Journey to Malifaux UK Nationals 2024

Thought I would take the time to post a couple of photos of the venue whilst I had the time.

So here we are on the eve of nationals, 7 months and 15 games between now and then. I am going to summarise the last two games I had because I needed to focus on painting so wasn’t able to do a full post for game 14. I thankfully was able to get the entire keyword for Freikorps done and some versatile models as well.

Here are the crews for the games we played at a standard 50 soulstones game,

So here we are on the eve of nationals, 7 months and 15 games between now and then. I am going to summarise the last two games I had because I needed to focus on painting so wasn’t able to do a full post for game 14. I thankfully was able to get the entire keyword for Freikorps and some versatile models as well.

Here are the crews for the games we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, 

Game 14

We got standard deployment in plant explosives with Deliver a message and protected territories for my schemes;

Von Schill – Iron Heart

Steam Trunk

Freikorps Engineer

Freikorps librarian

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik

Tunnel rats

Fumigator

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Youko Hamasaki

Chiyo Hamasaki

Fuhatsu

Hinamatsu

Charm Warder

Kunoichi

Bill Algren

5 Soulstones

This was another game where it was a bit of a brawl in the centre pretty quick and some of my plans just fell apart super quickly. I was able to deliver a message and plant an explosive, but otherwise I was unable to do much else because things just died in droves. I really felt the lack of focused ability in my crew this time. Having a second Engineer or even a librarian would have kept some of my heavy hitters in the fight a bit longer. It was a great throwdown between Bill and Arik constantly trading blows and just missing out on the final blow multiple times. The game ended at a 7-3 loss which had I known the other crew a little better I wouldn’t have selected what I did and maybe would have traded for a more ranged approach.

Game 15

We got wedge deployment in Raid the Vaults with power ritual and espionage for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

3 x Freikorpsmann

3 x Freikorps scout 

Midnight stalker 

Tunnel rats

Malifaux Child

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Lihn Ly – storyteller

Jade Rabbit

2 x Bookkeeper 

Story of Thanh Giong

Story of Sun Wukong

Story of Raijin

Desper LaRaux

4 Soulstones

I threw this list together last minute because I wanted to give the midnight stalker and Malifaux Child a run out before the nationals to see what was possible with them. This game was much more tense and I was much closer to getting a good score here. Again though it was not a great match up of crews and I hadn’t realised that the midnight stalker had lost his eternal ability. So whilst he seemed good initially, performed badly because I didn’t pay attention to the card. Another 7-3 loss, I was so close to potentially getting to 7-5 which whilst obviously still a loss would have been marginally better than last game. Also that Jade rabbit is a real pain for just being a totem but now I know. It’s all information and learning which is what these games are about.

In conclusion I have struggled to push past that 3 points level in my past couple of games. Why? I think my brain is kinda of stuck in a “kill all the things!” mode which scores me nothing. I also forget to set up my end game schemes or when I do they’re shut down pretty quickly. So what now, well my next seven games will be at the UK nationals, so my journey is coming to a close. What do I hope for at nationals? It’s simple really, I want to play some fun games and maybe get a game where I don’t lose. I’ve come so close a couple of times, so a draw or even a win would be great, but I don’t expect to walk away with anything but the wooden spoon at this point if I’m honest and that’s okay.

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.

I organised the next Malifaux Midlands meetup this past weekend and we had 7 players attend with varying different crews all having some friendly games. My intention was to get a game in with Iron Heart Von Schill as I hadn’t gotten a chance to use him yet. I played the person who gave me the original demo of the game a few years ago so it was nice to play him again at a proper level.

Here are the crews for the game we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got standard deployment in Cloak and dagger with sweating bullets and let them bleed for my schemes;

Von Schill – Iron Heart

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Freikorps Engineer

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Lazarus

3 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Lucius Mattheson 

The Scribe

Alan Reid

Klaus Norwood 

Cavitica

White eyes

Guild Lawyer

2 False witnesses 

7 Soulstones

Turn 1 was the standard positioning for scoring in Turn 2. The only real notable thing I found that the keyword I was playing had a lot of card and hand manipulation abilities making it a little harder to pull off the things I really wanted to do.

