Malifaux battle report- The first war at the Docks.

Malifaux battle report- The first war at the Docks.

The Oxford Mages look on as Lilith corners the infatuated Willie...

As Ben was an absolute star last weekend at getting more of the docks painted than I could have managed on my own, (my lovely wife helped too) I was able to spare the time for a game on Thursday, as I'm a bit under the weather at the moment and could do with playing at home we decided to give the table it's first outing to give me an idea of scatter terrain and the interior layout at the same time.  

50ss Arcanist vs Neverborn

My Crew

Ironsides with Seize the day, Challenge the Crowd and Warding Runes

Lazarus with Imbued energies

December Acolyte

Johanna

Willie

Oxford Mage- Blood Ward

Oxford Mage- Doom Ward

Mobile Toolkit

Ben's Crew

Lilith with some upgrades (wings and fears given form and another...)

Primordial magic

Doppelganger

Lilitu

Widow Weaver

Coppelius

3 Tots

Deployment- Flank

Strategy- Turf War

Schemes- AliTS, Breakthrough (both announced) Bodyguard, Cursed Object (both), Deliver the Message.

Ignore the unpainted terrain in the factory, it does not exist...

Turn 1

The tots spread to the flanks, two jogging acros the long bridge towards the toll booth,  the one in the east scuttling through the factory supported by coppelius, The Ox mages headed along the gremlin skiff to the supply boat, trying to stay within ward range of the boss whilst hitting the flank. Widow Weaver skittered out though the main dock door in the centre and dropped a web, seemingly safe for next turn, but after the toolkit tinkered with Lazarus' bullets a little, he dumped Imbued energies to gain fast, stepped up and Rapid fired into the nightmarish beast, forcing her to use two SS for prevention after some meaty damage flips. The Acolyte hidden round the sdie door of the factory was less successful against the tot, missing clean twice (Ben's hands were strong due to 2x rush of magic). Willie and Johanna headed over teh crane into the small dock in the centre only for the lilitu to draw willie across the dock and onto the transport barge towards her, the Doppelganger morphed into another lilitu to keep willie moving until he was close enough for Lilith to fly through the dark factory windows onto the barge and threaten him next turn (she also raised trees between WW and Laz to stop his surprisingly efficient barrage), this forced Ironsides to move up in support- Ironsides also got some small vengeance on the Lilitu, taunting her in and dumping her into the filthy water by the boat.

Them tots are FAST

Turn 2-

Initiative was won by the Neverborn- the Doppelgangers ability to cheat the initiative beat Seize the day hands down every turn this game (until she died), at best it could be said that I was draining good cards from his hand.  Coppelius stated the turn off by beating the tar out of the acolyte in the doorway with a severe slap followed by an entirely unnecessary red joker to the face, gaining two eyeballs in the process. The toolkit sharpened Laz again, but he couldn’t get a clear shot at Coppelius or the Tot so instead he jogged along the wooden jetty to the turf war zone, hoping his armour and self-heal would keep him scoring for a while. The two Tots on the bridge sprinted through the customs house, across the barge and into melee range of the mages to tie them up for a turn, which is when I discovered that the Oxford Mage of Blood (who was leading the way) is a horrific combat wombat- furious casting plus the (0) action gives a total of 4 melee attacks in one activation, I splattered the first tot with Elemental bolts then when the other tot rushed in using it’s brood rule Blood’s Elemental Strike dumped severe damage out (with flaming strike) to end the little sods day. This did unfortunately leave the enraged Blood standing slightly singed in a pool of black gore across the only path between boats, forcing Doom to swim across the gap and climb up the side of the barge to advance any. The primordial Magic floated though the factory wall and made Willie insignificant (as Ben had quite accurately guessed I was about to hit Lilith with cursed object) Whilst the Doppelganger (who was now bereft of anyone to copy) ran into the factory toward Widow weaver.  Ironsides took some damage from fears given from, cursed Lilith  then decided it was time to press the advantage and used a point of adrenaline to jump into B2B with the surprised Lilitu in the water, then punched the Demoness into paste with a flurry of savage blows, Lilith retaliated by slicing Willie a new blast hole, only for the resulting explosion to carry all the way across the water and slay the primordial magic, ah Willie, how I love thee. Lilith then went and had a slap at the damp Ironsides, but not a much came of it. Widow weaver was far more effective, tearing chunks out of poor Lazarus (who knew she ignored armour?) so Johanna stepped forward ready to help out next turn, the Tot in the east moved in to smash the toolkit next turn and it was looking pretty balanced so far- both sides scored for Turf, I scored for Cursed., 2-1 to me

