Journey to Malifaux UK Nationals 2024

I organised a game after my last pretty quickly after my last one which was good as I hadn’t played a game in a couple of weeks before that. I decided I was just going to run Iron Heart again as he was pretty interesting to use. 

Here are the crews for the game we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got flank deployment in Raid the Vaults with Deliver a message and Outflank for my schemes;

Von Schill – Iron Heart

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Drachen Trooper

Freikorpsmen

Hannah Lovelace 

Lazarus

Tunnel rats

Fumigator

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Shenlong

2 x Aspiring Student

Four winds Golem

Sensei Yu

Charm Warder

Wandering River monk

Low River Monk

Desper LaRaux

6 Soulstones

Turn 1 as always was positioning to score turn 2. I was again unfamiliar with the master I was playing against which wasn’t helpful, but I thought I would go for a crew that removes markers as I vaguely remembered something about Chi. Unfortunately it was a damage output crew not a marker placement crew and Chi was a status that was built up not a token that was placed down. I went with it though and try to play to my strengths.

In turn 2 I was mostly in what I had felt like was a decent position for Outflank having the tunnel rats at one corner and Hannah near the other. Sadly it was very quickly gone. I had stretched out too thin too fast and before I knew it my Tunnel Rats were toast and The Four Winds Golem was tying up Hannah who had managed to avoid a good chunk of damage thanks to the black Joker. I moved a few people up into scoring positions and held them there for scoring. I managed to get some blips of health off some characters, but it was either healed or stoned away by the end of the turn.

Turn 3 was when things got a little heated in the centre, but again not a lot happened Lazarus and The fumigator took a beating but were still standing. Importantly I was still holding enough markers to score the Strategy but so was my opponent. He was also blocking the Fumigator who is the character I had chosen to deliver the message to Shenlong. Hannah was being held up on all sides but again managed to avoid a huge amount of damage and death thanks to the black Joker. My opponent managed to Score a point for protected territory and we both scored a point for the strategy.

Turn 4 saw both disaster and triumph. Firstly I had managed to get a bit of health back onto Lazarus and the fumigator pushing them up a little. Then using Rocket boots I repositioned Lazarus into a great position and with a single rocket launcher shot I killed both aspiring students in one go. In retaliation he finished off Lazarus with ease using Shenglong and the Fumigator with Sensei Yu. Hannah felt the wrath of the four wind Golem as well, managing to cling to a bit of health until shoved back into the steam trunk and Drachen Trooper, killing her and damaging the other 2 as well. Crucially the trunk was blocking the Charm Warder who was low on health already and damaging her further allowing the Drachen trooper to finish her off and deal a little damage to Desper as well. I was also delivered a message from the Low River Monk. I was now low on models in the centre and I could not score for the Strategy, but my opponent did the score was now 4-2 to my opponent

Turn 5 we only did a couple of activations to see what I could be achieved I managed to push Von Schill way out to score the Strat for the final turn. I attempted to move my opponent off the objectives, but it was pretty clear it was not going to happen when we talked it over so we decided to call the game there at 7-3 to my opponent.

Whilst not a strong game for me it was still a good game with lots of fun moments. Again I failed to score Outflank and I think I get why now. I am revealing my intentions too early and making it far too predictable what I am planning. For deliver a message it was just bad luck and my opponent’s smart planning and resource management that kept my messenger tied up this time, otherwise I would have scored at least a single point from it. Whilst i wouldn’t have won me the game that extra 2 points minimum would have made the game a little closer. Still I am learning all the time and it’s another master I now know. I think from here I am going to attempt to build some standardised lists that will do specific things well and start using and refining those before the nationals.