Turn 2 I had gotten in a good position to score the strategy and make a start on scoring the schemes I had picked. I threw Iron-Heart into the mix with reckless abandonment foolishly as all the hand manipulation quickly drained my cards. However in an unknowing good pick, Lazarus’s Grenade launcher avoided a lot of this because it is a shockwave weapon and doesn’t target models, but instead targets a spot on the board. Unfortunately my opponent had a wealth of cards to pass the tests needed to avoid damage. We traded blows here and there doing a little damage to each other’s crews. I lost my Scout to white eyes who made a Beeline for him from the very beginning of the game. 

Into Turn 3 a slight misjudgement of placement meant that Hannah was not as in the mix as I wanted, but Arik managed to move in and smoosh poor Klaus into paste with an 8 damage punch. Iron-Heart was completely tangled in a web of Boring conversation and Flexible Morality meaning getting anything off was tricky. I had a plan for Turn 4 but we’ll get to that shortly. I didn’t manage to score my strat this round as I said I was just to far out of position and Lazarus had not managed to do any significant damage again. My opponent scored a scheme and a strategy putting the score at 3-1.

Turn 4 I had a plan to hopefully get Iron-Heart into a better position with Bulldoze remove some markers do some damage and get him to where I wanted. he managed to pull it off at the cost of a few cards and chipped some damage to a couple of characters and setting up the fall of the guild lawyer among them. Sadly Lazarus fell to multiple attackers that I just couldn’t fend off. Iron-Heart was now in deep trouble surrounded by enemies on all sides and only an engineer in support. We both scored the strategy my opponent scored the another scheme but with a little help I also scored one of my schemes as well the score now sat at 5-3 in my opponents favour.

Turn 5 myself and my opponent talked it out and did a couple of key activations to see if I could score my last 2 Schemes and the same for him. Iron-heart managed to do the amount of damage needed the people around him to score both of my schemes for end game and he would also do the same and he would easily score the Strategy and the game ended at 6-8.

So in conclusion I am begining to remember to use focus, the best people to put certain upgrades on and my abilities and triggers that help me win games. I am getting there and the past few games I have played have seen me so close to victory or at least a draw. Whilst I feel the wooden spoon is most likely what I will walk away with at the nationals I can at least say I will have progressed from where I began. I am happy with my level of knowledge for the most part, but most importantly I am enjoying the game more and more. 

Driving down to the tournament I had a little anxiety about the day ahead. I hadn’t been in a tournament for such a competitive game in a long time and my previous experience was a little negative. Which was mostly on me as I had underestimated how competitive it was going to be and was woefully underprepared. Was this the same? Was I way out of my depth? Had I made a huge mistake signing up for nationals? Well before I knew it we were there and game 1 was just around the corner and I managed to talk myself down from the high anxiety to just a little bit of panic.

So rather than do the usual round by round breakdown I will sum up the crews, Strats and schemes then just do an overall summary of the game and how I felt it went.

Also a quick note I wanted to take photos of all the tables but didn’t get a chance but were some gorgeous ones around so here are a couple of them

Here are the crews for the game 1, we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got wedge deployment in raid the vaults and death beds and outflank for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

2 x Freikorpsmann

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Tunnel Rats

2 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Marcus Alpha 

Jackalope

Myranda

The Scorpious 

Sightless Snow

Soulstone Miner

Order Initiate

4 Soulstones

Okay this will be as brief as the game was, as I suddenly realised I was probably going to be playing a lot of crews and even factions I had never faced before. In a blind panic I picked a crew that wasn’t very coherent or useful at all for the strat, but I rolled with it as best as I could and picked a couple of schemes I thought I had a chance of doing. The game moved along at a brisk pace and I felt okay up to turn 3. I had lost a couple of models and so had my opponent. However things went south fast in turn 3 model after model was eradicated and in turn 5 my opponent gave me a hint that I had a chance of the possibility of scoring a single point. I managed to figure out the route and my opponent kindly helped me with the finer details and I managed to score a single point. At this point I was neither disappointed as losing was what I was expecting, but also it didn’t feel great to lose 8-1. However at this point I was chatting to some of the other players and discovered that the person I had drawn at my first tournament in my first round was ranked No.5 in the UK and was more than likely winning the tournament as well (which he did). Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad as I managed to score a point against him, admittedly with some help, with a panic built crew. Also he was incredibly kind, patient and helpful both during and after the game, Giving me some hints and thoughts on crew building and model use for the rest of the day which I took on board and he also gifted me some game aids as well. With this welcoming attitude and generally great vibe I looked forward to my next two games.