One of the reasons I love both Malifaux and Bushido- turn two is always glorious!

Turn 3-

Initiative came down to dirty stinking Doppelganger cheating again (not the sneakiest thing the ganger was going to do this turn) and Widow Weaver had another crack at Lazarus on the small central dock, I got lucky with my flips and her pointy teeth only scraped the paint a bit, Lazarus first self repaired then retaliated by sticking his bayonet into the wounded spider woman a couple of times, once for severe which Ben reduced with another soulstone. Johanna stepped up to give a the Doppelganager a whack with the hammer (can you see my mistake? I didn't) wounding the shapeshifter who then decided that a relic hammer was a fine idea, promptly morphed into the confused Johanna's form (doh!) and began wailing on the even more confused Lazarus, that hurt a lot and left the leviathan on one wound, owch.. over on the rickety gangplank by the barge the pair of Masters continued their dust up, with more punches, black blood, Fears given Form, regeneration and soulstones being burned into the ether, the only noticeable difference being that Atkins remembered to hit Ironsides with cursed object after I'd activated her (Blood was just out of range to make her immune to it too, pants...) speaking of blood, the two mages jogged their pathetic 4" move twice to try and get in on the action (why are the M&SU so sloooow?) whilst I cunningly disengaged with the toolkit and jogged up to Lazarus- I had a plan... The Tot decided it would rather score VP's and ran off to drop a breakthrough marker by the fruit cart, but Coppelius bounded round the corner and up the jetty (he is a nippy one) and engaged both the toolkit and Lazarus, this could get sticky for my favourite mercenary, but we'll see.  we both scored for turf war again, and Atkins scored for Cursed. 3 all.

Unusually Ben was actually playing the schemes whilst I was too focused on killing- this is a reversal of our usual games. 

 Turn 4-

The bloody Doppelganger cheated again, and I needed my SS, so I reluctantly let Ben go first, predictably Widow weaver (who had been pooing webs every turn, i forgot to mention it but they are around...) went for the big guy but missed her first attack, then bit Lazarus last chunk of wounds off, stopping stage 1 of my cunning plan, but not stage 2- hehehe... The toolkit gingerly stepped around Coppelius to get within 3" of all three of the neverborn in the centre, (and inside the trees so everything could see it) I used my one good card to pass the Horror Duel (I needed a 10 with a web nearby and wp3 on the little robot) and then self-detonated, If you aren't familiar with this action, all models within 3" must pass a TN11+ the turn number defense duel, or take damage equal to the turn number- this would have left the Weaver on one wound, coppelius on 6 and killed the Doppelganger outright, of course letting it off so early in the turn he would probably be fine, but at TN15 I hoped to strip a few cards from his hand, it worked better than expected though as he had a poor hand for once, and only had a high card to pass one duel, choosing to keep the doppelganger alive and take the hits on the other two, awesome (plan A was to assimilate the same action with Lazarus, then do it again with the toolkit:) big bada-boom). after picking himself up from the oil and blood-soaked cobbles Coppelius made with the eye candy (hoho) and gave the Weaver a hand before moving up to Johanna for another cursing. Ironsides went next, teleporting over to the far side of Lilith to get within range of buffing the mages and Johanna, before punching the mistress of malifaux a few more times (yes, despite literally just being cursed I totally forgot to curse Lilith... again...).  With the M&SU bonuses kicking in the wounded Johanna easily squished the Doppelganger, but not before it mimicked one of the weavers attacks and took her down to Hard to Wound, she also failed to remove the curse marker (dammit Wk4!) yet more failures occurred as the mages attempted to volley fire into Widow Weaver, Doom bottled it after failing his horror duel, Blood came through again though wounding the spider lady, the Tot in the corner kept up his scheme dropping shenanigans, on the ore barge this time, probably glad to be out of the Clusterfeth in the middle of the board.     another Turf War each and another Cursed for Ben. 4-3 to Ben

