There’s been some desultory games going on at Twilight over the past few months. I’ve missed a lot of them due to either being sick or unhappy with my crew. I wasn’t going to be allowed to skip the fall league, though — and to be honest, I missed our regular weekly games. It was nice to just get into a rhythm, and a rhythm is going to be what we need if we want to start on some of the newer game modes.
But for now, there’s no new game modes, no new “Gaining Grounds” — the list of strategies and schemes selectable for play in a standard game of Malifaux. I’d talk about those here, but I guess they probably deserve a post of their own. And there is a new Gaining Grounds coming out, too.
I’ve been playing Colette since CaptainCon, but I have actually never won a game with her. This is frustrating. The whole Performer keyword is all about dancing out of the way of enemy attacks and leading them astray while making points. But it just seemed I would get overwhelmed by the enemy forces; they would summon so many new models, or kill me from range, or just out-mobilize me. I know there is someone out there who can win with Colette, but that someone is not me.
And so, I have been putting Toni’s M&SU together (as I mentioned in my last Malifaux post). I still haven’t finished putting her crew together. Kasul bought me Lord Cooper’s Apex crew for my birthday, and I haven’t put that together, either. These things are not easy for a person with poor eyesight to assemble and I have been putting it off.
So that left either Rasputina or Mei Feng. I’ve given Mei to my daughter, who at one time showed some interest in playing; I should probably get that back from her. That leaves Raspy as my only master who I a) have in hand, and b) actually wins games.
As she did last night.
Well, it looks like the Malifaux app has crashed and wants to be deleted, so it looks like I won’t be able to give an accurate listing of Misaki’s team. So I’ll do my best with what I remember.
Deployment: Standard, opposite sides of the table. This is my favorite for Raputina’s December.
Strategy: Plant explosives. Every non-peon model carries a bomb that needs to be dropped on the enemy side of the table. The one with the most bombs on the enemy side of the table wins a point — both get a point for a tie.
Scheme pool: Started with Frame Job (take damage entirely on the enemy side of the board), Scout the Rooftops (scheme markers on at least two rooftops without nearby enemy models), and the one where you have to have at least three scheme markers surrounding a piece of terrain on the enemy side of the board.
The way the battlefield was set up, I was never going to have enough of my units over on the other side of the board to get the latter two; I’d probably be able to take some damage, though, so I chose Frame Job as my first scheme. My opponent forgot what scheme he chose, but it wasn’t Frame Job. I’d have liked to have known that sooner, as he was very aggressive and got a couple of models on my side of the board first turn that I was hesitant to attack.
My team:
Rasputina, Abominable — attacks through ice pillars and can lock models down
Mara — her totem, does some deck manipulation and ice pillar manufacturing
Snow Storm — a girl and her winter monster. MVP in the battle, powers up near ice pillars.
Bashe — a winter crocodile. He is terrifying and his job is to sit in the middle of the board and be scary.
Blessing of December — scheme runner and glass cannon
Sightless Snow / Ceddra — our transforming stag girl, second scheme runner.
and the minions: December Acolyte and Silent One.
So this is pretty much my normal December crew. Other players double up on the acolytes or the silent ones. Raspy 2 (as she is known informally with this title) can summon new acolytes and Silent Ones, but the process is so onerous that I think I have done it just once. It requires being within 6″ of an ice pillar entirely on the enemy side of the table, and having a high card in hand to spend on the summon. By the time Raspy is in play that far up on the battlefield, we’re usually deep into it.
I did mean to try summoning here but did not.
Okay, enemy team. They could all poop out shadows, and teleport from one shadow to another, though that would use up the destination poop. So their mobility was first rate.
Misaki, Oyabun — ninja master
Shang — her totem
… and a couple ninjas, a couple archers, and some heavy hitters and I would be more forthcoming except my app crashed, won’t load, so it is just… gone.
My acolyte and his archers had “From the Shadows”, which means they were placed not at deployment time, but at the start phase of the first turn. He put them on the tops of two buildings near his deployment zone. I thought I might put mine right next to his, assuming they would hurt or kill the acolyte, getting me my Frame Job point, but then I didn’t. He spent the first turn setting up shadows and moving to take on the center. I used my first turn to set up ice pillars along the centerline, and sending my scheme runners up the flanks to drop their bombs.
I also sent Bashe up to the middle, maybe a little early; Misaki and her crew killed Bashe and my acolyte on the first turn and almost had Mara down. Killing Bashe got me my Frame Job point, and I got the two bombs to his one, so I won the strategy point. He had, I think, the scheme where you have to surround a piece of enemy terrain with scheme markers, and he did not do that. I was 2-0 on the first turn.
With Mara under the gun, I sent her to drop her bomb, play with my deck, and I think I made an ice pillar. She was, as expected, next to die, but I had a chance to get Snow Storm up there. Meanwhile, Misaki had grappled and poop-ported a heavy hitter down to near my deployment zone, so Raspy was tied up bringing that one down. Snow Storm took down the heavy at the center line while my scheme runners set up Harness the Leyline. We tied with the strategy, and he made his scheme, which I don’t remember, so it was 4-2 after the second turn.
He killed my Blessed on the third turn; I brought down one of his lesser ninjas enough to make my Assassinate scheme, though I was unable to kill it for the extra point. He made his scheme, but I had so few models remaining by this time that he was unable to get an extra point. He made a tactical error by attacking Raspy with his first action; she has a special ability where she can spend a soulstone to immediately end an enemy activation, and so he was not able to drop his bomb, which would have broken the tie and gotten him a strategy point (and denied me one). But, he didn’t. At the end of turn 3, the score was 5-4.
We stopped at turn 3 because I thought the store was closing; we actually had another half hour. I’d turned the tide by that time, having killed most of his heavy hitters and his minions near death. His master was still alive but that was pretty much it. I think if we’d had that fourth turn, I still would have won.
It felt good to win again, after Colette let me down so much.
I really need to finish assembling those other crews though.