Here are the crews for the game 2, we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got standard deployment in plant explosives and hold up their forces and information overload for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Fumigator 

Freikorpsmann

Drachen Trooper

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Lazarus

Tunnel Rats

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Captain Zipp Dread Pirate 

Earl Burns

The First Mate

2 x Iron Skeeter 

Beau Fishbocker

Swashbuckler

Gracie

4 Soulstones

Going into game 2 I was a little more composed and all anxiety had gone. I didn’t know the crew at all, but I know that Gremlins are squishy and there tends to be a few of them. So I built a crew that would have a good damage output and some blast to hit the groups if there were any. This was easily my favourite game of the day as it was very back and forth and I never felt like I was going to get to an unassailable loss. I had a solid plan and with some minor drawbacks it mostly went as planned. The crew I faced was not what I had expected. There were far fewer models than I had anticipated and some were quite tough to deal with. It ended at a 7-5 loss because of time I don’t think winning was an option. I may have been able to eke out a draw at best with good card draws, still a great game and again my opponent was gracious, patient and helpful throughout.

Here are the crews for the game 3, we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got Flank deployment in Stuff the ballots and death beds and sweating bullets for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Drachen trooper

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Freikorps Engineer

Lazarus

2 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Anya, Rail Magnate

Sovereign

Corvis Rook

Winston Finnigan 

Yannic Waller

Surveyor

Catalan Rifleman

Operative

6 Soulstones

Weirdly game 3 was the toughest game I had as the crew I faced were nothing like anything I had come up against so far. I wasn’t even that familiar with Anya at all. It was a lot of condition handouts, messing with my hand and generally making it tricky for me to get anything else done. I also did not help myself as in the end phase of turn 1 I thought I had picked deliver a message for my scheme, but had in fact picked death beds. So I had been gearing up for one thing and ended up having to switch plans in turn 2 to something else. It was a really tricky game and I am not sure what I could have done differently at this point to negate the conditions or hand shenanigans. My initial thought was rather than hires focused on getting in close I should have picked a far more ranged crew. We didn’t manage to turn 5 so with 15 minutes left we talked out the way we thought things would go. I once again failed to think about the strategy and only focused on my schemes so at the end of the game we agreed on a 7-2 loss.

So final thoughts on the day. All in all although I finished dead last, that is exactly what I expected. The crucial thing is I got to play someone way above my level and pick their brain a little, have a great game, face 3 crews and factions I had never faced and I learnt a ton of things. So what are the big things I learnt, I need to keep Von Schill out of melee and not rely on him for handing out equipment quite so much. I need to think more about the strategy at hand and then pick my schemes based on what I have not the other way round. I gave out focus so many times and barely ever used it which was not smart as when I did remember it really helped me get rid of some models. Lastly and most importantly I had some fun, even in the direst game I still managed to have a bit of fun doing silly things. Also the community was more than welcoming and just so friendly and helpful in general I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the tournament scene. I will also talk a little about the venue. It was a great store in Milton Keynes, a little more focused towards board and TCGs than wargaming, but still a fantastic venue called Wargames Workshop so if you are in the area it’s well worth stopping by. So what next? Well I have a main goal in mind for my next game whether or not I will achieve it we will see but that is a tale for another entry dear reader.

The time is nigh my first Malifaux tournament looms large on the horizon. So I decided to get a practice game in before 3 games in one day. So once again I run up against my old nemesis the Viktorias, the super fast death machines.

Here are our crews for the games we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got corner deployment in stuff the ballets and power ritual and ensnare for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Drachen trooper

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Hans

3 soulstones

My opponents list was;

The Viktorias 

Taelor

Student of Conflict 

Vanessa Chambers 

3 Ronin

Ella Mae Chesterfield 

3 Soulstones

Turn 1 was a major reminder of how aggressive the Viks play. I had one of the twins on my Scout in turn and he was down to two health at the end of the turn. Also Taelor pulled my Drachen trooper to the centre and allowed everyone to get hits on him as well, killing him in turn 1. Everything else was moving up towards the Strat markers

Turn 2 and I lost my scout before he had a chance to activate. Luckily or unluckily unbeknownst to me I managed to kill a Viktoria however I was unaware that this boosted the remaining Twin up, small victories I guess. I managed to get a bit of damage to the central group of miniatures which was great. This did mean that I felt in a decent position going into turn 3.

