Geek Photo Guy's Adventures: The League of Extraordinary Henchmen

Ladies and Gentlemen... it is time... for the League... of... Extraordinary... HENCHMEN! *Yaaaay!*

So the first Malifaux tournament of the year which ran alongside the 'chosen ones' for the Masters event. For those who don't know, the Masters is an event for the top ranked players in the UK to slog it out over 2 days to become the best Malifaux player in the UK... hence the UK Masters! There have currently been some top seeds exiting the competition which makes for an interesting day 2!

Myself, I am clearly not one of the select few. I am a commoner on the streets of Malifaux who merely makes up the numbers! In which case, it was time for me to dawdle down to Coalville in sunny Leicestershire. When leaving the house at 6.30 in the morning I was greeted by the light dusting of snow on the floor! With the forecast of torrential snow sweeping across the UK it would be a miracle if I could get there and back without it being hazardous!

Upon arrival, slightly earlier than anticipated, I found this floating around... now for those who don't know, there is a rivalry between different groups within the Malifaux community. Nothing like West Side Story or Grease - less musical but more banter. This has been made by The Dicebag Lady, who clearly didn't know what she was doing when she made this but this is The Tractor Massive from Norfolk.

For the winner of the Masters, the TO (Mike Marshall - @OldManMyke) has purchased a crown!

Being there early I had the opportunity to set up some boards! I started by setting up these two standard boards then I progressed on to a East Asian style board which I was proud of making it a 'thematic style' which looked lovely but as I walked away from it, two other players came to the table putting tape down and commented on how unplayable it is and that they would have to reassemble the board to make it playable for them! Hmmm...

Something which I really liked was that the event next door (Masters), players set their own boards up every time to make it fairer and then fixed scenery doesn't influence results! Really good idea!

On to my tourney prep... The Waldgiests arrived from Element Games and they were swiftly built, painted and based. Although now I wish I hadn't of bothered... more on that later! It was my aim to learn about some crews and get a starting point for them. I've listened to opinions and ideas of lists and I've adopted some of those as a place to start and now over the course of the year, I can adapt this to suit my playstyle and also the schemes which I need them to compete.

So I took:

Masters: Dreamer and Zoraida
Henchmen: Lord Chompy Bits, Widow Weaver, Bad Juju

Enforcers: Teddy

Minions: 3 Waldgiests, 3 Sulurids, 3 Stitched Together, 2 Illuminated, 2 Insidious Madness.

Peon: 3 Daydreams

Game One: Table 5

Starting off then on Table 5 (though it means nothing in the first game) against Aaron Bailey of the Malibros and The Southern Malipros 'club'. I was meant to go down last year for a tournament called September's Curse (in August...go figure) but I couldn't make it which I was really disappointed about. Anyway, I got a chance to give him a game which now makes my record 2 out of 3 Malibros!

Strat: Turf War
Schemes: Line in the Sand, Breakthrough, Bodyguard, Deliver a Message, Frame for Murder

I declared Neverborn and Aaron declared Guild. Who should pop out of the box but Perdita! In fluff terms, it was a real synergistic game! I brought out Dreamer with my default crew build:

Dreamer

- Tantrum

- On Dreaming Wings

- Restless Dreams

Lord Chompy Bits

Illuminated

Stitched Together

Insidious Madness

I declared Line in the Sand and took Frame for Murder on a Stitched as I was throwing him forward anyway!

Aaron took (this doesn't include upgrades... that's way to complicated for my reporting skills!)

Perdita

Francisco

Nino

Executioner

Sidir

Enslaved Nephalim

Pathfinder

He declared Line in the Sand and had Frame for Murder on Nino, the mad gatling gun wielding lunatic!

My first time against Perdita in a tournament setting, this could be interesting! Lots of shooting, lots of activations in order to reduce wounds and delete models from the table!

So this is my opening hand... can you tell how the rest of this game is going to go?

Aaron's Crew: B-E-A-U-TIFUL!

Some of the in-game action...

Game Highlights:
- Stitched died first turn - Activated, gain reactivate but lost Gamble for your Life and died!
- Another Stitched killed, this one with Frame for Murder on... unfortunately, I lost Gamble for your Life instead of someone actually killing him!
- Illuminated gained fast, charges the Pathfinder and Red Joker flips the damage killing the Pathfinder!
- Final Stitched activates and does 8 damage to Francisco... Aaron uses soulstones for damage prevention and prevents... 5 damage...
- Dreamer kills the Executioner on a double negative flip with 3 moderate damage flips
- Sidir flips the red joker for damage on an illuminated.
- Chompy moves twice towards Sidir, swings once at double negative flips... 3 severe!
- Chompy hits Francisco, Red Jokers' damage which takes him to hard to kill. He hits again but Aaron prevents all damage!
- Chompy deletes: Sidir and Enslaved Nephlim.
- Chompy taks 2 attempts to get away from a Guild Clockwork Trap but finally goes.
- Chompy engaged with Nino on turn 5 but refuses to hit him due to the fact he may possibly have Framed for Murder on him!
- Dreamer removes a scheme marker placed by Perdita to stop Line in the Sand from happening.

