James Wilson Codes

I've played Boosey quite a few times, but this is the first one I've written about. He's one of the nicest players you'll meet, and a great advocate for the game, and looking after newer players.

This game was a practice for Skivemind II, which is on Sunday. Boosey didn't tell me his master (though I knew it was probably Marcus or Hoffman) and we did all the hiring like we would in a tournament (including Bans although I'm not sure it mattered!)

I wanted to try out White Eyes since the 2024 errata, and looking at the pool, I picked Kastore 1, as I enjoyed him last time, and because it was quite schemey and Broodmaster's Domain letting him drop Scheme markers with Marathine. I also hoped that the ping damage from Insatiable would be good against the Armour in Hoffman's crew.

Turn 1, I realised, as I often do, that my positioning for the unpack was wrong. My plan was to use Gwyll to Decay the Leech King, who would use I'll Have What They're Having to pass it on to White Eyes, who could use Undulation to move 3 inches (although probably ending within 2 inches of the Urnbearer to proc Pools Of Blood and heal again, proccing Undulation again. So, White Eyes would move 5 inches out of activation, and the Urnbearer would get 3 Shielded, so she'd be ready to Empty The Urns as soon as she activated. This is as about as simple as plans get in the Returned keyword.

However, I had Kastore in between the Leech King and White Eyes, he was blocking LOS. So it didn't work. I do need to think about my unpack more. It's probably more use having all my models in a bubble at first, than trying to save a few inches by splitting them up into flanks. Especially as all of Returned's Faith In The Flesh shennanigans mean you'd likely make up that ground anyway.

I was itching to try out White Eyes, whose card has been totally redone as part of the Mimic keyword reworking. I really like the new card. My favourite Malifaux models are ones that have things that seem great, but have flaws and weaknesses too (like the Leech King - powerful, but will get flattened on his own, and most powerful when enemies are already damaged/Injured) and Df 4 is certainly a problem with White Eyes, but Hard To Wound and enemies ignoring all positive flips is great. It can save you cards, if you can't cheat enough to win the duel, you might as well leave it and have the enemy on a negative flip. The other cool thing is Unnatural Speed - lets you place within 3 inches and then procs Made To Kill letting you take a melee attack, which gives you Shielded and can heal you on a trigger.

I love it when rules promote the thematic nature of the characters, and given the lore describes White Eyes as 'the closest thing to a horror story the Neverborn have' it seems fitting he can move deceptively quickly, pounce on you, and be difficult to hurt.

Using him was good - I managed to get him right up against a Gearling and pounce - and then chose not to cheat the generated attack - thinking I'd be able to make up for it later. I had the card as well... But in Turn 2, Hoffman waded over after some measuring and markering stuff, and nearly decked poor White Eyes with a Red Joker. Turn 2 White Eyes healed from Grave Spirit's Touch, retreated (which a 3 inch place is very handy for) and ran back to the Urnbearer for an extra heal from Pools of Blood. Sadly, he was killed by Joss before too long. Forcing the enemy onto a negative flip doesn't help when they flip two severe. Boosey, if you're reading - I know it seemed like the cards were against you most of the game, but remember this moment!

One neat thing about Kastore, Awakened is the Stat 7 Dominate action. On its own it hands out Staggered and Stunned, which is great. The Enthrall trigger makes it act like Obey except restricted to general actions (but... Charge is a general action, so you can still melee!) and because they're Stunned, they can't use triggers. But it's great fun! The other trigger pushes them towards a Returned model (ideally into an Urnbearer's hazardous Pools of Blood aura!) and then heals Returned models 2 damage if they're within 2 inches.

There's a nice synergy with his melee Devour attack, because that targets Mv, so when they're already staggered, the average model will have a resisting stat of 3, against Kastore's 6 - which is tasty!

Again, I like the thematic feel of this. Kastore is like an Ancient Vampire. He's hungry, but isn't at his full strength yet, and prefers to damage your mind, lure you in and then pounce when you're confused. Devour also lets you add a double positive flip to damage once per activation - so you've got a very good chance of forcing through 5 damage if you have a severe in hand. He's also got a built in trigger to then Heal that 5, which is very likely to overheal him, meaning he can pulse out damage from Insatiable either from him or Marathine. It's all very good fun, although it's best to keep him away from too many enemies as he is definitely killable.