I had a solid plan going into turn 3, to remove Vanessa so that the centre models couldn’t heal up. However that plan was short lived as Von Schill was gone in the blink of an eye and I was down again. Then I failed a crucial flip to move Arik up and I had burnt all my good cards trying to keep Von Schill alive. My entire right flank was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. I had also lost my ability to score one of my schemes entirely. Then I lost Hannah as well with some poor flips and no hand to speak of even stones couldn’t save her from the onslaught. My opponent scored one point for the strategy and revealed information overload as his scheme, scoring for that as well.

Turn 4 would be the last as I had one possible turnaround that could save my game. Kill Vanessa! Arik did not comply, again I had one good card compared with my opponent’s hand. He was able to cheat way above what I could in the first attempt and the second attempt fell a fowl of the dreaded black joker. I tried to get the trunk to Hnas but it was gunned down on its way.

In conclusion I lost 5-0 I had 2 of my crew left, one who was limping and one at full health. But crucially I killed a twin which I have never done before so I will take that, because it’s all I had. I also wanted to try out a couple of the models I had painted up in time for the tournament in Hans, the Freikorps scout and the Drachen Trooper. Unfortunately for me they did not survive long enough for me to test them out fully, but lesson learned about not allowing the enemy to get into them at all because they will not survive. I really need to be thinking much more about the schemes my crew can achieve and focusing on that rather than trying to kill things off because that is where my points to tip a game could come from. Strategies are fairly similar with mild variation: get to a marker and hold on to it. I know I can acheive this, but it’s holding them where I fall down most of the time. I have some thoughts and we’ll see how they play out at the tournament over the weekend.

So times been tight the past couple of weeks for one thing or another so not much hobby time. However my wife once again volunteered some time to play some short small games to allow me to get some games in. Usually I would go over round by round and give a breakdown of what happened but as my wifes crew was exactly the same both times it has kind of blended into the same game tbh.

Here are our crews for the games we played at a reduced 40 soulstones, we got standard  deployment in Plant explosives as well as raid the vaults and deliver a message and Outflank first game and Outflank and power ritual in the second game for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorpsmen

Freikorps Librarian

Freikorps Engineer

Metallurgist

Fumigator

Lazarus

Second game the Fumigator and Lazarus were swapped out for the following;

Freikorps Scout

Hannah Lovelace

0 Soulstones

My opponents list was;

Dr Frank N Steen

Eyegor

3 x Misfit

The Bride 

The Creature

0 Soulstones

A brief note on the above crew is that it is a rotten harvest version of a Von Schtook crew which is themed around Young Frankenstein and as one of my favourite comedies I could not resist picking it up. As such I thought it would be a great opportunity to give it some table time as it may not get much opportunity otherwise.

The main aim of these games was to test out some of the keyword I hadn’t had a chance to run in my previous games, mainly the Fumigator, Metallurgist,Engineer, Librarian and Scout. So instead of going round by round I will try and focus on them a little bit at a time.

Fumigator – unfortunately I did not get much use out of him as I did aim him at someone who hands out poison, but sadly didn’t get the opportunity to heal him up as he ran into the Monster (counts as a Valedictorian) who made short work of him. So I think pushing him forward too quickly was a poor decision, but not a mistake I will make again.

Metallurgist – so from the use I got out of her she is definitely a hire I will take against certain crews like the Viks or Nekima to stop splash damage and armour piercing taking some of my bigger hires down too quickly. The concealing steam is also incredibly useful from what I found as well,  giving minuses to long ranged weapons and trying to force melee is great especially could mean taking damage doing that as well.

Engineer – another really useful miniature for a construct heavy crew and not a slouch in combat either. I didn’t take full advantage of the tools for the job ability which could have helped with getting triggers off when I really needed them, but again first time out so I need to jest keep that in my brain.

