ToMB - Early March - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

Hello Folks,

I wanted to blog a bit about the recent Malifaux tournament we had here in balmy Manchester, NH.  We had 10 people play in a 35 stone quasi-newbie tournament, organized by one of our local expert henchmen Adam.  It was a 3 round 75 minutes per round tournament.  The tournament as a whole was a friendly set of games, not a competitive struggle to determine the best.  There were prizes, but Adam’s wife baked a cake, and that really was prize enough for all. 

I fielded the Guild Faction, led by Sonnia Criid.  With her I brought Sam Hopkins with some extra armor, 2 Guild Hounds, 3 Witchling Stalkers, and 5 soul stones.  Sonnia had the 1 stone power to make more Witchling Stalkers as well, but I consistently forgot to use the power (5 times) throughout all 3 games and therefore will not speak of this card again… I have a tendency of doing this, so I might need a neon sign or large gold star to remind me of the power I kept forgetting, such as I’ve used in other games.  Or maybe I’ll bury this Guild Arsenal Card.

My default strategy was to use the Guild Hounds to run across the board and leave tokens wherever the schemes or strategies required.   The Witchling Stalkers would start burning opponents with pistols and later engage them in melee.  Sam would effectively block for Sonnia so Sonnia’s magical explosions could go off many many times.

To summarize, I had 3 great games and enjoyed each and every one of them.  I played good people, 1 new and 2 old friends.  I ended up in 4^th place, much to my surprise with 1 win, 1 loss, and 1 tie.

My first game was with new friend Ed’s Resurrectionists, led by the Seamus model.  We tied 4-4.  I don’t remember all the details, but I got points for Outflank and Breakthrough, thank you Guild Hounds.  He got his for capturing Sam Hopkins and the center objective.  The Resurrectionist crew I saw today would have been one of the crews I would be uncomfortable with my children seeing on the painting table.  Rotten Belles aka undead hookers I not ready to explain.

My second game was with friend Jerico’s Guild led by the Lady Justice model.  I won 4-3.  Surprisingly Lady Justice melee’d with Sonnia and Sam for most of the game.  Sonnia actually fared well against Lady Justice in melee.  That surprised me.  In the end, I played the scenarios a little bit luckier than Jerico.  He however could have tied by leaving a few tokens instead of charging on the last turn, which we discussed during the competition.  He stuck with his plan of charging instead and flipped cards unluckly.  Jerico’s crew for the most part would have been decent enough for the painting table, except the scales of justice model.

My third game was with friend Mike’s Arcanists led by the Ramos model.  I lost 3-6.  Mike and I have played often, of my 8 games of Malifaux thus far, 4 have been against Mike and 3 against this specific Ramos crew.  Mike is an avid player/collector of Malifaux so his familiarity with my crew and having battled previously, meant he dominated the game for the most part.  I changed my strategy pre-game since it appeared he was prepared for my default strategy. So instead of minimizing combat I changed to kill them all, but it was to no avail.  I went for Kill the Protégé instead of schemes of place tokens to win.  He had brought 2 big henchman, I had 1.  He had numbers, armor, and regeneration too.  I never was able to gain control of the ebb and flow of the battle.  It was fun, but my current crew doesn’t have the muscle to overpower another crew.  That’s something to look for a solution in the future.  It ends up Mike went 3-0 and won first place in the tournament. To my surprise if I had won this game I would have won the tournament instead.   I didn't think I played that well.  Guess I was lucky…Until next time.