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.

Battle Report Hero Clix

Ryan – I took the fantastic four and I added Spiderman because he was a member of them at one point in time, I decided to add in the BPRD because that's the kind of thing you can do in hero clicks so I took Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman. My biggest concern Is Dr. Manhattan, and Andrew's ability to use Archie (Nite owl's ride) to deploy a big chunk of his force with only one action.

Andrew – I took the watchmen fast forces pack because they're sweet. I think my big advantages are Dr. Manhattan's probability control, and Nite Owl can make my force really mobile. I can provide a lot of supporting fire with the Comedian because he's got good range. My big concerns are the Thing, the Human Torch, and Mr. Fantastic… And pretty much everything else on his team.

I won the roll off for deployment. I'm going to play the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch, and Invisible Woman in a cluster because they'll benefit from the team ability, Spiderman has leap so I can put him in the back. I'll have Liz and Abe at the front on my flank hopefully they can hold it.


Andrew: I'm deploying most of the force around Nightowl to take advantage of Archie. Dr. Manhattan is so strong he's going to be on the right flank which I'm pretty sure he can handle himself.

Turn one just saw a lot of positioning on the board I moved up Liz, Abe and Spiderman, Andrew was able to rocket forward with Dr. Manhattan at a very quick pace. He deployed Archie and had Nite Owl bring the rest of his crew up with him, so he's made it past the halfway mark while only half of my guys have gotten even a third of the way up the table.

The Human Torch attempted to get some early damage on Dr. Manhattan, unfortunately rolled a critical miss and took 1 click of damage. Everybody else piled up and got stuck in the broken glass at the entrance of the lantern Corps because not all of them have leap or climb or flight.

Andrews turn: Silk Spectre attempted to charge Spiderman swung and missed, (she gets different abilities depending on whether she's closer to Nite Owl or Dr. Manhattan!) Comedian attempted to show human torch how running shot is supposed to work by firing at Mr. fantastic, and promptly rolled a total of three which is a miss. Dr. Manhattan tried to change fate by letting comedian reroll that and promptly rolled a 4! still a miss. The rest of his force moved up and the following turns are just going to be a mess!

Starting my turn with a lucky roll for the Things' "yer ever lovin' pal" ability I was able to remove action tokens from Invisible Woman and Human torch. I pushed the Thing to swing at Ozymandias with a hotdog cart and rolled yet another critical failure! Susan Richards levitated Liz next to Rorschach, Liz did a free point of damage to both Rorschach and Ozymandias, She swung and Hit Rorschach but Dr. Manhattan forced a reroll on that which turned into a miss. Abe followed suit, But human torch was able to take a lucky shot at Dr. Manhattan and do it click of damage despite his invulnerability.

Dr. Manhattan saw human torch is a threat, and didn't do any damage to him. the Comedian oddly enough doused the human torch with flames(Maybe it was flame retardant foam in that backpack of his?) and caused a critical hit with two sixes!

Spiderman swung and missed Ozymandias and Mr. fantastic caused a little bit of damage on Dr. Manhattan thankfully making him lose probability control. Andrew 's turn was way more productive for taking out Liz Sherman and causing some damage to Spiderman

Human torch did a 'pulse wave' ability and caused damage to comedian but failed with everybody else in range. Abe just repositioned. The Thing charged Rorschach. Invisible woman annihilated Ozy with a critical blast of her invisible bubbleness Slightly leveling the playing field.

Starting to turn Rorschach uses his improvised flamethrower on Spidey dropping the wall crawler, Silk Spectre charges the thing and recoils before for the awesome might of the giant rock man. (At this point Andrew point said that he thinks that the battle report is a little biased) Rorschach pushes to try to break off and doesn't succeed. Comedian attempts to take a swing at the human torch and Extinguishes the living flame. It appears that Dr. Manhattan's science isn't nearly as good as Mr. fantastic: Reed Richards. And Nightowl hops on Archie and cruises to the other side of the board.

Using Mr. fantastic and Thing to gang up on Rorschach causing a total of Five damage which was reduced to by two because of Rorschach's toughness but also sent him sprawling due to knock back. Dr. Manhattan, Comedian and Nite Owl attempt to use the same tactic on Mr. fantastic who ends up dodging out-of-the-way From Dr. Manhattan and Nightowl. The comedian advances simply to prove his ineptitude. ("More bias!" - Andrew)

Abe moves a single square yet again, being more of a mobile inconvenience (insert ubiquitous joke about a fish-man being out of his element here...) Invisible Woman pops Comedian like a bubble. On Andrews turn Dr. Manhattan caused some serious damage to Abe. Silk Spectre swings and damages thing for one. Rorschach moves over, and Nightowl Makes an unsuccessful attack against Mr. Fantastic.

Abe tries to attack Rorschach with a grenade hoping to catch Silk Spectre in the blast but misses. Mr. fantastic targets Rorschach, Taking him out with a stretchy suplex of science. Thing targets silk specter and severely damages her bringing her close to the end of her dial. Andrew makes Dr. Manhattan atomize Abe, Silk specter Punches the thing but fails to penetrate his rocky hide. Nite Owl Lands a telling blow on Reed Richards causing a critical.

