Wednesday 5 February 2014

Malifaux Masters Battle Reports - Part 1


Hello Sir#67 here to tell you about my latest Malifaux antics.

A few weeks ago some of the best players in the country gathered together for the Malifaux Masters and somehow I qualified!

For the people who are unfamiliar with the Masters format; the Masters is an invitation only tournament held over two days. To qualify you need to finish the year ranked somewhere in the top 16 Malifaux players as listed on Rankings HQ.

The players are split into four different groups with the top four players in the UK are seeded so that one of the top four is present in each group. The actual draw took place a week before the event and anyone could listen in via conference call. Points for transparency there!

On day one you play each member of your group once and the top two players in each group will go through to day two. Day two is a straight knockout event.

I was in Group 2 with James Doxy (UK No 2), Jacob Senett and Matt Ledgerwood. I’d never played any of these guys before so I had no idea what to expect. I’ve been to some of the same events as James and know him to be very good with Ramos but that was about it. I was taking my Neverborn. I’d been playing Neverborn and Malifaux in general for about a year by the time the Masters rolled round but my M2E experience is not the best (dam you Dropzone Commander, you beguiling destraction you!) I was hoping to make it to day two and to do that I’d have to finish at least 2nd in my group.

I’m terrible at recording battle reports and you don’t really have time to take notes at the Masters so I’m not going to post proper battle reports more just general thoughts. I've also totally forgotton which upgrades were taken by either side. If you just assume that I look Beckon Malifaux every time I played Lilith you shouldn't go far wrong. 

Game 1: Recconoiter 

Opponent: Matt Ledgerwood (Ressurectionists)

Crews:

Lilith
Bad Juju
2 x Waldgeist
Young Nephlim
2 x Terror Tot
Primordial Magic

Seamus
Hanged
Mortimer
Bette Noir
3 x Belle
Punk Zombie

This game kind of set the tone for the rest of the Masters. We both played very cagey. I used Tangle Shadows to swap Bad Juju with Bette Noir. This put Bad Juju in the middle of Mark’s crew and he proceeded to make a nusience of himself. Lilith delt with Bette Noir with the rest of her ap and Saemus blew the face off a terror tot I moved a little but to far up the table. Bette Noir popped out of the tots corpse and Sameus made a belle. Bad Juju repositioned slightly and cast Landslide. Landslide is an amazing spell, I managed to catch 2 Belles and the Hanged in the pulse. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to put slow on any of the models but I did get a 10, 12 and 13 out of Marks deck. 

The game devolved into a bit of a stalemate at this point. Neither of us could make any real dent in each other’s crew. The Young Neph went down and Lilith killed Bette/summoned Belles repeatedly. My other tot and the Illuminated managed to drop markers for me to secure max points from break through and 1 from Power Ritual. Mark managed to score 2 points from Distract.

We had to call the game at the start of turn 4 and when points were totalled up I managed to win 5-4.

Game 2: Turf War

Opponent: Jacob Sebnett 

Crews:

Jacob Lynch
Huggy
3 Illuminated
Beckoner
Teddy

Nicodiem
Nurse
Bette Noir
Mortimer
Canine Remains
Punk Zombie
Crooked Man

Mortimer started off by digging up corpses for Nico to summon from and Nico made a Hanged and some Punk Zombies. My models hung around the edge of the scoring zone around the marker. Trying to take advantage of my superior threat range. 

Turn 2 and my Illuminated charged and killed the Canine Remains, Bette popped up and proceeded to Red Joker my Illuminated. Nico summoned a Canine Remains from the old dogs corpse and one of my illuminated gave it a cursed object. Huggy double walked through a church to enguage half of Jacobs crew. I’m pretty sure either Lynch or a Beckoner put Bette back into the ground. 

Again we hit a stalemate. I fed models into the zone to keep scoring for Turf War and passed out some Cursed Objects. Huggy went down in Turn 3 but I brought him back in Turn 4 to score for Bodyguard. Teddy went a little bit wild but ended up being killed by the Hanged. 

We were on even points until one of the last activiatons of the game where Jacob killed his own model denying me a point for Cursed Object resulting in a 9-8 loss to me.

I really should have been far more aggressive in this game. If I had activated Jacob at the start of the turns instead of at the end for extra cards, I could have cranked my crew’s damage out put enough to keep up with the attrition battle.

Game 3: Reckoning

Opponent: James Doxy

Crews: 

Lilith 
Bad Juju
2 Waldgeist
Barbaros
2 Terror Tots
Primordial Magic

Ramos
Joss
Howard
Electrical Creation
2 Molemen
Metal Gamin

James moved his electrical creation forwards and Ramos used magnetism to move towards it and kill it for scrap. He then proceded to summon 3 Steam Aracnids and arranged them in “Swarm formation” (all bases touching). Lilith moved forwards and cast Tangle Shadows on one of the spiders, swapping it with Bad Juju. She killed the spider in base to base with her and summoned a forest to block Joss’ line of sight to Bad Juju. Bad Juju delivered the message to Ramos and cast Landslide making Ramos Slow!

The two Molemen did their scheme marker thing and Howard set off to smack one of my Tots. The Waldgeists set up some forests and Barbaros hunkered down behind one and used his zero action to Challenge. Joss disgarded Imbued Energies for Fast and used the extra ap to walk then charge Barbaros. Joss missed with his first attack and Barbaros hit his defensive trigger pushing Joss away again. For some reason we both forgot that Joss’ axe doesn’t allow defensive triggers.

Turn 2 and Bad Juju punched a spider in the face and cast Landslide again. Ramos used Magnetism to push towards the Metal Gamin. Lilith cast Tangle Shadows on the Metal Gamin and took it down to it’s Hard to Kill wound. Barbaros ended up next to Ramos as part of the Tangle Shadows. Howard Langston murdered a Terror Tot and Barbaros hit Ramos. A combination of the Repulse trigger and Barbaros’ weapon meant that he was able to nimble away and plant a scheme marker.

The Waldgeists killed the Metal Gamin getting me a point for Reckoning.

After that nothing changed in the subsequent turns. We both got maximum points for our schemes. I took Protect Territory and Deliver a Message, James took Break Through and Protect Territory. The single point I was able to get for Recokoning in Turn 2 handed me a 7-6 victory.

I was really nervous going into this game. James had only ever lost 1 game of competitive M2E up until this point and to be honest I was expecting to either win my first 2 games and so stand a good chance of getting out of the group or loose both my games and not progress. 

Having to beat James made things very interesting because if Jacob also won his game there would be three players in our group with a 2-1 record and it would be soul stone difference that would decide who went to day 2.


Thankfully Matt did James and I a favour by beating Jacob and I progressed to the quarter finals. 

My write up for day 2 will follow shortly.

Thanks for reading

Sir#67