ToMB - Mid-April - Sonnia Criid (Dave's)

Hello Folks,

I wanted to update you all on my activities in the past month in modeling and game playing in regards to Malifaux.  Now I haven’t been as productive this month with Malifaux for many reasons you probably don’t care about, but I have purchased or previously purchased the Sonnia Criid Avatar and the Witchling Handler.  Both are currently assembled.  I’ve been taking care with the Sonnia Criid centerpiece, removing mold lines and green stuffing the cracks. A picture is included of the model during my green stuffing.  Since then I’ve primed the model white and have begun to prime the backside of Sonnia as black to hint at a less illuminated backside.  In addition I’ve been trying out on some excess GW and Confrontation Orc Heads different attempts to make their eyes look like they are on fire.  I have a favorite, but I’m still experimenting so I’ll hold off saying what has won. 

            For the Witchling Handler, I have primed it black and have begun to paint it.  It’s not finished, but I’m content with the progress.  Sorry, no picture.

            For gaming, I think I’ve played one game of Malifaux versus my friend Mike.  I substituted in the Witchling Handler for the 2 Guild Hounds and Samuel Hopkins’s armor from the Guild Arsenal Deck.  It was my first play with her.  She did well, put a little fear into Mike, but in the end I believe she died on the field.  Technically I lost 5-3 on victory points, but I had changed my normal tactics and ignored/forgot the strategy card objective (quarters), costing me objectives and ultimately the game.  Instead I did a bum’s rush up the middle going after his caster for the assassinate objective.  I got him, but with Sonnia’s fireballs.  My charge up the middle failed to reach him, but resulted in much entertainment as it faltered in a bottled-up charge across a stone bridge.  Great game.  Talk to you some more later in on, family Easter dinner is at our house this year and I got some cleaning to do.

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (ToMB) March - Molly Purchases

The month of March has been an exciting month. Its the beginning of April and I just returned from Adepticon in Lombard, IL where I had a blast playing in the Cake match, Team Tournament, and Masters of Malifaux. This post is going to focus more on what I've learned the past 4 weeks playing with Molly. I've played a fair amount of games with her now, and have pretty much solidified how I am going to be playing her at the 50ss level. So what I'll introduce is my second months purchase, with some forethought on where I see her crew being by the end of ToMB.

Last month I had $1.01 left over, meaning I have $26.01, which puts me JUST shy of what I'd like to buy for this month, which is a necrotic machine and a punk zombie boxset. The old necrotic machine is $12 and the old 3 pack of punk zomibes is $15, so I'm $0.99 short. 

Since May we'll be seeing the release of the new plastic punk zombies ($21), I'll wait. For March I decided it's important for a Molly player to grab a necrotic machine and Bete Noire. Yup, that's right I said it, Bete Noire.

She is a viable entry in just about every crew and serves a fantastic role in so many situations being a staple in your Resurrectionists repertoire. Typically, I'd suggest saving the money for the punk zombies next month plus something else, but I think this is a good time to get another heavy beater.

She can help you accomplish some important schemes and strategies. She has 2 releases sculpts and a new plastic sculpt prepared to be released this summer, so you will have options with which model fits your tastes.

Original Bete Noire - $9.50

Bete Noire Alternate - $13.50

Bete Noire Plastic - $11.00

So I already have the original bete noire, which I will use for my cost putting me at $9.50 + $12.00 = $21.50. Leaving me $4.51 for next month. 

So let's first discuss the necrotic machine. This little guy may not appear to be anything useful, but it is a nice little totem who can be summoned. At 2ss, the only reason I could see hiring him with the crew is because you feel like you're going to get out activated early game. Otherwise, its best to summon him. Even so, I need to emphasis I have no plans to hire him. If you're looking for activation control I guess you could spend the 2ss, activate him to move up his double walk. Move your models with his (0) action. Then have Molly summon another one and have it activate and move your models up more. If anyone has another reason to hire him, enlighten me. He can be summoned 10" from Molly or her regular 6" and this is how I typically plan to use him.

I prefer the 6" summon, but when I need it the 10" summon is nice because it forces you're enemy to have to deal with him before dealing with Molly if you lose initiative and plan to summon a bunch of stuff. Now the necrotic machine is no slouch either, as it provides the ability to get a last push of belles, horrors, and spirits within range before a turn end. It's attack Ml is base 5Crow, but if you get lucky it does have a 1/1/6 dmg spread and some interesting triggers, most notably Infectious Fluid which has a way of potentially handing out paralyzed (especially if you opponent has no cards left). Again nothing fantastic, but just a little something to turn the tide if you get lucky and something to remember. 

With bete, you can use her in multiple ways. Having her pop out when one of your crooligans or other living/undead models die is great. You just need to ensure you unbury Bete Noire out near the model you want to kill because her movement isn't great. 

I enjoy unnerving or decaying aura on her. Usually its Decaying Aura, especially if Assassinate is on the list of schemes. Bete is pretty straight forward, with some solid Df of 7, and a paired attack (+ on attack flips). I enjoy her paralyze trigger as it is quite effective at shutting down just about any master. Now she has very low wounds so you'll want to keep a 10+ in your hand, because once she 'dies' she can take the "One with the Night" action for free and attempt to bury. If you can keep a 10+ in your hand the only thing that can cause her to fail this is a black joker. So as you can imagine a black joker and a 10+ is pretty powerful for you to hold if you're using Bete Noire. 

The other way to use her is have her unbury, kill something with 1 AP, and then choose to take the (1) One with the Night action to re-bury setting up for next turn. Again somewhat circumstantial but an option one should consider when fielding bete. With Molly she becomes incredibly mobile.

So I want to wrap this post up but I do expect to post a short writeup about using Molly at Adepticon before the end of this month. I used her for three games and find her to be incredibly powerful. Stay tuned for that. It won't be focused completely on ToMB as I threw in some other models, but it will be a glimpse of where I see her fleshing out to by the end of this ToMB journey! Until next time.