You can tell its Turf War by the fact that bad things happen more often in the middle...

Turn 5-

It was time for drastic action if I was going to claw back any VP's and the only man for the Job was- The Oxford mage of Blood! he charged acrosst the barge and into lilith, then promptly kicked the black blood out of her (magically, i mean he didn't want to dirty his feet or anything), The Neverborn Master spewed some black blood around but it wasn't enough to stop the Red Joker finally finishing her off (I only had 2 red jokers all game, one to hit Lilith with ironsides, one to damage her)  his companion finally made good on the 'doom' front though and killed widow weaver at last, removing the web markers that had dogged my warbands horror and manipulative duels all game, (Weaver is surely a must have for Turf War?) Coppelius wasn't about to give me the last laugh though, and an eyeball plucking later Johanna went down. Ironsides was now free to skip into the breakthrough zone and drop a marker whilst the Tot popped a third into my zone and started to head back just in case, with only one Mage and Coppelius in the rather battered centre dock neither of us were scoring for turf this turn, and with Ben having 3 turf, 2 curses and 3 for breakthrough vs my 3 turf, 1 curse and 1 breakthrough it was looking like an 8-5 victory to the neverborn, I desperately needed a turn 6...

The Tot on the Ore barge later retired from a life of terror and took up a pleasure boat business in the Bayou...

Turn 6-

And I got it! The Oxford mage of Doom in the centre could (just) drop a curse token on Coppelius if I could act first... initiative flip- two two's! The doppelganger was clearly cursing me from beyond the grave... I didn't even have a soulstone to reflip, and the eyeball snatcher gibbered off happily into the darkness across the jetty. my mage tried to fire a few paltry bolts after him but I failed another horror duel despite the lack of web markers and the [+] for the nearby master.. (the highest card in my hand was a 5...) this also meant the paralysed gimp was stood in the way of blood at the very edge of the Turf scoring area, meaning I couldn't even get in there for another point that way! Doom is going to get a Gibbs slap to the back of the head when we get back to base... Ironsides did nail down two more Breakthrough markers on the main road though, so at least I had pulled it back to an 8-7 to Ben. ah well, it could have been worse... 

run away little coppelius...

Thoughts

Some games are learning experiences due to what happens on the table, and some due to what happens before the game even takes place. About halfway through turn one I realised I had completely chumped this up, I took breakthrough with a warband where half my models were walk 4, Cursed object vs a neverborn crew with a high Wk across the board who outnumbered me to boot, and my crew selection was based on fear of the unknown rather than why I knew worked, the only reason Ben won by such a small margin was because it was his first time playing Lilith, he certainly out-Malifauxed me across the board from the moment we flipped for strategy.lessons learned; Crew selection> very important> taking the right scheme> very very important!

