A Right Good Fight

I got another game of Malifaux in last night.
I played my final Thursday night game against a Tara Crew with my Perdita Crew.
In that game, Perdita Ortega, Spanish gunslinger and Demon Hunter, was charged by an enormous Nothing Beast.
She calmly stared it straight in the eyes, drew her gun, and shot it once, killing it.

This type of evocative, powerful narrative that plays out on the tabletop with Malifaux is really what makes it shine among the other minis games. No other concentrates as much awesome and insanity in as tiny of nuggets. With no more than 20 models on the board, we were able to have an exciting game with clear rules and only a few disputes.
The Scenario was some sort of murder-fest, in which we had to kill two models in a single turn to score points.
The schemes were Protect Territory, Plant Explosives, Assassinate, Distract, and Line in the Sand.
I was trying to Protect Territory and Plant Explosives, and he was trying to Protect Territory and Distract. I managed to set up some explosives, while he managed to steal a point from me by using papa loco to kill himself and the Austringer. We both Protected a ton of territory.
In the end, we tied the game. Francisco the lone Ortega on the board, Facing down his totem, a death marshal, and a nightmare creature. It was glorious

I play the game very little, and am trying to learn the way it plays. Intrinsically woven into this game is the scheme and scenarios, that allow the game to be fun and fair with a semi-natural endpoint. The Endpoint is actually the one thing I dislike in the game. I have found that the organic endings created in Warmachine are much more satisfying than the forced end of game that both Infinity and Malifaux have.

However, it is mitigated somewhat by having enjoyable schemes and strategies. Figuring out what you have to do with your crew and how to manipulate your opponent and your objectives are something I find mentally enjoyable.

Currently, I don’t announce schemes, as I find it hard enough to learn the game itself without my opponent trying to screw me and working directly cross purpose. I know this lessens my chance to actually win the game. I’ll take my licks while learning so that when I take my training wheels off, I’m that much better.

From Reading a bit online, Diestra, one of the Upgrades for the Family, was one I was really ready to get my mitts on. I put it on Perdita, as she only has SH attacks, and therefore will always benefit from it. the [-] on SH defense flips is really, really helpful to Perdita, as it will almost always guarantee a hit. Which will allow her to pick the best poison with which to stamp out her opposition.
The Nothing Beast was one such model. With Point Blank adding rams on all attacks while engaged, and Critical Strike making each ram do +1 damage, I ate a soulstone, giving myself 2 rams, and then ended up cheating in a third. My damage was 2/4/5 bumped to 5/7/8. Given Papa Loco’s dynamite, I was sitting at a cheatable damage flip, and cheated in enough to kill the bugger in a single shot.

I don’t feel that this same activity would have gone on in M1e. One side or the other would have been rocked off the board before anyone was able to really get a cool groove on.

Nabing McMourning, and knowing that he wants to run a guild guard crew makes me pretty psyked to pick up some guild guard in the near future. Hopefully after the wave 2 field test I’ll have a better idea of what to take with him.

The game is fantastic, and every time I say it it feel a little better in my mind. More masters are definitely in my future!