Librarian – really great models for 7 points with some movement actions, some healing and an attack that can be used at range and whilst engaged. With armour and arcane shield the 7 health doesn’t feel too punishing but keeping them at the edge of the fray is the wise move here. In both games she was among the last to go down and was great with a grenade belt or rocket boots attached.

Scout – in the words of Sam Beckett Oh Boy, did I fluff the use of this guy. Firstly I deployed him where he could not see a single target on the first turn. Then when I re-positioned him to shoot first turn I drew the black joker for the opposed duel. Shortly after he was taken down to 2 health and shoved aside by The Monster into his original position so he couldn’t see any targets in turn 2 and had a misfit hilariously come out of nowhere and not only getting a + on the flip but getting severe damage ensuring his swift and disappointing demise. He was also supposed to retreat to score my Power Ritual Scheme, but I totally forgot about that until he died.

Here are the main takeaways from the 2 games overall. First of all and most importantly I managed to not lose a game for the first time and got a 2-2 draw for plant explosives managing to blow something up and deliver a message, but wasn’t able to keep a strategy marker near Frank N Steen to score the second scheme point. Game 2 wasn’t as close at a 2-4 loss, but I botched my schemes and was only able to score twice from the Strategy and didn’t have enough models in turn 5 to score anymore from that. If I am going to take things like Outflank and Power ritual I need to take full advantage of rocket boots and maybe not push for it in turn 2 but maybe turn 4 or 5. So lots of lessons learnt and I also got to try some of those new minis out as well.

Whilst not massively key to the game as she managed to stay in the game another couple of rounds, but very funny to watch Hannah smash one of the misfits into the ground only surviving thanks to hard to kill. Then in the next round it had 2 really great flurries in melee almost killing Hannah in return. The narrative we came up with was that she smashed the Misfit with her giant robot fists, but when she lifted the giant mechanical hands up there was nothing there, because it had crawled up into her armour and was attacking her whilst crawling around inside it.

Oh yeah and this hand in game 1 was nothing short of miraculous!

Game 5 is done and in the bag and things have changed. I organised a meet up of Malifaux players in the East Midlands just so I could get to know some faces and also so we could play a couple of friendly games amongst ourselves. Not only was this a great meet up I had a fantastic game against someone of my skill level. So let’s get into a breakdown of everything.

Here are our lists for the game we played full 50 soulstone crews, we got wedge deployment in raid the vaults and I picked in your face and let them bleed for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

3x Freikorpsmen

Tunnel Rats

Arik Schottemer

Lazarus

Hannah Lovelace

0 Soulstones

My opponents list was;

Parker Barrows

Doc Mitchell

Sue

Pride

Convict Gunslinger

2 x Bandido

Mad dog Brackett

3 Soul stones

Turn 1 as always was pretty much moving into place for turn 2 scoring. I had positioned the tunnel rats specifically to grab an upgrade in prep for turn 2 where I had a very specific plan for them. Hannah and Arik were pushed right forward to ensure they could get stuck into combat together to really cause some damage quickly. I positioned my Freikorpsmen to look as if I was going for a scheme I hadn’t taken but allowed them to surround my opponents crew for an attempt at actually scoring my schemes.

Turn 2, for better or worse I was in position to score and decided to try and use my 2 big henchmen as distractions whilst I repositioned the Tunnel rats just out of line of sight of a lot of the opposing crew. Hannah and Arik both took a beating but stayed in the fight thankfully and handed out a little damage of their own. Lazarus fired off his grenade launcher, plinking away some damage from a couple of models but not making much of an impact. I scored a point for the scheme here so I was leading 1 – 0. 

Turn 3 first blood went to Parker taking out Hannah in a hail of gunfire. In response Lazarus took out the doctor to get rid of the crew’s healing. This turn saw a lot of death on both sides. I also lost Arik shortly after. At this point I used my Tunnels Rats to secret tunnel to get to the 2 point strat marker. At the end of the turn and hand out more damage with their weapon as well I scored a second point here for the scheme.

Turn 4 was a bloodbath on both sides; he lost Sue, Pride, a Bandido and I lost Von Schill and 2 Freikorpsmen. A live grenade could have changed this turn, but instead a black joker stopped it dead in its tracks and my Freikorpsmen accidently threw a dud instead. At this point I realised I had killed things in the wrong order and over estimated the cost of Pride and missed out on 2 scheme points for the game. However my opponent scored for the strat this time and I did not. He also scored a point for his ensnare scheme putting us neck and neck going into turn 5.