The revelation of the game for me was the Oxford Mage of Blood, I usually take him as my second after Nemesis as the immunity to conditions is very powerful, but I don't worry too much about the ability to use his (1) action in melee, this game showed me how deadly that can be- with furious casting I can get three 2/3/4 hits off (with burning+1 usually) at Ca6, followed by a (0) of 1/2/3 which can either gain me a soulstone, up to 2/3/4 as in this case, or even insta-kill! my tactics using this fellow are bound to change after this game. Ben's eye-opener was the mobile toolkit, he's only ever seen him sharpening stuff for Lazarus or Howard, or making Joss armour +3, and usually he gets splatted early on for Ramos to make scrap, but as he survived to turn four in this game I had the opportunity to show how deadly his explosion could be, at TN15 even his DF6 models struggled to dodge it, and it probably kept me in the game when things were looking grim, not bad for 3ss;)

Thematically the two masters stood on the rickety gangplank above the water punching the crap out of each other for three turns is a brilliant image, between us I used four of my five soulstones on damage prevention, all on Ironsides, between that and the adrenaline heals plus the Regen given by Doom Ward Ironsides took almost twice her wound count over the three turns from lilith's attacks and (more frequently) Fears Given Form, Ben also spent six of his seven soulstones of prevention, 3 on the widow weaver and 3 more on lilith, in the end it was only a big hit from ironsides for severe damage and the heroic actions of Blood Mage that took her out, although it almost killed the mage in the process and   finally took Ironsides down to hard to kill!  (edit- I have since realised that in Blood's proximity Ironside's would be immune to stinking black blood, so she probably came out shinier that i thought by a long shot)

Ben is known as a Proxy king (amongst other things) in our gaming group, he loves to try out new ideas and new crews, which is great for me because I get to play against everything you can imagine, it's like having four more players in the local meta, and I learn a lot from our games, the fact he is a fair bit better than me at most wargames balances out the fact he's usually using a crew for the first time, it does mean i don't take too many photos of our games though as the proxies do look a bit odd (in this game a knight models harley quinn stood in for the doppelganger, a cyberpunk devil ronin stood in for Lilith and a Bushido Hebi monster for the Weaver) but next time I play on the board it will hopefully be finished and I'll get some in game photos:)

Until next time... *shakes fist"

more dock works- the factory and smaller boats-

adding images for now so i can write it up later- my camera is increasingly grainy...

I needed to build the factory now, a big centre piece it had to fit exactly to the proportions layed out, as well as being impressive enough to really bring the board alive, I sketched out the plan (below0 and got to cutting my foamboard.

I marked it out carefully (for a change) making sure everything was level and lined up.

I used a circle cutter to create the arches, I find that if use an arc that is about 1" more than teh windows height it gives a pleasing effect, so in this case 2.5"

I was making the factory walls double thickness, mainly for solidarity, but also because it looks more hefty, and at 32mm I felt Malifaux terrain needs a bit more heft. I therefore made two sections of each, and glued them together with PVA glue overnight. 

I piled heavy books on them to ensure they glued flat!

In the morning I pinned them gently to mock up teh space- looking about right:)

More DIY cheapness from me here- the heavy foundation blocks I was using to raise the foamcard and give a more industrial feel are from a jenga set I bought from a charity shop for a pound, tons of good quality wood cut perfectly to size, I couldn't ask for more. I marked out the plan and glued them down with PVA before I went to work.

Okay... Maybe the doors are a bit big....

While this dried I sprayed the pre-built stuff..

Next comes the most boring bit, instead of texturing the whole building with brick latex- which would take an age and I don't have the patience, I'm going to use thin card to give the impression of large blocks on the corners, this will also protect them from spray when it comes to painting:) first the capstones for the doorways, designed to fit over both sheets of card and fold flat.

here is the first finished section, as you can see I've also added window ledges of thicker card, and created a pattern around the door edges. there is also a running brick pattern about half way up I added later on. even taking photos of this process is boring, so I am going to skip ahead to...

Texturing- as with the docks themselves I've used a combination of super glue and sand to create textured moss effect across the detailed areas, with thicker clumps in areas most likely to collect rainwater and moss. 

To attach the whole thing to the foundations I used PVA glue and cocktail stick pins, these should hold it in place whilst the glue dries firmly

I added some last bits of external detail in the form of columns, metal rivets, the cobbles outside and yet more moss round the base. 