Invisible woman tries to go for a hat trick of annihilation by targeting Dr. Manhattan but fails to hit even with her husband's ability to boost her 'hit' bonus, Mr. fantastic destroys Nite Owl. The Thing takes a push to attempt to down silk spectre. Dr. Manhattan finally destroys Mr. fantastic, causing the remaining fantastic 4 members to heal from their team ability. Silk Spectre desperately tries to damage the thing Andrew pushes her, she misses, causes herself a wound and subsequently she collapses.

Invisible Woman tries to target Dr. Manhattan and rolls a critical miss, this wound dropping her ability to harm him at all, her best bet; bubble up the doc so he has to push to do anything at all. Thing advances to put himself in between the doctor and the invisible woman The doc fires and misses the thing.

The thing flanks Dr. Manhattan in an attempt to leave an open fire lane for invisible woman. The doc just rests.

After several turns of swinging and missing back and forth between the thing invisible woman and Dr. Manhattan Manhattan finally lands a blow right on the thing causing his ability to do damage to go up just enraging the beast. the Thing swings back with a chop to the solar plexus finally downing the big blue man group reject.

After action:
Ryan - I can't believe I squeaked out enough damage in the end Manhattan finally dropped invisible woman down to a damage rating that she couldn't actually physically hurt him and the thing had such a low attack value that it was not likely I was going to hit to do any damage to him at all. Finally I lucked out and Thing smashed the good doctor upside the head with his hotdog cart. But I do have to give man (or rather woman) of the match to invisible woman Susan Richards for annihilating two characters almost single-handedly. Rorschach definitely was a huge pain because he just Sapping damage off of all of my guys that were around him. And I was terrified of trying to take on Dr. Manhattan because that guy just will not get damaged.

Andrew - I thought it was really interesting game, I thought moving up right off the bat was a huge advantage, Because I had my entire force up at the scrimmage line when Ryan only had two members. I Don't think I prioritized my targets well enough. I flat-out ignored the invisible woman or perhaps I didn't see her... Rorschach did pretty well but I'd have to say my star player is definitely the Comedian even though he went down fairly early but he single-handedly killed someone who is made out of fire with fire that's just hard-core. I was definitely concerned about the Thing because my force can spread out and I only have one guy that can deal lots of damage. The sheer numbers Ryan fielded was a little intimidating too.

Ryan - All in all I had a great game and would definitely play Andrew anytime.

Modern tourney, and hero shenanigans

So today; We are going to be running a modern tournament for Magic the gathering. What that means is you have to have made your deck before you enter. But it's a little more forgiving because you have some slightly older cards too. Now that's can offer up its own specific challenges. Mostly because people get to use cards from all sorts of different sets and create new combinations that normally wouldn't have been planned in that block.
I plan on using my Birthing Pod deck I affectionately call it my "Will it blend?" deck because the best thing it does is Jam a creature in a blender and makes a better one.

Here we are featuring some hero clicks minis. Two days ago we got some brave and the bold boosters in, And we are already completely sold out. Jason Clark is One lucky guy he ended up getting the really big chase rare in this block which is Martian man Hunter as a black lantern! Also he ended up getting two flashes on a single base running side-by-side because they're traveling through time just to buddy up! And the green arrow in Green Lantern team up figure. Also from the same brick came a Green Lantern and flash team up figure which has some of the most crazy abilities: they get to mimic any damage ability or power that they currently don't possess, Plus they have a 12 square charge with four damage that they can dish out in one turn! In addition of that I've noticed that people want things that kind of work together.

 So I decided to also offer ready to go play sets of things. So people that want to create a themed force, can use the premade sets that I have handy. And here are some examples. This week will be getting some independent comic boosters and for hero clicks, So be sure to check them out because you might get a chance to say hello to Judge dread and/or Hellboy.

Joker and his best gal, Harley

Parademon troops from Apokolips

Easy Company featuring Sgt Rock

The Gotham City PD

Justice  League set

These are all for sale individually;

 left to right top: Exclusive promo superman in black uniform, Desaad, The Key, 

left to right Bottom: PromoJoker, Parasite, Darkseid, Original Flash.

Collectors sets and silent auction

Today in the shop, we got in some very very cool collector sets.
First up it's the aliens versus predator collectors set featuring no less than seven different aliens with different specialties.
Which is a very cool set even if you don't play the game, to which game do I refer? Why hero clicks of course! Since we started getting it in it's been flying off the shelves almost literally at some points.


Secondly we have the queen alien limited edition set. This set is really cool because not only is a cranial in a gigantic monster literally, She comes with a detachable egg laying base which I'm not entirely sure what it does but it is one of the coolest features that I've seen on a hero clicks mini so far. We also have several brave and the bold boosters that have come in today but I don't expect them to last very long.

