James Wilson Codes

This is a very exciting post for me to write! This is my first game with Reva Cortinas, my new master. Thus, there will be a lot of talk of how I didn't manage to get things off, and mistakes I made. I really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to getting her back on the tabletop!

It's also a practice game for the new Escalation League I've joined, organised by the peerless Yan Pietrzak. There was one that ran earlier this year, and that was how I got into Malifaux in the first place. I've been solo-ing Kastore since then (in Resurrectionists) so it's been good to try something new.

Because this practice game was going to be the same setup as the first round of the league, there were a few restrictions. It was 30 soulstone game, with no summoning allowed - and only models from two boxes. Mine were Reva's core box, and The Returned.

I believe my opponent, James (side note - is it just the Huddersfield meta or are a lot of Malifaux players named James? I know it's a popular name over the last few decades - I was one of four Jameses in my class at school, but there seem to be LOTS!) had played with Rasputina a few times, but was newer to the game than me - so it was set to be an interesting match.

I picked Assassinate and Vendetta. Maybe I'm nostalgic for Henchman Hardcore. I'd read that Reva is quite killy if you play her right, so it seemed sensible.

I only used the Restless Spirit from the Returned box - no Lampads. I took the Restless spirit as it looks like a good way to drop some cheeky corpse markers for Reva to use (she can do her Ethereal Reaping melee attack out of corpse markers!) - and it was. However, I had forgotten (I've faced Rasputina once before) that a lot of December models have Grim Feast, allowing them to eat them to heal 1/2/4. That was certainly something that came up quite a few times, so I think if I play this matchup again, I will certainly rethink this part of the strategy. I took Vincent and two Shieldbearers - a lot of people online are unenthused about Vincent, but I wanted to try him out to make up my own mind.

I'd seen most of the models James fielded before, but Snow Storm was new to me. What a cool sculpt!

Once it was time to deploy, I realised that... I didn't know what I was doing! I'd got used to Kastore's unpack enough to experiment with it over time, but suddenly I had no idea. I kind of opted for them spread out in a line. I started off by sending the Restless Spirit up the board, intending to use Grave Robber to drop a corpse marker out there for Reva to use Ethereal Reaping out of. I think this was a good move, but when James started using December's Passage and Snow Storm started advancing on him, I was a little bit worried that I'd overextended him, especially as he only has 4 health. He ended up surviving till the end of the game. I do like him.

Rasputina's Ice Pillars were scary in the last game I played against her - and her putting out four of them by using the Frozen Domain trigger twice was quite terrifying on turn 1!

James moved a December Acolyte down one flank, and my plan was to have Vincent St Clair deal with him. Foolishly, I left my Corpse Candles until last to activate. I think I was burying my head in the sand about what to do with them. I knew they wouldn't be as useful with not being allowed to summon. What I hadn't spotted was Light The Way which pushes all corpse markers 3 inches - but, due to Walking Dead, the other corpse candle counts as a corpse marker - so that can help overcome their 4 Mv.

Turn 2, I flipped the Black Joker for Initiative and did manage to shoot the Wendigo. James's Black Joker was worse (for him) though - he managed to hit zero damage when the Ice Golem tried to wipe out one of my Shieldbearers. I used Take The Hit from one Shieldbearer to another - I'm still not sure if that was a good move or not - but it did allow some positioning into a pyre marker to give burning/shielded.

Turn 3 was where it all started to go wrong. The Ice Golem used its Blizzard ability - and because it removed an ice pillar, that meant it had a 4 inch aura of Hazardous terrain that did 2 damage!

I... forgot this. Vincent St Clair had an activation I was quite pleased with. I had enough cards to use. He needed to injure, but not kill, the Ice Golem to score the first point of Vendetta. I knew I could get 3 shots with the Sanctified Crossbow if I discarded a card to use Rapid Fire. Then I spotted Staggering Punch and its Mask Quick Shot trigger to let Vincent charge in, punch the golem, and then shoot it. It seemed like an excellent plan. Neither of us noticed the hazardous terrain. Until in a later activation when Vincent got hit. Because with the SIX damage he should already have taken (move from charge, melee from charge, shot from Quick Shot), Vincent was dead. With him went both points of Vendetta, because he needs to stay alive, even though Reva did Ethereally Reap the Ice Golem later.

It was unlikely I was going to score Assassinate either, because Rasputina wasn't anywhere near my models (she did come closer later but I didn't have the damage capabilities at that point).

James managed to score Assassinate by taking Reva down to half health in Turn 4, and finishing her in Turn 5. I was proud of a situation where I charged away from an enemy, but because of Ethereal Reaping letting me draw range and LOS from a Corpse Candle, I got to retreat 7 inches and attack.

I did, however, manage to scupper him from scoring the second point of Espionage by using the Restless Spirit to pick up the scheme marker from his deployment zone, which was something.

Another thing that helped was that the Ice Golem had accumulated three bombs, then Reva killed it and added them to her five, but because she got killed through an ice pillar, the bombs were just discarded - making it much harder for either of us to score Plant Explosives

In the end, it was 5 - 2 to James.

Takeaways

This was just a practice game to learn the crew (or start learning the crew - many people have told me you need to put the reps in with Reva) so I'm not too bothered with how I performed.

• I think 'no summoning' is a restriction that hits Reva hard as so much of her play is based around the Corpse Candles (I've also got Ghost Eater and Ezekiel as my other boxes for the league, so it would be worse if I'd picked those!) - next round, you can have one model with a summon upgrade at any one time, which will be fine for these.
• If I'd have remembered about the Hazardous aura, Vincent would have done one less attack and lived.
• Perhaps bringing a Lampad would have been better - at least there's a chance of getting another Pyre Marker with the Flame Wall trigger on Flaming Fury, and they can move them around - but they look like great schemers as well.
  
  We're playing the same pool tomorrow (it took me a while to write this up, been very busy with work and family - and Turnip 28 construction - possibly blogs coming about this!) so I might tweak my crew, and see how it goes.