The interior I wanted to look like a victorian mill that had been gutted and refurbished into a factory, to show this i left wooden roof supports about halfway up (matching the brisk layer of the outside) I added two tannig pools in one corner with a raised access area, a detailed mechanics section to one wall and behind the clock, and covered the floor in textured plasticard.

whilst all of this dried (again) I was reinforced by one of my best mates Ben and my lovely wife, they volunteered to paint and drybrush the cobbles and stone on the finished sections for me, whilst I cracked on with the details. I made some small boats to fill the gaps in the docks area, I decided to make them all different, and in some fairly esoteric styles as this seemed more malifaux style than regimented ships all in a row- they are mainly Balsa with the base shape a pre-made paper mache jewellery box I bought fro 50p from Hobbycraft. 

I also used the time to make and paint some extra gangplanks- I still need more I feel. 

They did a sterling job on the finished sections, I'll add some weathering later

A few small jetties (Balsa wood again) filled the docks up good and proper, and really added to feel of the table.

My wood is all being done very simply using the paints below over a dark brown spray- I use increasingly light drybrushes and work towards the edges, leaving the centre darker, the final drybrush is cold grey to age the wood a little, then it's stained with Biel-tan green and eventually Agrax Earthshade.

There was still a massive gap in one deployment zone, so another boat was needed, this time a medium sized skiff, fresh from the Bayou. I was running low on Balsa wood (unsurprising really) so I used a card clinker=plating method I was taught years ago when playing a Warhammer ships game up at head office. a couple of fences, and a raised navigation area made it a bit more interesting.

putting it all together- couldn't be happier so far, I have enough Balsa left for the doors, and now just need to worry about the factory interior..

The skirmish at draftsman tower

Malifaux Battle report

50ss, Strategy- Squatters Rights

Schemes- A line in the sand (Me- declared) Bodyguard (Dom) Vendetta (Dom) Distract (Me) Entourage

Arcanist Crew

Ramos (or ordinal R4mos, my flying construct) with Field generator, Bleeding edge tech and Seize the day. 

Howard (Harold) Langston with Imbued energies

Lazarus

Johanna

Willie

December Acolyte (vendetta target)

Union Miner

Mobile Toolkit

Metal Gamin

Gremlin Crew

Wong (with whatever upgrade boosts glowy, and maybe another)

lovely assistant

Burt Jebsen (vendetta attacker) 

Mctavish (glowy, the dirty evil scumbag) (bodyguard)

2 rooster riders

2 Lightning bugs

Both myself and Dom wanted to test out a few things in our 100ss pool for the 'Here be Dragons' tournament at the end of January, we met up at the lovely new Firestorm games to play one of the pre-arranged strategies, here's the report, in a story-esque form so if I forget the odd detail it's not as obvious;) I have a couple of photos, will upload them later

.................................................

Burt stood on the cusp of the hill, looking down into the ruined houses in the quarantine zone, his attention focused on the strangely intact tower in the centre of the wreckage.

“yoo's sure he's gonna be here?” he turned to his companion, who was at that point attempting to surreptitiously paste his elaborate moustache back on.

“De Bag knows! It tells me that de man you hunt will come here, he tinks dat he be leading dose wid him into a trap, he jus’ don’ realise it’s our trap, long as Gator-boy gets past dem, you git your boy and I get de tower everybody gon' be happy...”

Burt nodded, hoping Wong was right. The Ten Thunders spy he had chased across Malifaux was the one who had marked Burt’s clan, an informer for slavers and slaughterers, he had taken refuge within the Arcanists, wearing the robes and weaponry of an acolyte of December. As he squinted into the shadowy half-light he saw movement ahead, which resolved into the shape of Mctavish signalling that their enemy had arrived.  Beside him Wong gestured dramatically, and the Lightning bugs and rooster riders capered forward, Wong and his assistant both vanished in a puff of pink smoke, whilst Burt drew his trusty sidearm and scuttled toward McTavish, soon one more piece of Burt vendetta against the ten thunders would be complete.

