James Wilson Codes

I’ve never faced Ulix before, but I did really enjoy my previous game against Jack. Confession time - I didn’t write up all of my Malifaux games last year - I missed out the end of Escalation League tournament that I took Reva to - I just didn’t have the time to write them up before the memories faded. It was a great event too - as well as Jack's Zipp 2, I faced Sandeep 2 and Lord Cooper for the first time!


I was looking up Ulix beforehand, and asked Adam for advice, as I know he’s a bit of a Bayou head. I’d declared Kastore, because I was concerned that Reva would suffer from Bayou Marker removal shenanigans, and Kastore, Fervent can be quite good at squishing Gremlins. However, once I saw Ulix, and read the cards/asked Adam, I went with Kastore, Awakened. This is because Dominate targets Willpower, and the Pigs (apart from Old Major) tend to have low Wp scores, and also Staggering and Stunning them could be quite handy - they have 4 triggers which they must declare one of, as well as Mv 6 on the War Pigs. Furthermore, the Enthrall trigger means you can charge them back to attack their own crew.

I took the Leech King, as now I’ve got used to using him, I think he’s very strong. I do find with Kastore, there’s not as much flexibility in Crew selection - simply because there’s so many auto takes. I never want to not have Gwyll, for Cling to Death, and Barbaros and an Urnbearer is such a useful combo, and I do love Cavern Nephilim (even though I almost always overextend them and get them killed these days - I think people know how good they are) so there’s not a lot of spare Soulstones. Also - a lot of the abilities specify Returned models, so you don’t get all of the benefits if you don’t take them. I would like to start taking Blood Vessels again, but I’m not quite sure how to use them (let me know!)

Jack declared a crew that seemed focused around summoning and growing War Pigs. This was rather scary when I read their stat cards. My hope was to kill the Summoners and the Squalers early.

I messed up my unpack slightly again! Not too bad this time, but I didn’t leave space for someone to get through, so Barbaros’s Broodfighter had to move the Urnbearer out of the way, instead of up the board. My first turn was mainly spent putting the Focused condition on people (both concentrating and using Wise Counsel and Empty the Urns) and trying to advance up the board. If you use Barbaros's Broodfighter and Shove Aside on Marathine, you can move it 6 inches (I’d move Kastore himself if it was the title), then Kastore can push it 5 inches with Broodmaster’s Domain, and then it can move 10 inches in its own activation - so that’s potentially 21 inches of movement. The reason it’s so important to get it into the enemy is that with Kastore 1’s Insatiable you can ping out damage from it any time Kastore overheals. It’s always a little tricky to set up in Turn 1 though, because you have to use Kastore’s activation to get it part of the way, and ideally you want it to attack someone, as it then heals Kastore. Nothing really got into the mix on Turn 1, other than my Cavern Nephilim, which I thought I’d hidden well over 6 inches away from enemies, in some Severe and Concealing terrain on the left flank, until Jack pointed out that Charging does not in fact require targeting, and his Stealth would not help. This led to a War Pig charging in and hurting the poor fellow. My main achievement in Turn one was for Kastore to double walk (I’d positioned poorly, and he had to walk round something as he was blocked by Barbaros and the Urnbearer. But he just had enough movement left to get him within 8 inches of a War Pig, and he used the easy Dominate/Enthrall combo to send it flying back to attack Big Brain Brin - and because it had two Focused, I could bypass Serene Countenance and cheat in a severe to do a spicy 6 damage! Sadly, I didn’t get another chance to have a pop at Brin, I nearly could have got him Turn 5, but the only benefit at that point would have been activation control, and I didn’t need it. Luckily, Jack Black Jokered on one of his attempts to grow a War Pig, which I think probably gave me some breathing room throughout the rest of the game.

Turn 2 was a bit sad at first, I lost the initiative flip and couldn’t cheat it, and the Cavern Nephilim got dropped, bleeding Black Blood onto White Eyes. White Eyes did manage to kill the War Pig, scoring me In Your Face, but I was cursing myself, because if I’d used the spare action (he can get 3 attacks using Unnatural Speed and Made To Kill) to Interact first, I could also have scored Death Beds. I did manage to get this in a later turn, but it was much trickier against Old Major, because he can just eat the Scheme Markers with Mark Territory to give himself, a scary beater, Focused.

The Marathine’s Remove Their Claim tactical action was really useful in this game - I could kind of tell Jack was going for Protected Territory (or there was a good chance) so trying to pick up the Scheme Marker’s was a helpful. He gave it away in a later turn by trying to declare it with Scheme Markers that were too close to my models, but I think I also gave away that I had Death Beds by swearing and saying ‘I should have dropped a Scheme Marker first’.

I am prone to not focusing on point scoring, and I think I did a little better with that in this game - Strategy points were hard to come by when he had so many Pigs who could vote for him, but assuming they aren’t just dropping schemes incidentally, removing enemy Scheme Markers is usually a good idea!

On the other flank, Barbaros, the Leech King, and the Urnbearer were doing a bit of a dance. Barbaros used Shove Aside to get the Urnbearer over towards a Piglet that had just dropped a Scheme Marker, in the hope that she could pick it up. The Leech King managed to use Blood Magic on the Piglet to do a minimum of 1 damage - plus 1 Poison. As this left it on 1 Health, I hoped to use Clew of Leeches on it next Turn with a crow added in to its stat to summon a Leech - but I failed to notice him healing it to full, so he just had to Blood Magic it again! Barbaros also made the decision to Bring It on a War Pig - hoping to get it into the Urnbearer’s Pools of Blood Hazardous aura - which did work, but it managed to do Severe damage to him, which hurt! Caught In The Ring is good in a Hazardous aura though.

Jack started trying to take the Urnbearer out with Ulix’s Tossed Slop, and nearly dropped her, causing the Leech King to make an elaborate show of not using I’ll have what they’re having on his Regeneration +1 in order to force through a Drink Blood trigger and pass that healing on to the Urnbearer. Eventually, though, Jack got his way and took her out though. I did get to summon a Leech however. I am definitely a fan of the Leech King, and will probably use him even more in future.

That Leech in particular was really useful, because in the final turn, he used Sense Weakness and a double walk to get over to Kastore in time for him to use the Ritualistic Sacrifice trigger on his Devour attack to kill it, and drop a Scheme Marker anywhere on the board, but in this case next to a Strategy Marker, drop another one by Interacting and then voting. A Staggered and Stunned War Pig was unable to harass Gwyll and stop her from double voting in the last turn, and the Marathine killed Penelope.

Barbaros, however had a bit of a mission to get to the Enemy deployment zone in order to score the second point of In Your Face. The Sow was in his way, and the model he was going to use Shove Aside on moved out of the way! Luckily, he managed to get there, and puzzled Jack when he used the second part of Shove Aside to push away from the Hog Whisperer instead of engaging him, but I didn’t want any risk to Barbaros as just being alive would score me that point.

In the end, it was 6-6 - I just didn’t get to control enough Strategy Markers with votes to score fully, and while I managed to score all my schemes and prevent Jack from scoring the first point of Protected Territory, it wasn’t enough to clinch a victory.

 However, it was a lot of fun!



• I got to face a new master, and survived relatively unscathed
• I got to play against a lovely opponent again (and a fellow Green Joker!)

• I learned some things
• I felt like I made the right choice and had it pay off sometimes
• I like it when I play Kastore 1 and it goes well because I think he is the lesser played one, and it has always appealed to me to do the less popular thing.

Which is not bad for a Wednesday night when you’re tired from work and parenting! I don’t know how Jack managed to do a demo game of Shatterpoint and then play Malifaux, because my mind would be melted.