The fifth and final turn I had no chance of getting the scheme points now or having enough people to score the strat and all I had to do to keep the draw was to kill a convict, but the only chance I had to do this was moving Lazarus forward giving a single shot. The shot hit, but after that the convict had an unbeatable defence flip of 19. We traded blows but Parker was unkillable and all of my models had so much health and armour, so they were also untouchable although my Freikorpsmen did also cling to life by the skin of his teeth.

So in conclusion I had a couple of instances of not declaring triggers and bad planning lost me 2 points, but man what a great game. Freikorps may be the way forward for me as the crew felt more like they could handle things out on their own and I never felt a character was out of their depth. Even a lowly Freikorpsmen can put out 5 damage at severe, 6 with the right trigger. It’s a real swiss army crew that I think may be the way I go for nationals. I do need to paint the rest of the keyword so I have more options in the future. In summary I think I have my crew, for now.

Here we are at game 4 and I am slowly learning to remember things. I played a different player this time however I faced off against my old nemesis the Viktorias. How did I do this time? Let’s dive into it shall we.

Here are our lists for the game we played full 50 soulstone crews, Mine was;

Hoffman

Mechanical assistant

Clipper

2 Riotbreaker

2 Hunters

2 Watchers

3 Soulstones

My opponents list was;

Viktoria chambers

Vanessa Chambers

Johan Creedy

Student of conflict

Taelor

2 x Ronin

10 Soul stones

Turn 1 as always was pretty much moving into place for turn 2 scoring. I remember to activate Hoffman and the mechanical attendant. I used Clipper to drag a Riotbreaker along with it and put me in a prime position to score in turn 2. Everyone moved up quickly and was around the centre thanks to movement shenanigans. Crucially I totally forgot to use the Hunters Deadly pursuit ability which would have made things a little different next turn.

On to Turn 2, which was disastrous I lost Clipper 2 Riotbreakers and a watcher. The only mild success was I broke through to my opponents back line with my remaining Watcher. I did manage to get to a couple of models with my Hunters and cause some damage in the hopes of finishing them off in Turn 3. Also remembering to use my power tokens for Plus flips really helped me with dealing some damage however it was easily stoned away with my opponent’s large soulstone pool.

Turn 3 was more of the same. I did manage to kill a single model and take out Johan. Only to be cut down by a Ronin moments later. I also lost my other Hunter to the Viks piling in on it after healing back up to full health shortly beforehand. I pushed Hoffman up to one of the Strat markers in the hopes of scoring it next turn.

Turn 4, all hope is gone. My Mechanical Attendant got into a firefight with a Ronin and loses. Everyone piles into Hoffman and I spend all my Soulstone cache on trying to keep him alive but the sheer weight of attacks means he does not weather the storm and at that I am tabled.

The final score is 5-0, I am at a loss here. I think some key moves would have postponed my loss, but the Viktorias seem insurmountable to me at this point. Maybe Inventor Hoffman is the way to go against them and try for max damage rather than trying to out scheme them, but with armour piercing, high manoeuvrability and teleporting around they feel like they have Hoffman’s number every single time.

Something I wanted to cover I wanted to cover is that for the last game I forgot my unit cards for the game so I instead relied upon the App for unit and game management. So I am more of a physical asset person I prefer something I can hold in my hand and look at which is unusual because I am fully onboard with digital rule books etc. However I was really impressed with the app overall it feels simple and easy to use, but also comprehensive and informative.

The app allows you to do all the game set up quickly and simply with the randomised schemes, strats and set up all done in an instant. However if you want to have something in particular for practice or narrative reasons you can change this as well. Then you add in your crews which can either be a pre-built crew you have done previously or build one there and then for what you think is needed. From there you can track health, conditions and tokens for your miniatures. You track the round and points you have scored from strats and schemes, as well as view your opponents crew as well.

So to sum up even as someone who prefers having the cards and tokens always visible I could very easily use the app if needed. It is by far the best digital companion I have ever used for any tabletop game out there, the only thing that even comes close is the Mansions of Madness app and that has a few flaws, the only flaw I found with this was my own personal issue and nothing to do with the app at all.

