Okay, so not quite that drastic. I am still playing Malifaux, and hope to get in a tournament this weekend. Especially since I have already paid for it.
My first game last Saturday was versus Troy. Yeah, I thought he was dead, too. But, nope, he lives, and he was playing Dreamer. I was taking my Henchman list for the aforementioned Henchman tourney that may or may not happen this coming Saturday night. We ran a story encounter and 40ss. We had the Claim marker one, I was attacker and needed more on his side. He was defender and needed some on my side with a non-peon within a couple inches. I took Frame for Murder on the Desolation Engine and Plant Explosives. The plan, rush forward the Desolation Engine, watch in absolute horror as it dies, snag frame, drop a scheme marker which explodes, getting most if not full scheme points early, focus on strategy, win the game. Okay, so the first parts didn't work out. I did the run forward, and kill me a Widow Weaver. I had used Burn Out from Alyce, so the DE was knocked way down on wounds, but healed some from the attack and created a Abomination. Next on the list I ate a Stitched, though honestly it ate itself a little...er....lot, too. Somewhere in here I also managed to kill Coppelius. Some where in here I remembered that I had a Strategy, and A&D ran forward to drop my first marker. His Insidious Madnesses and an Alp came forward to drop Breakthrough/Plant Evidence markers, I sent an Abomination over to deal with them, and I think put Alyce in a position to threaten. DE ate some more and put himself near Dreamer who shot into combat and kept missing the DE(much to my hidden woe). I then cleaned some more, brought out more Aboms(they flowed this game). It was here, that Troy called it. I think early turn three, possibly end of two. I was sitting pretty good, likely to kill his second Madness and the accompanying Alp, then clean up his markers. He had nobody else pushed out to get his strategy, and I was already earning mine. He didn't know my schemes, but assumed I would get them, even though he was looking rather impotent to kill the Engine and give them to me. So, after a day of harassing me about never winning, Troy went down with barely a fight.
After that, I started in earnest on assembling my new Shaltari starter. Mike S gave us some grief about not having a test game in, but as we really have nothing to proxy at that scale, Nabors and I went ahead and assembled instead. But, not to be slacking in our duties, as soon as we had a force we could play with we set up a game. Both of us were running stock starter boxes, his being PHR. My force is slightly illegal, due to how the starter is setup and how the force org actually works. But none the less, we played anyway. We started with the first mission, had ten building, an otherwise blank black board, and three objectives in the three center buildings. I had been reading and listening, and everyone talks about how building crumble, so I suggested A8 for them, so it would play less of a roll and we could try the other parts. We barely scratched the buildings. We both ran forward, I took one side and the center, he took the other side. We shot a lot, I died some. His stupid anti-tank unit mostly ignores skimmer, and he has 2Dp each. Its like punching a wall. I had fairly heavy fists, but still. I did manage to snag my objective on my left and race it back off the board. He eventually grabbed the one on the right and start running it off. My troops in the center eventually got mowed down, but with mine off and his just short of making it(I think I killed some transports or something), I won two to one.
After rambling on about the game and wanting to get more games in on facebook, a guy named Chris from Thornton said he would be willing to drive up while my kids were in school, and get a game. It actually turned into two, which was awesome. Chris runs UCM, and we setup Tuesday, late morning. Remember how I said PHR were a pain to get rid of? Well, they aren't bad compared to the UCM bricks for tanks. The first game I did roughly the same thing as versus Nabors. I walked(floated?) my Tomahawks(anti-tank) on instead of gating in. I pushed my Kukris up the right, out of a gate and behind a building. I did manage to take out some of his Sabres(AA tanks), but that was about it. My troops in the building on the left snagged the objective and snagged/shunted it off the board. Again in this game, my troops in the middle building never made it, I think because they died in CQB, but can't remember. The rest of my force crumbled fairly well, also. I did very little in return. I am beginning to see that the Shaltari are a little weak on the hitting, at least in the starter. They are, however, very strong on the grab and run. I some how managed to stop his troops from getting an objective off the board, but I am failing to remember how. I think his one unit was locked as the attackers in the center, while I managed to destroy his transport for the other unit, or maybe the Condor(medium drop ship) was out of position, having ferried the other unit ove, and they just couldn't make it in their Bear(APC). I do know that at the end of the game, the squad was in their Bear, heading for the edge, and a turn and a half away from making it. So, another win to me, 2-1. When all was said and done, I had two Edens(medium gate) on the board, and I don't think he had lost a unit, except perhaps a Condor. At this point, I am starting to get a better handling on how my force plays, and I am really enjoying the game.
As such, Chris and I reset and went back to it. Same sides, same board, still first mission. This time I went straight for the throat, and figured I would be batted aside, but it was worth the shot, and I didn't think it would put me in a bad position if I failed. So, instead of going center and middle, I went left and right buildings. He may have already headed for the center, I don't remember which happened first. Either way, his Condor was behind the central building, and I was headed for the sides. I brought the Kukris out of an Eden behind the center building and brought the Tomahawks on to the left of center. On turn two I won initiative and sent the Kukris out around the central building and, in a blast of awesome luck, took down his troop Condor. Now his troops are stuck with his APCs. They all managed to survive, but I had seriously hampered his movement. In turn, he wiped my Kukris from existence. This gave him free rain of the skies, as my only AA, but I am pretty sure it was worth it. My Tomahawks, adding insult to injury, decided they wanted some fun, and moved around the corner, taking shots at one of his Bears, killing it, and the unit inside. The other Bear decided to enter the building. I did manage to get the objective on the left, yet again, it is a very lucky building for me. I later brought my squad back onto the board on the right, and they were able to pull the objective from that building. I am not sure if I was able to get it off the board, or if it got destroyed on the way out. He did manage to get the objective from the center building, but with only an APC he wasn't very fast. And then I killed the APC. The guys survived and began a very slow trek to the board edge, all the while I was taking pot shots. My infantry left in the building did very well here, and could have possibly finished had the game gone on one more turn. I believe this one ended 4-2, but could have been 2-2. At the time I had forgotten the central building was worth double points, but now that I think back, I may not have one. Either way, it was a great game. With just starters, though, taking out the dropships for the troops is huge. It alone basically guaranteed the win(or possibly draw). It was a lot of fun, and once again I was basically down to dust. I had the unit in the building with one base, possibly a Tomahawk, and an Eden and Haven stuck in reserve. He had lost a Condor and a Bear and a large chunk of the objective unit. Really awesome, super close on points, but way distant on kill points. If it had been a draw, he would have smoked me on KP. Had we played anything but objectives, I am not sure how well I would have done. A pure KP mission would have gone very bad for me.
I am really enjoying the game, and hope I can play some people at Feast. I am also looking forward the Malifaux tournament, but dreading Sunday morning as I work. Of course, it could just be straight canceled, FoB is like that. I will likely have some WIP shots of my Shaltari tomorrow. I was going to do a painting tutorial, but since the effect I was trying didn't really work, I will just post what I have accomplished.
Until then, something clever.
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