.
Even though I lost, I’m not unhappy with the result. I’m still learning Performer and I have not yet settled on the final team. I have Dorian Crowe and the Coryphee Duet to try. I think they will go in next time.
You win or lose Malifaux games on points, not kills. If I’d tried harder to get the extra points for the schemes, I may have tied or won even with fewer models. Scheme markers left on the board between turns definitely made it easier to make subsequent schemes, and I’m thinking it is never a bad idea to just make a scheme marker if you don’t have anything else useful to do. It may come in handy later.