So, I did this on Joss to charge the Metallurgist. I don't like the Enchanted Steel ability which makes Black Blood and Marathine ineffective. It was a great set up. Stoned for the trigger, got it off, used Joss's Power token AND Focus (top tip, use the focus defensively so the opponent can't in these situations) to get a positive flip and irreducible damage... and flipped the Black Joker! So that was frustrating. I also realised next turn that I'd also charged Joss out of Dominate range!

However, I've struggled using The Whisper a lot of late, but this time I managed to pull out the Red Joker on a damage flip from Kastore - against Joss, I think.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the board. Howard Langston had killed my Enslaved Spirit (Turn 1) and my Cavern Nephilim (Turn 2). This greatly impacted my scheming ability, which is a problem when you've picked Information Overload and Power Ritual!

I was impressed with Boosey's play - it was like a surgical strike. A Cavern Nephilim has 9 health and he forced through three min 3 attacks (using Trail Of Gore to use my own scheme marker to kill me). I'm always in awe of players who do this. When they think out loud (partly for my benefit, I'm sure) and say stuff like "Hmmm, can't kill them this turn" and I just don't have that level of advance thinking. (yet - I hope!)

However, the Marathine was in town, and Kastore was overhealing a lot, and eventually it was too much for poor Howard. I just realised when looking at the Metallurgist's card to look up the name of her aura, that she's actually a very good pick against Kastore one - Evasive means that Insatiable pings can't touch her, and she'll allow anyone with Armour (basically everyone in the crew, I think) to also ignore them.

At this point Joss was damaged, and the Leech King tried to summon a Leech on him and failed, managed to get Blood Magic off - and because Joss was already past half health, could force through maximum damage. I had, however, forgotten about his Demise(Electrocution) ability and Kastore and the Urnbearer both took 3 damage and 3 Injured! I used Bloodletting to take the Injured off Kastore, because it felt like it was kind of a death sentence.

At this point, Hoffman himself arrived on the scene - contesting strategy markers and looking very threatening. Kastore managed to hurt him, and the Urnbearer did some damage. Enough that at the start of Turn 4, because he was past half health, and Blood Magic can then ignore negatives to damage flips, the Leech King managed to kill him! This was quite exciting. I feel like the Leech King is a hard model to learn, but can pull off some crazy stuff.

This kind of meant neither of us had many models left. The rest of the game was kind of scrabbling for positioning for Strategy markers. I scored the first point of Power Ritual, but had no chance of getting the second, or even the first of Information Overload. If I'd realised Hoffman 2's bonus action let him drop a Scheme marker for free, I would not have picked that one!

I made a few daft mistakes in the last turn or two. One was moving the Marathine away from the power ritual corner to drop a Scheme marker - when I should have stayed in the corner, near the Gearling and stopped him from scoring the second point of Power Ritual with Remover Their Claim. The second was contesting a strategy marker with Gwyll and the Urnbearer in turn 5. I already had two of them covered, and I had only scored one previously - but it meant that Boosey, who couldn't score strategy in Turn 5, could score Hold Up Their Forces. Frustrating, but all on me, and that's how we learn.

I don't think I got to see much of what Clipper could do. I hear people get excited about the model, but I think a combination of me choosing the flank that had some annoying terrain in the opposite flank, and a bad flip early on for a TN, meant that Clipper didn't do as much as it could. But it did move around the board at a fair old pace, probably covering a good three quarters of it throughout the game.

Summing up

In the end, I lost 6-3. I think it could have been 5-4 if I'd not made those mistakes I mentioned above, but I don't think I could have won. Losing two schemers early on was too much. I love killing masters though, so that felt good.

There was a lull in the middle, I was getting an insane run of high cards in defensive duels and it was getting Boosey down a bit (understandable!) and we debated whether to talk out Turn 5, but it depended too much on what happened, so we decided to play it. I'm glad we did - it's taught me to check the end point scoring conditions for the Enemy's schemes!

It was also very lovely because we were both helping each other, I pointed out that Cavern Nephilims don't have Disguised and you could charge them, he pointed out putting a scheme next to Howard was a bad move. Suggesting weakness of models and other things like that, just nice enjoyable play where two people are unwinding after work.

It's also hopefully good practice for tomorrow - because we picked the same pool as one of the rounds for Skivemind II.

I'm excited for a tournament and also concerned at how I'll write up three games before my next league game with Reva in the middle of the week. But that's a future me problem!