Malifaux!

Okay so I started to write this earlier today at lunch but I started to babble and not really make any sense so now I am going to back this trolly up and try it again. I don't do this very often, but seeing as how I might be reffrencing this post later I might as well clean it up.

Okay so first impressions? Wow, just wow. This game is incredibly deep, in fact I don't think I've seen a miniature game with this much strategy before in my life. Wow I totally can't spell strategy it took me over 5 tries before the spell checker picked up on what I was trying to say. Anywho, oh my yes there is all sorts of insane tricks to learn, things to pick up on, and options to choose from. It is the sort of thing that I could happily play for years and not ever come close to mastering. The amazing thing is that the basic rules are so simple, and even the secondary layer of optional combat actions (defensive stance, charge, and focus) are all relatively simple. Where the game only really starts to get deep depending on what master you are playing and the crew you take along with them.

I mean almost anyone can win with Ortega who is a ranged fighter who doesn't need line of sight to use her ranged combat abilities. She is a cunt. However, that is part of what makes the game really nice. It has a wonderful mix of Masters that are dead easy to play, some that require finesse, and some that you won't be able to use effectively until you have mastered all basic aspects of the game.

When I played my first couple of games I did it with James and Tyson. I feel kinda bad about it though because I didn't really know ANYTHING about the masters they bought. See I was expecting to maybe have one of them buy a boxed set and the other one to use the extra set I already had. Nope they both bought one. I guess there really is a lot to say about having things right there in front of you in the store. Like I said I had a pretty firm grasp on the rules themselves but I didn't really know how either master worked. Like not at all. Whereas I spent many hours combing the interwebs looking up stuff about my master because I am a looser. Don't judge me. So when ended up happening is that I made good old Seamus into a great big scary force of terror while James was struggling to cast spells that he should of been able to cast had he only used the correct 0 action, and Tyson struggling to use his crew...which really might be kinda worthless I am not sure.

Now man oh man Seamus? That guy is fucking terrifying. I'll be honest though I think once one or both of them learn to play the game good old Seamus won't nearly look as scary as he used to. The cool thing about Seamus' force is that it is nearly impossible to kill quickly. The Rotten Belles have 8 wounds, 8 WOUNDS! Jesus that is more than some masters. Not only do they have 8 wounds but they have hard to kill, which over the course of the game negated at least 6 wounds on its own. Also with Lure being retarded easy to cast, and Distract being fairly easy to cast, two well placed Belles can really fuck up an opponents day. So far may favorite thing to do with them is to have Seamus wander out into the open and pick off a model with his retardedly powerful ranged attack then use the Belles to get him back into to cover. The whole thing worked really well actually. I managed to terrify both James and Tyson when I had Seamus pop out of cover, one shot Samael Hopkins (with the help of a red joker) then they watched in horror as he popped back into cover. After that people decided it was time to leave him alone. Things would of been even worse had I realized that fast works on every activation meaning that I always could of used three actions but we'll leave that off for another time. I never did manage to get Seamus into hand to hand combat. His damage output is actually much greater there and he heals every time he kills someone, it is actually where he belongs. He just happens to have a gun and since every other enemy model on the board had a gun of some sort I was more than happy to stick to cover and use it effectively. The odd person out in the whole affair was Lady Sybelle. At 6 points, with regeneration, a decent ranged spell, and some fancy triggers she seems good. But then I realize that for the same 6 points I could get a convict gunslinger, a ronin, a punk zombie which out damages her, and some other stuff of dubious value. The biggest sticking point in the Convict Gunslinger which is hands down one of the best units in the game. So why would I even bother to ever consider taking her? Well her model is absolutely fabulous. BUT I think the thing that makes her critically important is that all the Bells are companions with her, and she has the ability to call a belle to her. This gives the resurectionists a much needed boost in manunverability which is one of their critical weaknesses. This is especially true in a game that doesn't nesisarrily award victory points for just pointlessly killing models but instead for achiving certain objectives like grabbing some treasure, claiming a table edge, or having a unit in all four corrners of the game board. That last one sucks for resurectionists. I mean they are a group of people where a move of 4 is a luxury. So in the second game where we actually played James and I were locked in a vicious melee in the center of the table then all the sudden in the last two turns we both spit up because we had to achieve our own ends. It was kind of bizzare but you can really see how that is part of the games intention. You are forced to make hard tacitcal choices as to if you want to win. DO you leave some of your figgures unsupported in a bid for victory points or do you stay till the bitter end. In some ways it is a race to incapacitate the other person's crew enough so you can achieve your goals but that is much easier said than done. So I think I am going to be keeping Sybelle around. It is pretty amazing when you are able to out manuver your oppenent with an army of undead hookers.

So my first game went well but I think once James and Tyson crawl over the learning curve Seamus is going to have a much harder time with them. Especially with Jame's crew. The whole "no spell casting thing, now discard a card" bullshit is going to get old quick. Oh well hopefully we will get to play enough games where that will happen. I mean I didn't even get a chance to bust out my Victorias :(. It is for the best though, I got some Ronin incomming to help round out their crew. Ronin are AWESOME for more reason than they are Samuri chicks with cowboy hats. I am really looking fowards to seeing what they can do on the table. For now though? I am going to do something else. YAY!