Where will our illustrious hero Ramos end up. Will he be recalled for the ages as a freedom fighter who fought oppression, or as a terrorist who tried to bring down the beautiful society crafted by the guild. Read on for more disorganized Malifaux experience ramblings.

Round 4 – Back in Action
First game of the second morning was against another Guild crew. However this time it was McMourning with a few of the Ortegas, a Death Marshal, a Witchling Stalker and a nurse.

We were playing Squatter’s Rights on a board with a river (we treated as severe terrain) from one corner to the other. We were corner setup as well, and the river ran just off the centre line, so 3 of the claim points were on o e side of the river, one in the middle and one on the other bank. My opponent let me deploy first, so I chose the corner that put me on the same side of the river as the 3 markers. This did give my opponent with the sniper Ortega a good spot to shoot from, but I had first crack at the claim markers. I took Show of Force and Catch & Release as my 2 schemes.

Turn 1 was pretty uneventful, I went defensive and took a couple of shots. However I was set up close to the centre (ready to show my force) and with plenty of defensive buffs. I also had the spider factory running.

The first major play was Pete had a strong lunge with McMourning against Joss. He didn’t quite get him, and I responded by spending Imbued Energies on Johanna to heal Joss and then charge McMourning. I had a decent hand (7 cards because of Arcane Reservoir) with at least 3 severes and +VE attack flips due to nearby M&SU. The result of this was two hits with the red Joker coming up for some serious damage. My opponent’s next play was to pull him back out of my bubble with one of the Ortega’s shenanigans. However it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t get out of Joss’s range and was taken out. At this point I was confident, but still worried, Joss was hurt (had ~5hp left) and I’d left both him and Johanna over extended. I took the chance with them, left then out there to move spiders and stake claims, I also got show of Force (my opponent had very few upgrades). At the end of the turn I was up 2-0 and a Master, I had also tagged one of his figures.

The next turn saw me consolidate, more spiders. I tried to lay another tag, but the two Ortegas had something that effectively stopped me from interacting with any mini his sniper could see. It was at this point that I gave up on Leave Your Mark and just tried to kill everything he had that could threaten me. He had taken Hunting Party which meant my spiders were now fair game for him. He had killed one and I still had 3 on the board. These guys now went defensive and tried to hide or explode. I killed his Witchling Stalker with one when I attacked, did some damage and then exploded myself (a double win – no more threat to my claim marker and a minion gone). Howard ran off and killed a Death Marshall and a Nurse without really breaking a sweat while Joss, Ramos and Johanna teamed up on the one Ortega I could get to.

I was still happily scoring VPs as he got a scheme runner in a good spot to run Covert Breakthrough. A sprint across the board from Joss and Ramos killed the scheme runner and cleared both the scheme markers. The end result was a 6-2 victory to me with full points from Show of Force, 3 from Squatter’s Rights and nothing from Catch & Release.

Round 5 – A Messy War
This round was against Adam who was running a Misaki list. My recollection of this game is pretty shaky and it was a tense, tense game. It ended with a 7-7 draw, but both Adam and I weren’t 100% confident of the scores. At the end of each round we confirmed the score with each other, at the beginning of round 5 we both thought we were at 5-3 (my advantage). then in the final turn he scored 7 and me 2. However he initially thought he was at 8 points, and me too. Much confusion ensued, and we ended it with a 7-7 draw. We both seemed certain it was a draw, but he thought we got 8 points I thought we only got 7.

I’m not going to give much of a run through, as clearly there are some issues with my recollection (I’ll record the scores as I recall them). The strategy was Reconnoiter and my spiders meant I got 3 points from this and kept Adam to just 1. My opponent took Mark for Death (I did too) and it was simply too easy for him to kill something with Misaki once he’d stalked it, or just one hit a spider after marking it. He got 3 points from this scheme while I just got the 1. I don’t remember what I killed, but the one thing I do remember is marking the incorporeal enforcer and getting it down to 2 wounds. He ran it away and so I didn’t have to deal with it any more. Not a VP win, but a win in the game context. The last scheme I took was Leave Your Mark. I thought this was going to be near impossible, but we each got 3 points from it. I could out activate him and use a spider to place a scheme marker near the end of the turn (Howard did a mad sprint to put one down as well). While he just killed all my stuff and then dropped markers in the emptiness.

I lost almost every model, Ramos, the Brass Arachnid, some spiders and Joss were all I had left at the end. I’d taken the Arcane Effigy and I don’t think I used him well. Mind you he did become a tasty scrap marker at one point for Ramos to turn into spiders.

Round 6 – A Bloody War
This one was never going to go any other way. Collect the Bounty was the strategy and my opponent was running Lilith. Death was always on the cards, and there was plenty. I also took Show of Force and Exhaust their Forces as my schemes. I carried maximum upgrades.
In the first turn I was pretty tentative as I didn’t want to get too close to Lilith and her abduction trick. The Lilith list was a grow list with Nekima carrying the growth upgrades.

The first combat was Howard vs Nekima, Nekima took out a spider and made a Young Nephilim. I didn’t like this so I charged in with Howard and killed Nekima with a flurry. Howard was then abducted by Lilith, but she couldn’t quite kill it in her activation. I gave up on Howard and focused on killing a couple of smaller minion models with Johanna and Joss to give me the edge in bounty points. The final tally this turn was Howard, Nekima and a couple of minions. I think I also may have got an exhaustion on something. I also had more upgrades (Nekima was carrying two). I either got 2 or 3 points this turn and he got 0.

The next turn also went well, he got Lilith too close to me. He killed Johanna (I think), but I got Lilith in exchange. I got the bounty and the upgrades near the centre.

The rest of the game is a bit of a blur. I ended up killing everything he had. All I was left with was Ramos, the brass arachnid and a couple of spiders. Joss, Johanna, Howard, Nekima, Lilith, terror tots, nephilim, spiders and a shaman all littered the ground. I got 3 VP for the bounty, 2 for the upgrades and 2 for exhaustion. My opponent got 1 for bounty. Final result 7-1 to me.

Wrap Up – I Won?
First things first I had a blast. The tournament was great, House of War was a great venue, the Twats ran a great tournament (in particular Mouse who did the heavy lifting). I’ve got to thank them as well as all my opponents – every game was a pleasure. There were some awesomely painted crews as well. I think my painting is at a reasonable level, I just need to flesh them out and finish it all up.

In terms of results I was 13th (out of ~50) with 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. My goal at the outset had been 2 wins and 3 wins would have been a really good showing. The draw pushing me up a bit was just nice. My regular opponent finished 7th with 4-1-1 so I think he’s helped me out a lot. I was in the top couple of newbies and I think the top Arcanist player; I’m stoked with that. I played the 2nd place getter (my bad loss), and made a heap of errors. I don’t think I cheated any where noticably. The one thing I think I may have done is give Johanna an extra +ve to her attack flips once or twice (one of Ramos’ cards gives every construct a +ve, she’s my only non-construct). This probably evens out with the couple of times I got excited after spidering with Ramos and forgot to finish my activation and did cast rcing screen.

I’ll definitely be playing as much Malifaux as possible. I’m enjoying this game tremendously, and to be honest I’m seriously looking at clearing some space to dedicate it to Malifaux.