James Wilson Codes

Note - my opponent was using the Rotten Harvest versions of Zoraida's models - I'm going to try and refer to them by their original names, as I think that'll be more use to readers in the future.

Adam and I set this game up on the app in advance, so we had time to study each other's crew. I've never faced Zoraida before, so I'm glad of this. He mainly had big models and lots of soulstones, which is quite different from when I usually face Bayou and there's a lot of smaller, squishier models.

I once tried to read a book about Chess - I usually get beaten at Chess by anybody who actually knows how to play it - and while I don't remember the name of the book, and didn't get any better at chess, there's one line that has stuck with me: A bad plan is better than no plan at all. So, I needed a way to deal with Zoraida. And looking at her card, she's quite formidable. I've never seen a model with an 8 for a stat on their card before! So that is quite a lot of Willpower. However, most of my crew target Defence - but she has a defensive trigger, with a built in suit to end your activation if you damage her.

It seems like her obvious weakness is being Stunned - it would stop that defensive trigger, and Her Obey action with Ensorcel trigger that lets/forces other models to take actions wouldn't work either. However, my crew didn't have access to Stunning.

In the end, my 'plan' was: Ignore Zoraida, but cut her off from LOS of her own models if possible - when I faced Hamelin 2 at the English GT, I realised that Obey masters are not as much about getting me to hit myself, as they are about 'extra actions for the henchmen that are already up in your grill' and also 'making your low Wp scheme runner pick that scheme marker back up'. This plan came with a realisation that Adam's henchmen would be getting extra actions - and couldn't really be considered 'activated' in that sense.

Crew wise, I didn't have a lot of choice, as I wanted to use the crew I'd use for the next round of the league, and that is restricted to certain boxes. The main decision was whether to take a second Lampad or Shieldbearer and I went for Lampad.

The Game

One of the things I like about Malifaux is just how varied the gameplay can be - some turn 1s are just walking and focusing, and this was more like a gunfight. Zoraida Obeyed Bad Juju and McTavish to start shooting at my crew early, and while I feel I did well in getting Pyre markers out compared to previous games, all those ranged attacks did make things difficult.

I nearly killed Bad Ju-Ju on turn 1.

By 'nearly', I mean did kill it, it came back from Demise(Eternal) with 4 health and then I got it down to 1 health! Then I had nothing left to hit it with. So frustrating. I think Adam used up a lot of his soulstones on it though, so it wasn't AP wasted, but it did feel frustrating.

The Lampads played a game of 'keep alive' throughout the game - which was easier with more Pyre markers - and I think this was also quite frustrating for Adam. Reva managed some good hits on folk, and it was tempting to forget all about points and just have an all out brawl near the centre.

Eventually Bad Ju-Ju fell! It was annoying to wait till Turn 2, but it did mean I could score In Your Face from it.

Ezekiel had summoned some zombies, and it's great him having Intuitition because as a model that mainly has TNs, I could see I wasn't doing anything with him turn 2, and just Walked.

I think my biggest problem, again, was not minding my flanks - the First Mate and an Adze had cheekily swooped over to one corner and I didn't really have a plan for dealing with them.

I also had been so worried about Adam's buff henchmen that I hadn't thought too much about how to score points, which is always a problem, although such an easy mistake to make.

I did manage to get my bombs over the line, but I was struggling to make Protected Territory work. I love Ezekiel's Healing Energy with Debt of Gratitude trigger - forcing the enemy to remove a Scheme Marker is great! Especially as I'd decided not to kill Zoraida, actually healing her wasn't a problem.

A Mindless Zombie got a lucky shot on McTavish and managed to hit him for 2 poison, which felt like a Zombie movie. Adam decided McTavish would not tell the rest of his crew for about 20 minutes of screen time, until a dramatic moment.

Zoraida is a tricky one though - those extra activations coming from her own models meant I couldn't plan much out. She Obeyed my models a couple of times too - but I hoped that relenting at least meant they wouldn't get the big damage.

I managed to take out the Adze, but it kind of meant that I was hemmed in the centre for a lot of the game, while this fella bounced around, killing my poor Restless Spirit and a Zombie and scoring points.

Going into the final turn, the score was 4-4 and I managed to set up to score 3 more points - one from Strategy, one from Protected Territory, and the other one from In Your Face. However, while I managed to get Vincent into Adam's deployment zone, he worked out what I was doing when I healed him, and managed to use one of his models to push him out. He also picked up a bomb, and because Reva dropped a Scheme Marker before running over to Vincent to heal him, it meant I couldn't score either point of Protected Territory, because the First Mate managed to land next to my other Scheme Marker, meaning I couldn't score the Reveal Point, but I couldn't score the End Point because Reva wasn't next to the Scheme Marker!

So, while I set up to score 3 more points, I didn't score any of them, and Adam did manage to get the End Point of Sweating Bullets because I took Vincent over to try and score In Your Face! Adam wasn't set up to score Protected Territory, because his Scheme Markers weren't far enough apart and the First Mate couldn't quite make it to drop another. If he had been though, Ezekiel would have had a last laugh by making him remove them using Debt of Gratitude. I was saving him until the very last activation for this, and while I didn't have to, it felt like it could be such a cool, game changing action - they don't get to resist either (although it relies on a trigger and has a TN of 12 with a stat of 6, so it's not guaranteed). I can't wait to (hopefully) bust it out Turn 5 and ruin someone's day - so many GG4 Schemes could be affected by this!

It's exciting to have a game like this though, where it's genuinely undecided going into Turn 5, where we've both done good stuff, and I think a good game of Malifaux (and many other games) is where you 'get to do your cool stuff' - I was making Pyre Markers, Vincent was shooting folk with a crossbow, Zoraida was Obeying, Ezekiel was doing Shenanigans, McTavish was shooting folk in a surly fashion. I once had a game where the Leech King was killed Turn 1 without sumoning a Leech or doing any cool Blood Magic, and I was much more sad about that than about losing the game.

I had a really fun game here - so different to the last time I played Adam (Kastore into Zipp) - and it just shows how much variance there is between games of Malifaux!

I think takeaways for me are:

• find a way of dealing with the First Mate - I often see him in Bayou, and would be good to know how to handle him
• do sums for damage before launching in - If I'd known I'd be leaving Bad Ju-Ju on 1 wound after Demise Eternal, I'd have been better off leaving him on 1 wound before, and saving a couple of AP.

But overall, I don't think I made any terrible mistakes, and I'm excited for my next game.