End of the game and I've lost 0-2! WOW! The lowest score I think I've had in a Malifaux game. Aaron only scored on his Turf War points (2). At the end of turn 5, I only had one model left - Chompy/Dreamer. It was an excellent game and I really enjoyed playing Dreamer despite the loss. I see this as a small victory as previously when I turned up to events I would get hammered maybe 10-0/10-1 but I've closed the gap which is really pleasing to see!

Game Two: Table 12

With a narrow loss I went on to play one of only two women at the tournament (two more than any other game system's tournaments) - Phillipa.
We were playing one of the new Gaining Grounds 2015 strategies - Headhunter. I covered Headhunter in a previous post (Before the League... of Extraordinary Henchmen) but just quickly - a model gets killed it drops a head maker, anyone can pick it up, if you pick up a head marker you get 1 VP.

Strat: Headhunter
Schemes: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Protect Territory, Cursed Object, Vendetta.

An interesting pool and for this Phillipa declared Arcanists! She was going to be using Rasputina. For this, I made a few changes to my crew swapping out models which could go down fairly easily and replacing them with models which are just beasts! I kept with the same list as game one but I took out a Madness, a Stitched and an Illuminated. Instead of these, I replaced them with - Teddy and Widow Weaver with Handbag.

I declared: Protect Territory and Vendetta (My Stitched against a December Acolyte).

Phillipa's Crew:
Raspy
2 December Acolytes
Joss (with a fast upgrade)
Silent One
Wendigo
2 Ice Gaming

6 Soul Stones in the pool.

Schemes: Protect Territory (Announced) and Vendetta (on Teddy with the same December Acolyte that I was trying to hit!)

In-game photos:

Game Highlights:

- Stitched gambles with December Acolyte and deals severe damage for 7!

- Teddy gobbles up and hugs the December Acolyte, dropping a head marker

- Insidious Madness picks head of the December Acolyte up.

- Widow Weaver walks to gamin, straight flip ignoring armour - severe damage.

- Teddy gets 20 to hit and is straight flip - severe = 6 damage. Stone and prevents 1. Total teddy takes 7 wounds in one turn!

- Joss' pneumatic fist goes to hit Widow Weaver... Red joker for def flip which prevents her getting smashed.

- Widow Weaver on Joss... Needle attack, declares the trigger to ignore armour on a straight flip - severe!

- December Acolyte drags Teddy 6 towards it and gains a VP for Vendetta!

- Stitched gambles with Joss, reduces to 1 wound. Joss gains reactivate... Shit

- Joss tries to fist again, does severe but Widow Weaver uses a soulstone to prevent 3 damage!

- Last turn called at our turn 4

- Stitched attacks December Acolyte for vendetta

- Dreamer activates... Flies, turns into Chompy. Kills the December Acolyte for vendetta 2vp

- Joss dies to poison from Widow Weaver's Needle attack.

- Used red joker on Stitched attack flip to kill a gamin outright!

- Another stitched kills a gamin with another severe damage!!!

End of the game; a 7-4 win to me! Really pleased that this game it all come together nicely. It felt really good to play Dreamer and I could clearly see how Widow Weaver and Teddy worked. I really concentrated on them as I went through the game to get to know them better, particularly Widow Weaver!

The painting competition always brings an interesting and varied selection of models and paint styles. Below are some of Chris Hay's entry. (@cdhay)

Here are some of Chris' Hamelin crew featured on the Before We Begin podcast! If you haven't listened to it... why the fuck not?! It is an excellent show for getting to know other masters and crews.

Game Three: Table 7

After lunch I faced an incredibly tough opponent in the form of Peter Sidaway (@Midtable_obscur). Those who remember or read my post on the GT will see that Peter is the first person I played and I got my ass handed to me something silly. I wasn't about to let that happen again... or so I thought! For this Strat I decided to take Zoraida. Now, I've played 1 game with her and I got on okay but it wasn't anything compared to a tournament setting. For Zoraida it is hard to judge what to add with her that synergies well. After listening to the Before We Begin podcast I managed to assemble a crew very similar to that on there (the only exception being Crystal Ball being taken). For now, with my limited knowledge of Zoraida, the mechanics work for me and I want to try the models out and get a feel for the crew. I was accused of directly copying the list presented by Ewan (@iamthefly1) and it is true, however where else do you start with a new crew?! As I previously stated, I'd rather find mistakes and flaws in something I'm slightly familiar with and not just a bunch of random models placed on the table. It is fair to say that this game I learnt a lot about this crew but I didn't have nearly as much fun as I did in my previous two games whilst playing Dreamer!

Strat: Squatters Rights

Schemes: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Breakthrough, Make them Suffer, Plant Evidence.

So my Zoraida Crew:

Zoraida

- Crystal Ball

- Hexed among you

Silurid

Sorrow

Waldgiest

Bad Juju

Schemes: Line in the Sand (declared) and Plant Evidence (declared)

Peter's Crew:

Lynch

Huggy

Chiaki

2 tengu

Lone swordsman

Yamaziko

Illuminated

Schemes: Breakthrough (declared) and Plant Evidence (declared)

The only in game photo... Yama battling the trees!