So here we are at game 3 another game against the Viks. For this game I had two very clear goals in mind for this game. Firstly I needed to remember to use my power tokens, even if I remember to do it just once, that will be enough for me. Secondly I needed to utilise my fate hand much more, I was holding onto cards far longer than I should have. We got raid the vaults for the strategy with Flank deployment(I’ll come back to that in a second) and I picked Outflank and Information Overload for my schemes. So we spent far too long trying to figure out the table Quarters for Flank deployment and I thought the club closed an hour earlier than it did so unfortunately we only got to play two turns. Luckily I got a lot from those turns so lets dive into it.

Here are our lists for the game we played full 50 soulstone crews, Mine was;

Hoffman

Mechanical assistant

Peacekeeper

2 Riotbreaker

2 Hunters

2 Watchers

My opponents list was;

Viktoria chambers

Vanessa Chambers

Bishop

Student of conflict

Taelor

3 x Ronin

So turn 1 was pretty much moving into place for turn 2 scoring. I push my 2 Watchers and Hunters out to the corners to make sure I scored outflank quickly. Crucially my Peacekeeper was pulled out of position with Taelor’s bring it action, leaving it out all by itself. at the end of the turn I felt  mostly confident that it would be fine until one of the Viks teleported in and started smashing it up. The first two hits only scratched the paint and then the third action flipped the red joker. This left him engaged with a master with only 2 health left going into turn 2.

Turn 2 I managed to secure first activation and decided that I had 2 choices either move up my mechanical assistant and heal the peacekeeper for 3 or activate the Peacekeeper and try and take out the Vik I was in contact with. Using flurry I got 3 hits in the first turn I remembered to use the power token to give me a plus flip on the duel. I flipped the Red Joker straight off but had to flip another card anyway which was a 12. I flipped medium damage then for the second attack I had to cheat in a 13 to get the duel to go off  and got weak damage. The final attack didn’t go off at which point I realized if I had gone for the rams suit to get critical damage instead of the plus flip I would have killed one of the Viktorias…

Things didn’t get better I lost a hunter and a watcher the other 2 were already on very low health. In the centre I managed to get a good amount of damage on the other Vik, Vanessa and Taelor. Unfortunately Vanessa healed every body pretty much back to full health and going into turn 3 I was down 2-0.

At this point I thought we were almost out of time so I said call the game at that I would have scored a point for a scheme in turn 3, but with my other 2 scheme runners certain to die next turn and my Riot breakers facing of against all 3 Chambers sisters and Taelor they were not long for this world either most likely. As Ron Perlman has said many times “War,war never changes” and neither has my losing streak. I haven’t found my groove with Hoffman yet, but I think I keep making the same mistake. The bubble cannot be popped, not until I am able to get the upper hand and power transfer on death is a big deal. I did say next game I might run a full Nekima crew instead but I may run Hoffman one more time and stick to the bubble plan no matter what.

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.

So whilst building a rough crew for one of my potential lists I realised how lacking I was in the Nephilim. So I ordered some reinforcements for my Nekima crew. I will hopefully be able to prime and paint them up soon and get the crew to a table soon.

So as mentioned before in my previous entry my list was essentially Hoffman’s core box which consists of ;

Hoffman

Mechanical assistant

Melissa KORE

3x Hunters

This was to re-familiarise myself with the rules of the game and see any strengths and weaknesses in the crew to build off of.

My opponent bought a Viktorias crew which consisted of;

2 x Viktoria Chambers

Taelor

Vanessa Chambers

Student of conflict

2 x Ronin

He used to play M2E so some of the models were proxies or older models, but it was very clear what was what so it wasn’t an issue. He was gracious enough to go  through the crews and gave me a run down of what to expect and what to look out for. My main concern was the Students of conflict and 2 ronin as they ignored armour which is one of the main benefits I saw in my crew.

For the Strategy we chose to use the Reckoning as it was fairly simple to do. You just had to kill more models than you had scored VP from the previous round. For our schemes the pool was drawn from GG 4 as it is something I would need to be used to for the Nationals so best to start of understanding them now. They were Let them bleed, death beds Sweating bullets, information overload and Protected territory. I chose sweating bullets and information overload and Melissa as my nominated model for sweating bullets.

