The Gaming Report

This week's gaming included a game of Malifaux, and not one, but two games of Warhammer 40K. Both were against opponents I have never played before, the first being Shane with his IG and the second being me finally facing Paul's Eldar. But enough of that, on to the Malifaux.


The first thing I did was throw down some Leveticus against James' Lady J. I had Reconnoitre, he had Deliver the Message. I figured if he was going to deliver the message, I was going to steal Lady J's blind fold and so I took Steal Relic. Also, being a bit of a cheeky bastard, I took hidden Frame for Murder on my brand new Lazarus. What better way to frame somebody then by using a minion they are trying to recover, alive. Besides, its new model syndrome, he was going to die anyway. He took hidden Hold Out and Body Guard Lady J. We discussed later he should have done Lucius, but didn't matter much, I killed him, too. He took Lady J, Lucius, Pale Rider, Brutal Effigy, Executioner, and Miss Terious. I took Leve, a Belle, a Canine, Lazarus, Bette Noire, and the Hooded Rider. I was hoping to steal Darkness from the Hooded and make Lazarus unshootable, but in a seemingly recurrent theme, the Hooded went down fast. Maybe my riders have a reputation or something, but they have been dying super quick. This game, Lucius dropped Lady J on him. She killed Lazarus soon after, woo a point. It was gonna happen, why cry over it? I then turned around, let Lady J keep her blind fold, and took her head instead. Lucius moved up, with plans to bring in Miss Terious, with a pine boxed Executioner, I was hoping to be beyond 18", but no luck, it was just within, good placement for. Oh, wait, there was luck for me, a Black Joker on the cast. Bum bum bum. Finally a target for the Belle(stupid immune to influence rider). No he is definitely out of 18". And Leveticus shows why he cares little for negative flips, nom nom. With some shenanigans, I moved in on the Pale, slapped him, used my trigger, 12 damage, then turned around and used my last two actions to kill Lucius. I'm almost good at this game. The dog, not being needed as a corpse, thank you Lady J, harassed the Effigy. Harassed being a loose term, didn't really do much but die. The effigy died anyway, leaving Miss Terious, which Bette made insignificant, and the boxed Executioner. Could have gone on, but we decided to call it, it was mostly just a possible shift in points, with him bringing a loss to a tie if things went his way. A good game, I enjoyed myself. Another brutal on for him, I tend to eat his Guild crews. He did hook me up with an Electrical Creation, so I may be trying out Ramos again this weekend. And hopefully another game after to save face after my crushing defeat.

I played a game versus Shane. Shane runs IG. Shane has three Vendettas. I finally get to try my Voidraven against other flyers. Sorta. We rolled the new kill points, Cleanse I think. I do my new standard deployment, Eldar on the board, DE off. He deploys is shooting line. He has first turn. The game went very well for me. He did some damage first turn, but I killed a unit second, giving me first blood. I also managed to get line breaker, but was never able to finish off his warlord, even though I killed most of his squad, heck, most of his army. Shane got eaten. I think the main mistake he made was with his Vendettas. Instead of zooming on, he hovered.This made it super easy for me. He also dropped his troops while he hovered, in a nice little base to base semicircle around his Vendetta. This meant my seer council could jump forward, shoot the Vendetta with Singing Spears, and place the flamers to take out the squad underneath as well, basically ending one set a turn. My Voidraven immobilised the second Vendetta that came on turn 2, thus insuring I was able to kill it next turn with my council. Marbo was a total bitch however, camping in cover, and taking WAY more fire power than should have been required to remove him. I took a lot of damage throughout the game, but just did so much more. Towards the end, I had six kill points with my seven kill points army. He would have had to table me to win, and that was ignoring the secondaries. A good game. I tried to give him some pointers, though I'm not sure they will be much help. Mostly, it was just hovering in with the Vendettas. He has a fairly mobile force, but it didn't move. I think its a common problem with IG gun lines, they get played to static when they don't have to be, and in fact shouldn't be.

And as if that was enough, here is another one! I finally got a game against Paul's Eldar. This one was the Scouring, which makes my Reavers scoring. Unfortunately, my side was 1,2,3 point markers and his was 2,3,4. His army also had a viper and a unit of shining spears, both of which are also scoring in Scouring. I started out doing some serious damage. We even had some Jetbike Council on Jetbike Council action. My Prescience/Fortune Council did fairly easy work on his nonFortuned Council. I think when it came down to it, I just hit harder and stuck around longer. The problem comes in that, even though I am doing serious damage, his units are more survivable than most, and I just wasn't doing enough damage. Top that off with the fact that he had so many more units than I did, I just never did enough. At the end, I had units, but not enough to contest/claim enough against him. He was able to take several, push me off some I was contesting, and beat me out, even with secondaries to me, by 3 or 4 points. A good close game, I think we both thought it was my game early on, heck, till almost the end, but when it was in the closing turns, it became very apparent I had under estimated his force. While my force maintains effectiveness by being a bunch of hard rocks, his does it by being a ton of pebbles. A very interesting game, I hope to do another one soon.

I used my Voidraven in both games, and it seems fairly useful. Its not always great, but it does do tank hunting semi-well, my rolls weren't that great. It is definitely staying in. The Hellions continue to prove very useful, whether back table objective grabs, quick assault attacks, or whatever, I have been pleasantly surprised repeatedly by their usefulness. The Reavers haven't been doing as well. I just can't seem to get them the pain token they need to stay alive. I like the models and plan to keep trying, but they just aren't doing it. The scoring Reaver in the game against Paul would have been game changing, but he died to the Viper, while on the 4 point objective. I will just have to keep trying I guess.