Malifaux battle report

Okay we'll were here doing a battle report for Malifaux, I am here with my good friend Carl. He hasn't played Malifaux for a while so I was glad to see him come out and give it another shot, because Malifaux is definitely one of my faves.

Ryan – I'm taking guild because I really like C.Hoffman. He sort of a combination of Prof. X, and Dr. Octopus. His big thing is being able to control machines. My crew is a guardian which protects other guys, A Hunter which is a robot tiger, and is just cool on it's own. The Hunter is an okay damage dealer but it doesn't take a lot of damage. A watcher which I use as a sort of a filter for making my fate flips a little better. Lastly, there's  Coppelius which is a 'Neverborn' monster which is kind of cool because he and Hoffman have a unexplained connection. (You guys will have to bone up on your literature to discover that one!) He doesn't add much to the crew as far as playability goes (with my playstyle that is) but he is mobile and he does do damage too so we'll see how that works out.

Carl – I decided take the gremlins in fact that's my first crew from Malifaux, they definitely appeal to me, I think gremlin culture is hilarious. I added a hog whisper to my crew. I'm not entirely sure the benefits that he adds to the crew but he's definitely a cool model. I've had mixed results with this crew in the past. Sometimes gremlins can overwhelm their opponent, other times gremlins explode in a ball of fire. I'm banking on my war pig to do some heavy damage cause it's sort of a juggernaut. Plus I'm banking on Summerteeth to be able to get more of his cousins/brothers/uncles into the fight (those may in fact be the same people)

We checked to see what strategies our objectives ended up being for the mission: Carl got stake a claim so he has to place a special marker inside of the center of the table and not in his deployment zone that he has to claim by the end of the match. My strategy that I have to obtain as an objective is to"contain power"which means that I get victory points for eliminating his main guy, but even more if I can use my main guy to eliminate his main guy, unfortunately having polio means that Hoffman is not the greatest in combat. But with the right strategy and enough luck I can make them hit like a brick.

For our secondary objectives, we get things called schemes. Carl announced grudge and secretly noted the model that he was going to hold a grudge against, He did not announce his second scheme. For my crew I announced That I would frame his master for murder. And while it may seem very unusual that I would frame a goblin for murdering a robot, the way I like to see it is I'm actually going to be running a smear campaign against the gremlins for destroying guild property. That should convince the populist exterminate their vile scum I chose a second scheme as well but I did not announce it either we will let you know what our schemes were after the game. Or I guess when they're accomplished.

Carl deployed his gremlins across the line of his deployment zone using both rented his advantage and to maximize maneuverability. I deployed in a cluster because often gets better the more machines he's connected to.

Turn one - On my turn I moved the guardian up, made him Shield Hoffman, who he brought forward with a harness full of magnets that allows Hoffman to attach to the big robot. The Hunter slunk forward dragging Hoffman a little bit further. He targeted a little wee pig in the back of Carl's deployment. The watcher tried to ensure I had good flips by predicting the future, as that's what he does as a giant bat robot. Coppelius uses mobility gets really far forward but Gremlins didnt need to really approach him, which in hindsight was an error.
Carl made Som'r kick a gremlin in the rump to go and get his brother (or uncle, or Uncle-brother its hard to tell with Gremlins) he moved his war pig up to be a big threat, and clustered a couple of gremlins around his claim. In retrospect, I did not realize how good the hog whisper was because he jammed the monsterous pig in the rump side with his prodding stick causing it to not only reactivate, But charge and go bananas on my robot cat.
 Thankfully I was able to avoid most damage by keeping the attack and defense totals fairly close together minimizing damage and soaking some with my armor.

Turn two – initiative for this turn would be fairly important because a lot of my guys are little overextended, and all of Carl's heavy hitters are very VERY threatening right now...

