Saturday 17 January 2015

Malifaux Journal: A New year, a new crew.

A year turns in Malifaux and I find myself making changes almost instinctually. It is as though a corner has been turned where no corner existed before. Now that I have come to this realisation, I know now that more than Fate is at work. Were it just Fate, I would doubtless be where I was, but instead I am where I am. 

And now: I must find out what else is at work.



Happy belated new year and all that malarkey. hope you all had a good start to it, I know mine was good. I had my first game of Malifaux on the 2nd using Kirai for the first time. She was an interesting one to say the least. As usual I faced Ben, who this time fielded Lucas McCabe. His crew was pretty much just the box contents Plus a Monk of the Low River, but to be fair, I've thought for some time that it is a nice solid crew and doesn't really need much added.

The deployment, scheme and strategy pool were as follows.


I had already written a core crew for Kirai, and to be honest I wasn't too keen on my options here. Because I am practicing for Vappaaux, we were playing a 40SS game and so I didn't really have too many points to spare for dividing roles. My crew consisted of the following 


Because of Corner deployment I chose power ritual, but given my crew choices, I couldn't easily take Vendetta as aside for Sadir, all of my crew costed more than his crew options. I'm not too keen on A Line in the Sand as I took it almost by default when I started and never did too well, but actually I should have considered that and should have definately considered Protect Territory. Instead I opted for Breakthrough. 

The encounter was a good one. I managed to summon in a Hanged early using Izamu as the target model and managed to heal both back up relatively easily. About mid game I also summoned an Onryo, but those two aside it was just a couple of Seishan here and there. 

Both of us made some early progress laying down a Power Ritual marker in our own section and moving up board to further capitalise on our schemes in the subsequent turns. I made the choice to team the Belle with the Ashigaru and have them moved up the top corner of the table to place another power ritual scheme marker. For Ben's part he moved a few models toward both relevant corners for the same, but couldn't quite reach them. 

After the first turn I concentrated on Reckoning for a couple of turns, thinking that if I could score a couple of points, I should have time to focus back on the other schemes. 

I did manage to score two points for Reckoning by the end of the game, but I should have concentrated more elsewhere. Although the Ashigaru managed to place a scheme marker for Power Ritual, I needed him and the Belle to be ready to pounce into action for  Reckoning, so they left the scheme marker unattended. Despite a valiant effort from the Belle to Lure two Wastrels in, one managed to get to my marker and swap it for his own.

Luckily in the opposite corner the summoned Onryo managed to place a marker before moving towards Sidir to do absolutely nothing. 

Likewise Ben had pushed through my lines With his final Wastrel who managed to place a scheme marker. He eventually died to Izamu, who had been slingshotted across the table with some help from Kirai, and the marker was removed.

However, as Ben had opted for Vendetta choosing one of his Wastrels and my Ashigaru, he managed to secure all three points for that scheme late in turn four, meaning that I needed a turn six in order to sneak at least a draw. But alas, it was not to be.

So a good first test of the Vengeful Kirai. Happy enough that I know how I would play her now, though she will need practice as against a seasoned opponent she would need to up her game. Obviously Ben had little idea what to expect meaning that my mistakes and inexperience weren't as big an issue. But I enjoyed using her more than I did McMourning, so whereas I shall use McMourning more as a threat to Doc Bungle who has a real issue with him in particular, I will likely progress my games with Kirai as at least my secondary Master for Ressers.


I've a few other options in the pipeline, but at least in the short term it's Kirai and Seamus. 

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