.................................................

                Ordinal R4mos hovered close to the ground, it’s brass wings fluttering behind it as the motley group of M&SU explorers spread out, the acolyte had brought them to this tower claiming it held old malifaux texts on constructs and their repair, which the Ordinal knew could aid his allies in Ampersand. The fleshy members of the union that had volunteered to track these documents down, Willie the lunatic, an unscrupulous miner and Johanna the mercenary were spread out on the left on the ruined area, the better to keep Johanna’s accursed hammer as far from R4mos as possible, although if Harold the Steamborg was wary of the weapon he did not show it, slowly picking his way over the rubble beside her. Something in R4mos cogitator did not like this, the situation seemed to good to be true, and he awaited confirmation of his logic engines obvious confusion, signalling to the Gamin beside him to stay close to him with it’s protective aura, as well as the oblivious toolkit. A blast of gunfire ahead illuminated the ground, silhouetting the stunted forms of gremlins in elaborate costumes taking up position opposite them, as his party advanced R4mos sensed the bulk of Lazarus looming out of the shadows beside him, ice crystals still melting on his battered metal carapace.

+++NEXT TIME YOU SEND A MESSENGER TO THE WITCH> SEND SOMEONE ELSE+++

The giant construct placed a tattered scrap of hide into R4mos hand, the five words scrawled across it in delicate hand enough to confirm the Ordinal's predictions.

He’s not one of mine. R.

Less than a second later the message had passed from R4mos across the constructs at his command, he turned to Lazarus.

+++IT’S A TRAP. END THE ACOLYTE+++.

He gestured to the Gamin, which shredded the Toolkit at it's feet, providing enough parts for R4mos to start creating more mechanical insects to support his crew, from the left flank came an agonised shriek as Harold decapitated both the giant rooster and it's rider that had ridden out to declare their ownership of this area. So far this was going exactly as expected.

..............................................................................

                The shells Wong had magically imbued for McTavish left trails of burning green across Burt's retinas as they seared through the sky, slamming into a ruined hovel they knocked a cloaked figure into view, a rooster rider sped across the ground to engage the acolyte now he was in the open but was distracted at the last minute by the death of his counterpart, leaving the way clear for Burt to carve his revenge on the ten thunders chest. Drawing his knife he leapt into the ruin, time seeming to slow around him as the imposter acolyte recoiled in fear, recognising the Grem who had hunted him for years, a flash in the distance barely registered in Burt's mind before an explosion ripped through the hovel, hurling Burt away and shredding the acolyte, his bloodied corpse smashing into the rooster rider and knocking it's rider senseless.

Burt staggered to his feet, looking around him at the devastation wreaked by the grenade, where was Wong? The question was soon answered as a shower of sparks and flame shot out of the house closest to the tower, forcing the Hammer wielding human and her miner accomplice back into cover. He looked up to see Lazarus' launcher barrel smoking in the distance, a hovering construct next to him surrounded by smaller scuttling creatures, Burt's trusty pistol raised he fired off a salvo of shots, most of them spanging off the armoured mercenary. Mctavish shot rang out again, the glowy shells slamming into Lazarus and driving him back, Burt barely had time to savour this victory when the berserk Rooster beside him knocked him to the ground before charging towards the lightning bug to the rear. As he scrabbled to his feet a scrawny, soot covered face poked round the corner of the burning hovel.

'Alright green-face, hold this fer me would ya?'

It took Burt a fraction of a second to recognise the stick of dynamite sailing through the air toward him, unfortunately it was a fraction too long and for the second time that day an explosion blasted him from his feet.