I gained the attacking priority so got to deploy first. For the set up I was aware that the crew is best used when all grouped together so I bunched up and put the Hunters at the front as a shield with Melissa and the attendant at the side to give some ranged support. My opponent set the 2 Ronin either side of the main buildings and Vanessa behind one of the large buildings with the Viktorias, Taelor and the SoC in the centre.

The first turn wasn’t particularly eventful it was mainly me reading my cards seeing what was useful in the beginning and trying out different bits to see where things would be beneficial. I mostly opted to move forward my crew and focus and that was it really. My opponent rushed down either side of the board out of line of sight with the help of battle tempo and on the move then dropped some scheme markers. He then moved up a little with his main aggressive models but managed to stay just outside of my attack ranges. The main thing I learnt from this turn was that activation order was particularly important as Hoffman handing out power and the mechanical attendants magnetic push happened within a very small bubble.

Turn 2 saw the first mistake I made which was splitting out from the bubble. I was curious to see what would happen as I took on a Ronin with one of my Hunters. I moved around the building with both actions and used my Bonus action called pounce to jump onto one of the ronin injuring it. This was my second mistake as a bonus action this caused no damage at all so this left my hunter open to attack. Whilst my hunter was cut down I had realised my third mistake which was that my Hunters have an ability called Deadly pursuit which allows them to push up to 4″ in the end phase. This meant I could have potentially at least damaged the Ronin I had pounced on if nothing else in my activation. I did not make the same mistake twice with my 2 other hunters I pounced on the SoC and managed to take her down as well as move into conflict with Taelor and do a little damage there as well.  Melissa, Hoffman and the attendant slowly moved up the board and looked to back up the hunters. However the Viktorias and Taelor managed to do enough damage to keep the Hunters holding on by a thread. I did remember to use the previously mentioned Deadly pursuit so I could threaten all 3 Viktorias for the start of the next turn. We both scored a VP for the Strategy this turn so it was currently tied 1-1.

Turn 3 would be the final turn as the club was going to close shortly so I decided to use Melissa’s clockwork grenade rather than charge in the Hunters. This may have been a tactical mistake but for a learning game I just wanted to see if it was an ability that was worth using in the future. I managed to damage 2 points of damage to one of the Chambers sisters of the 3 hit by the blast. Unsurprisingly during their turn the 2 Viktorias tore through the Hunters like paper. Melissa then took a hit from Vaneesa which was followed up on by Taelor later to finish her off denying me a victory point from my sweating bullets scheme. Hoffman managed to score a big hit on Taelor but not enough to kill her. My mechanical attendant then took a pot shot at one of the Ronin scratching her slightly. With the Ronin dropping 2 more scheme markers and with me losing three models my opponent scored 3 more VP meaning it was 4-1 for the final score.

So in summation I enjoyed the game on the whole. The main lessons I learned from the game are firstly I really need to know my crew and the rules within it for instance I had multiple power tokens on most members of my crew but never utilised them until it was pointless, the same goes for conditions some of my Hunters were double focused but I had totally forgotten about it. Going out of the crews bubble is also not advisable as I lose certain benefits such as extra power, transfer of power and movement abilities. My crew also massively suffered from a lack of speed for dropping off schemes and getting around the board a little quicker. I also didn’t utilise the Hunters harpoon guns which would have dragged people into a death zone rather than me going completely to them. My next game will be a full sized game of 50 Soulstones and I will use Hoffman again but the list should be a little bit more versatile in theory. It will also be a GG4 Strategy rather than an older one so I can start to understand those a little more.

So as a jump off point I have picked 3 fairly straightforward crews which I will start out with and move on from that point. I have decided on either a Hoffman, Nekima or Von Schill crew. They all have fairly straightforward premises and as I tend to forget rules they don’t have too many moving parts that I need to remember. I hope to have my first game very soon in which I will run a a starting Hoffman crew that consists of the following;

Charles Hoffman

Mechanical Attendant

Melissa Kore

3 x Hunter

This will just be to re-familiarise myself with the rules and see what in the crew works well and what needs adding or removing. I will report on my findings when the game is over.