Game Highlights:

- Waldgiests does 6 damage to Yamaziko who has defensive stance. Used a Soul Stone to stop 2 damage.

- Illuminated kills Silruid in comba. Forget to bring out Bad Juju... Don't say it... I know!

- Chiaki makes a Waldgiest insignificant for the turn - cannot turn the marker around!

- Huggy use 'heed my voice' and moves 2 Waldgiest and trees away from the centre of the board.

- Line in the Sand is now unachievable as models are being pushed back constantly by Huggy!

- Turn 4, after trying to get Yama, Hem from a Voodoo Doll is cast on Huggy which means any conditions and damage which the doll takes, so to does the Hungering Darkness.

- Huggy down to 2 wounds. Hits back and triggers to heal

- Zoraida walks to doll and does poison 4 and 4 damage which transfers to Huggy.

- Sorrow paralyzes the Voodoo Doll!

- Chiaki removes paralyzed and Huggy hurts Waldgiest.

- Silurid leaps to gain 3 VP from Plant Evidence.

The game ends with a 9-3 win to Peter. It was an extremely taxing game in terms of mental fortitude. There is a lot going on with different models and lot to keep track of! After playing Zoraida like this, I could feel me slipping back into that area of the tournament scene where I just play and get smashed. This game felt very much like those games in 2014. In hindsight, Zoraida wasn't a bad master to use but I think I selected the wrong crew and definitely the wrong schemes! Models like the Insidious Madness would have been a good selection instead of a Waldgiest. What Peter did well was not killing any other models in my crew after the Silurid which would have brought Bad Juju out. I forgot after he killed the Silurid that I could have brought him out and it was a mistake which I really regretted! Effectively for this game I played with 10 soulstones lighter than my opponent!

I didn't want to slip back into the rut I was in before after making good headway with Dreamer in the first 2 games.

Game Four: Table 11

So in to the final game of the day with the hope that if I was placed near the bottom that I would be able to get a win or at least a close loss and restore some of that faith I built up earlier in the day! I was drawn against Nathan Chenery, a guy from York Garrison Wargames Club who had been using Hamelin all day. Now, I've listened to Chris talk about Hamelin but nothing beats the experience of playing him. His crew wasn't what you would consider a 'traditional' or 'thematic' Hamelin build but it did do a very effective job! All of these models (with the exception of a performer) I have never played against before so this was an excellent game to round off the day no matter what the result!

They say you must experience Hamelin first hand to understand him. Okay, well I say that and it's true for any master. Playing TheoryFaux is great when you're on your way to a tournament or on the way back but it's not great in the middle of the game! For this, I resorted back to the first Dreamer build of the day which I took against Guild.

Strat: Interference (Hold table quarters without being engaged!)

Schemes: Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Assassinate, Spring the Trap, Murder Protege

The default build of Dreamer then and:

Schemes: Line in the Sand (declared) and Spring the Trap (hidden)

Not going to lie, I don't have a fucking clue why I took Spring the Trap knowing that Hamelin wouldn't even venture into my table half! I thought it would be fun... instead it was wasted! I could have taken something useful like Murder Protege!

Nathan's Crew:

Hamelin

Obedient wench

Nix

Stolen

Rat catcher

Ama no Zako

2 rats

Performer

Schemes: Bodyguard (hidden) and Spring the Trap (hidden)

Game Highlights:

- Rats into Rat king after the Obedient Wretch threw rats at rats!

- Outactivated by 3 models in the first turn

- Rat king, 4 wounds on dreamer. Stone prevents 1

- Dreamer out in open, rat king and Nix charge

- Nix takes dreamer to 1 wound and 5 blighted

- Totally forgot Dreamer was Incorporeal... that would have saved a lot of soulstones!

- Dreamer brings out Chompy

- Performer paralyses Insidious Madness

- Performer attacks the Insidious. On a double neg, 3 severe!

- Rats engage models in building (Insidious and Illuminated) to take away Strat points!

- Fast stitched takes Hamelin down to hard to wound

- Another stitched takes Hamelin down, instead stolen child takes the damage/sacrificed and Hamelin heals up to 4.

- End at turn 3.

- Bodyguard points haven't been scored due to not getting to T4!

Final result: 1-3.

My final standing sheet! I did make a mistake on this sheet though. After I wrote the last game I realised that I did actually gain a VP for Line in the Sand on Game Four, so that should read 1-3.

Overall, I finished the day on 1-3 with a -7 differential. Considering last year I would go to a tournament, win a game 5-4 but lose my others 10-0, 9-1, etc, I feel a lot better about the future tournaments planned for 2015. Every game I learnt something new and found out what my models can do! Looking back, I think had I of taken Dreamer all day I may have had a slightly less differential, not saying I would have won but I may have been able to deny certain VPs on strats/schemes. It was really good to play such a diverse range of players and I look forward to seeing them all at tournaments in the future!

I must say a massive thank you to Mike (@OldManMyke) and Lee (@leebatterick) for organizing the event and to Joel (@Joel_Henry) for the use of his school hall.