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R4mos was so far satisfied with the progress of the Skirmish, the logical assault of the M&SU members was driving the more chaotic Gremlins back, Harold had pinned the sorcerer down after distracting him from his explosive exploits, whilst the miner and Johanna were moving up and claiming ground, the only question was why had the false acolyte led them into a Gremlin ambush? R4mos had been expecting Ten Thunders, perhaps even the Guild, but the Bayou dwellers were rarely seen working with human infiltrators. Beside him Lazarus continued to sustain blasts from the Glowing rifle, and after losing an arm to the barrage was falling back from the fray. Unwilling to turn down raw materials, even those so unwillingly given, R4mos quickly marshalled his soulstones to create more arachnids from the wrecked limb. A shout from ahead drew his attention toward Willie, the lunatic was drawing magical fire from one of the absurdly dressed gremlins by the tower, blue sparks threatening to set off the dangerous barrow of explosives. The odds of the human surviving to continue the assault were slim, and R4mos re-formulated his plans, removing Willie as a variable.  This proved wise when a second Gremlin wizard appeared around the edge of the tower and with the help of the grotesquely large pistol armed greenskin that Willie had attacked he was eventually brought down, his barrow exploding spectacularly, the red flame almost disguising the flash of purple as the leader of the wizards disappeared from under Harold’s nose and reappeared on the tower itself, raining down lightning and flame into the Steamborg and Miner nearby. Driven back by the force of the Gremlins assault, they retreated to Johanna’s position, where the rebel steamfitter taunted them, her unique magic re-invigorating them and healing the shallowest of their wounds. The proximity of the wizard’s assistant seemed to be swinging the flank in the gremlins favour, and whilst multiple paths of logic swung through R4mos cogitator, the course of action was simple;

+++ HAROLD> CONFIRM PRIMARY TARGET> FEMALE GREMLIN AT TOWERS BASE +++

The badly damaged Steamborg’s eyes flashed as the message was relayed across the board, the lunged forward toward the tower. The ground before R4mos was by now littered with scrap from the Swarms of constructs he had sent towards the Human Gator hunter and the Gremlin pistolier, who were fighting almost back to back amongst the constructs, crushing another soulstone to send energy through his core, R4mos moved forward, extending his protective field and summoning yet more spiders to the fray, along with the more sturdy Gamin. The probability of success was slipping, and he may need to intervene personally.

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             Usually Burt liked bugs, the brightly coloured creatures that you found dotted around the Bayou were the closest thing most Gremlin young’uns got to candy, as long as you avoided the really poisonous ones anyway. These bugs Burt did not like, just as he was about to blast one away with his gun another would latch on and distract him, as soon as he’d dealt with that two more would appear, if it wasn’t for the support given by Mctavish and his gator, which by now had eaten more scrap than its size could possibly allow, Burt and the Lightning bug would have been overwhelmed beneath the sea of gears and claws. He could see Wong cursing from the tower as his assistant was torn in half by the Steamborg, with a puff of purple smoke he disappeared and re-appeared again, hurling more lightning at the mechanical monstrosity, who was barely able to move two of his five legs. A movement behind the rubble drew Burt’s attention, the hovering construct that had stayed away from the melee so far had moved within range, Burt fired a shot toward it at the same time that Wong spotted this new threat- a huge explosion engulfed the area around Wong, shredding several spiders around a dismembered lightning bug and damaging the winged master, which appeared to rebuild itself even as Burt’s bullets tore chunks off it. Away from this scrum two other humans were busying themselves sweeping away the Gremlins territory marks, reclaiming the area for the arcanists. A fierce heat behind Burt was all the warning he needed to duck beneath the claws of yet another spider, this one accompanied by a gremlin sized creature made of what appeared to be molten metal? He swung at it with his pistol butt as Mctavish ran past;

“Wong’s gone an rabbited on us Burt, steamborg damn near took his head right off” An echoing shot came from Mctavish weapon as he finally got a bead on the arcanist creation “That put the darn thing down, right who’s next?”

Burt was still trying to disentangle himself from the spiders around him when something connected with the side of his head that brought stars to his eyes and set part of his hair alight.. did the metal grem-thing just headbutt him? He swayed on the spot as he turned to face it.. oh yeah,,, that’s exactly what happened.. was about to happen again? A dull thud of metal on flesh was the last thing Burt heard before darkness overcame him.