Next up we have the items up for silent auction. Here is the circle is complete diorama from sideshow collectibles. In this vignette each piece is individually hand-painted and finished eighth each with its own unique quality and detail that is the trademark of handcrafted sideshow collectibles, I've seen this thing in real life and it is crazy! the cloak on Obi-Wan Kenobi is actually textured like a fabric. You would have no idea that you're actually touching Polystone.

In addition to that we have the monstrous AT – TE for the clone wars this is a gigantic toy. Just a heads up here though; I have put in a reserve bid for it to be donated to the Make-A-Wish foundation, you may do what ever you wish with it if you are to win the auction, howver if the reserveis not met, I will beunable to donate the toy as I am not a huge corporation. I sincerely hope that we can reach that goal.

Finally we have this lovable Cthulhu plushy. Although it's long past Halloween this is a very cuddly little character, Which Has just a few bids on it so far, but none of those are particularly high so someone will be a will to get this doll very very cheaply.

The ULTIMATE showdown

Hero clicks has been around for a while. I played it when it first came out and it was a lot of fun.

"I'm not stuck in here with you, You're stuck in here with me!

"

 I was surprised to find that not only is it still in production it's still going very strong.

Marvel vs. Capcom in tabletop form anyone?

Moreover, I was wowed by the fact that everything that is in the hero clicks line is compatible with each other.

Bane and Joker decide to outsorce some labour

So we actually have Marvel superhero characters fighting against DC superhero characters and villains.

Spiderman thought his vacation in Gotham would be uneventful

It doesn't end there, you can have Halo, the hobbit, and various horror themes, and independent comics, that all can battle together. We just got in stock for watchmen hero clicks streetfighter hero clicks, And a whole bunch of single models for the game.

For sale as soon as it is sorted... and yes that is ghost rider if you can see him

Of note the models have improved significantly over the time, the processes have gotten better for sculpting. Although I'm not a big advocate for prepainted miniatures or prepainted miniature games I find that the products that have come out this year: Backswing miniatures, the new sets for hero clicks, and a large number of others are really making their footprint on the tactical wargaming scene.

The Deputised Lantern Corps from 'Blackest night'. Hey Lex can I borrow that shiny armour? oh, right... Orange is the 'Greed' Lantern.

So what does it all mean? it means that yes you can in fact have Spiderman team up with Superman, Master Chief Frodo Baggins, Hellboy, Guile, and Rorschach to try to take down Cthulhu!!

buildings added for scale.

Wyrd Spotlight part 1/3 the Company

 

Well I started this entry a couple of days ago. I noticed that I had way more material that should be contained in one entry. So I decided that I would break it up into three parts. I wanted to really focus on the company so I'm making this one first.

If you only read one portion of this three-part entry I really hope it's this part.

So what's the big deal about WYRD? Well in a very short space of time, shorter than any miniature company I'm aware of a garnered a great deal of respect amongst their fans myself included.

Their initiatives both product wise and Company wise are Incredible.

I still don't have my "nightmare lord chompy", but maybe someday

I've seen very few companies that address concerns about their products or services as quickly or as creatively as this company. For example: I as an avid collector of their products desperately wanted many of their promotional items. Unfortunately being a small business owner I can't make it too things like GenCon or things like that. So Wyrd actually took the step forward and decided to make it possible for guys like me to be able to get their exclusives without having to wait for it to show up on eBay and fork over a small fortune for it.

They are very upfront about their conditions on special items and things like that. Moreover they reward their players with the most interesting little bonuses. One such thing is a nurse model for a faction called the resurrectionists Called "Miss pack " In the only way to obtain this model is to get her as a mispack in one of the regular starter boxes. They don't really have to give you free stuff. They just throw that in because it's something neat and definitely very appreciated appreciated by their fans.

Now they've been taking a lot of flak over their kick starter for a new role playing game system that they're coming out with. I'd really like as many people that are fans of weird to show their support of this company. One thing that's problematic with kick starter is lots of customers come in talking with these new and amazing products that are coming out. But when it comes to the store level I can't compete with a lot of the offerings that companies make for their kick starter programs. Which is led to me simply not ordering a lot of the products that they can get more and better things for from that Kickstarter.

Weird miniatures had the brilliant idea of offering exclusive things through their kick starter but actually encouraging purchases at the store level. Which helps little guys like me out. Obviously a lot of other customers, have taken issue with this idea. And yes I do understand that not getting the full product that can be offered through stores at the kick starter level him could be frustrating. But isn't the point to kick starter to show your support and help fund the project to ensure that he gets created?

Here's a link to their kick starter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1334239018/through-the-breach-a-malifaux-roleplaying-game

All images from a weird miniatures are used without permission and will be removed upon request

November Malifaux paint contest

For this month's entries we have:

a death Marshall, painted by Caitlin waddington,

a bayou Goblin painted by Carl Podmore, a

limited edition death Marshall 'Miss Terious' painted by Ryan Brouckxon

In first place we have Lord Chompy Bits painted by Chris Parson

Congrats to all our contestants