Journey to Malifaux UK Nationals 2024

So by now I was hoping to have at least two games under my belt, however as we all know life happens and plans change. Luckily for me my Wife said that she would do her best to play a game with me. So I decided to pit the two core boxes for the crews I chose against each other. So it is Hoffman Vs. Nekima here are the lists.

Hoffman

Mechanical Attendant

Melissa K.O.R.E

3 x Hunters

Nekima

Blood Hunter

2 Young Nephilim

2 Mature Nephilim

Turn 1 I won priority and had a rough idea of my plan. In the same manner as last time I wanted to stay bubbled up and hand out power tokens as much as possible. However as the old saying goes, plans never survive contact with the enemy. Within the first Neverborn activation I had a Young Nephilim in my face and I thought maybe if I tried to match that aggression I might stand a chance of surviving. That was pretty much the entire of Turn 1 I would move and a Nephilim would fly over to greet me. My Scheme runner was stopped dead in his tracks by Nekima herself.

So at the start of Turn 2 I had an uphill battle everyone was hurting and although no slouches in combat they definitely weren’t quite on the level of the Nephilim. We traded blows back and forth and I lost 2 hunters to a single Young Nephilim. The Neverborn’s first scheme was hatched and they scored a point. We also both scored a point for the Strategy so the game was sitting at 2-1 Neverborn.

Things looked bleak at the start of turn 3. Fortunately my Hunter held out against Nekima better than I had hoped in the previous turn so she had used all her actions to finish him off. I had to kill off a Mature Nephilim to score a scheme point and I had managed to pull the Red joker into my hand so I used that to ensure his demise and scored a point. I lost Melissa and my final Hunter but I also managed to kill the Blood Hunter so at the end of Turn with both scored a Strategy Point the game sat tied at 3-3.

Turn 4 would be the final turn and a pretty quick one at that. I flipped the Black Joker for priority ensuring that the Neverborn activated first. Nekima did what she does best and cut down Hoffman with a single action and charged into the Mechanical attendant, cutting him down swiftly as well. With their final activations the Nephilim dropped Scheme markers and scored another point as well as one for the Strategy leaving the game as 5-3 victory for the Neverborn.

Final thoughts.

I was left pretty impressed with Nekima’s crew. They are massively mobile and the Black Blood ability is great for chipping away at armour if you don’t have anything to stop it. Hoffman is definitely a crew that is definitely going to benefit from being at 50 Soul stones for hiring. I remembered to bubble up and hand out power, but was still forgetting to change suits and add plus damage flips out. It did manage to help me when I did remember to do it. I have to play a bigger game next time to see if Hoffman is a lost cause or if I can figure him out in time for November.