Okay well I won the flip for initiative by a large margin and decided to capitalize on this because after the Guardian got all upset and lonely and decided to push in the contact with Hoffman I thought he might just be in charge range to text Som'er Teeth, Unfortunately with his six-inch charge and 2 inch reach on his blade he was completely out of range.
Carl realizing that this is a crucial turn in the game, goes over his actions and carefully considers his options. Very un-gremlin like in my opinion but hey I'm a little biased I'm kind of the guy that's playing against him right now.
Som'er Teeth, decides to share a brew with his buddies to heal them all up, Which was definitely worthwhile his case because when I activated my big Stompy robot I made him disrupt magic thereby causing any kind of stunt that Som'er Teeth tried to pull while close to him even that much more difficult.

My second activation I made the water predict the future, Carl decided to take a swing at Hoffman even though the Guardian will soak all the damage against Hoffman when they're close, but... as you can see to the right, they're not close.
His giant pig can deal a lot. so without his protective buddy, Hoffman is a sitting duck. Carl's giant war pig swings and nearly destroys the Guardian with only two hit points left turn passes to me. I declare flurry against the war pig. With three very pitiful strikes against the war pig my hunter was unable to inflict more than two wounds on him.

     Carl then seems to activate the luckiest goblin in the universe which ends up blasting holes into the Guardian. Hoffman tries every trick in the book that he knows for making machines do better, casts 'override edict' on the guardian to make and activate again. He siphons a little bit of power and off the Hunter said he can take another action and then strikes the giant monstrosity of bacon in front of him, And then he's uses his last zero action to immediately Activate the Guardian so I can take my one stab at trying to bring down Som'er Teeth.
     Who subsequently swings and misses… Turn passes to Carl and I think I can kiss both my guardian and Hoffman goodbye. In a Uncharacteristically inspired maneuver by the gremlins Carl charges the Guardian with his little pig to clear line of sight for his other two snaggletoothed goblins to fire at Hoffman! Carl flips a 1 for his attack giving himself a total of five, I flipped a two for my defense giving myself a total of five unfortunately ties mean that the strikes still happens, Carl refused to cheat in a higher value card, knowing full well that he did a minimum of one damage and my armor would not prevent all of it.

Karma must have been smiling on the guardian at that time because the third  flip was black joker which ends up being zero damage regardless of other modifiers etc. However he decides to make his little squealer go reckless tries to attack the Gaudian again, Let's attend which makes it look like it's going to be the end of the guardian however thankfully I flipped a higher value, and saves my guardians bacon… Or so to speak.

Coppelious who has participated very little in the battle so far, decides to join the fray. He attacks the little wee piggy that's been causing so much based my guardian. He strikes and instead of doing damage removes the little squealers' eye. Hopefully freaking at the rest of Carl's guys, Carl's little piggy freaks out, falls back and suffers three wounds to expire as a result of Copellious is being a 'Nightstalker'.
Carl reactivates the pig because the hog whisperer stabs him again in the hindquarters with this stick, So the war pig had free reign against Hoffman., In my desperate bid to take out Som'er Teeth, I use my entire control hand. Being able to activate several models after I was done Carl was able to nickle and dime Hoffman to death. After that and additional gremlin does a disproportionate amount of damage to the Guardian, he wrecks the robot. I currently only have two combat beasts still able to activate although I can pull it out I think would be a long uncomfortable process for us both I think now is the time to concede the match congratulations Carl.

Ryan - At the end of the game I realize the mistakes that I made were being way too risky with Hoffman in overextending is spreading it if I had more constructs closer together than I could've been dealing with more damage. Especially since Hochman guess it do a pulse of several damage to
Models and that's the one thing that gremlins Tend to Swarm you.
my schemes were 'frame for murder' on my watcher (which I failed miserabley) and "Machine Spirit" which I didn't even attempt
SO, 0/4 contain power, 0/2 frame for murder and 0 for machine spirit: not good

Carl – well I wish I could say gremlins did what gremlins do, but that wouldn't be the case. Unfortunately for Ryan, he did make some tactical errors which I had to use every dirty trick at my disposal to take advantage of. It was a great game and I can't wait to do it again but until next time make it bacon, y'all!!
I had 4/4 stake a claim, 0 for Som'er Teeth's master specific scheme, and 0/2 Grudge against the Hunter.

End Result Gremlins; 4, Guild 0.