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                     The loss of Harold signalled a major turning point for the skirmish, when the construct had driven off the diminutive wizard R4mos had increased their success probability to 80%, without the steamborg, and with the hunters strangely glowing rifle slicing through steel armour like butter, the odds were shortening rapidly. With no time to construct more allies the most logical course of action would be to ensure this victory himself if the contents of the tower were to be secured. The last of his spiders rushed the hunter and remaining wizard, pinning them in place even as they were blasted apart or eaten by the gator, R4mos sailed forward, sacrificing another spider to magnetise toward it he blasted a bolt of lightning at the Gremlin, then finally succeeded in distracting the Hunter long enough for the flares the miner had been preparing with Johanna in the long lines of sand to leap into the sky- soon Arcanist reinforcements would be here, and the tower would be secured, he turned back toward the Gremlins in time to see the human gator wrangler sling one of his unconscious comrades over his shoulder, with a wry grin at the hovering construct he slunk away into the shadows, leaving R4mos taking stock in a field of scrap. A sound behind him alerted him to a bedraggled Willie digging himself out from under the ruins of the hovel,

“Hehehe That was a fine shindig, lots o’ boom fer your buck.. Did we win?”  

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Score- 8-7 to me, 

I scored 2 for squatters rights, 3 for a line in the sand, and 3 for distract thanks to a Ramos hail mary on turn 5. 

Dom scored 4 for squatters rights and 3 for bodyguard 

Post game- 

This game basically came down to initiative on turn two and a VERY lucky guess (or genius piece of deduction, one or t'other) after Dom didn't reveal either scheme I assumed he plumped for Bodyguard and Vendetta, entourage isn't his bag generally, I had activation control so distract wasn't optimal and he'd always declare alits, I had initially pegged Lazarus as the Vendetta victim from the heinous glowy mctavish, as the terrain set out gave the Laz nowhere to hide against Mctavish horrible ignore-everything shots, however at the end of turn one Tavish had blasted the acolyte so obviously no vendetta, however the obscenely cheap Burt (6ss) had moved into a position to finish the acolyte (7ss) off, despite there being better targets for him, This made me reconsider Vendetta again- I decided that if I won initiative (which I did with a 13 thanks to seize the day) I'd give the snowy chump a backful of Lazarus grenade launcher's 3 shot special- this would achieve a few things- If he WAS the vendetta target I could hopefully eliminate him before it had even been revealed, denying all 3VP, if not I could cheat the acolytes DF down, get a severe damage with Laz and drop 2 templates over Burt and the nearby rooster rider, The acolyte was a goner anyway so his loss will still be mediated by the damage to the rooster and Burt if I could pull it off. It was a little tense as I was shooting into a 3 way melee, and I really wanted to hit the Acolyte, the first shot hit Burt and Dom cheated to miss, the second was square in the acolytes back and flipped a 12 for damage, taking the acolyte out, hammering Burt and reducing the rooster to the point it was berserk (which effectively took it out of the game to all intents and purposes, and as I had distracted it last turn it struggled to get the AP to remove the condition) one shot that denied 3VP and almost certainly won me the game (the third shot incidentally did another haul of weak damage to Burt- Lazarus version of ranged flurry is great in that it unlike most versions it does not need to target the same model with all three shots.)

I had some above average luck in this game, I summoned the swarm twice from a straight flip (no cheating required) as well as having the red joker in hand twice (once for a first turn summon, again for a brutal amount of damage on Wong). Dom was also (I'm pretty sure) taking it easy on me, Wong spent turn one making pretty pictures with scheme markers and not exploding things, and he 'forgot' a very important squee when Wong was down to his last wound. despite this it was very close, coming right down to Ramos last activation on Turn 5 to get the second Distract token back on McTavish to push me 1VP ahead, a cracking game vs a very friendly and challenging opponent.