Malifaux Demo

Well, Shawn and I ran our Malifaux demo game this weekend at the Dartmouth Sportsplex for March Out To Game.

The room was full with lots of games going on, so it was great to see. Malifaux was the only miniature game represented as this is a mostly a board game group. This did have me a little concerned if Malifaux would draw any attention but I think it actually worked in it's favour with lots of people coming over to check out the miniatures and terrain and we quickly got 3 players wanting to give it a try.

The setup. Shawn is giving a quick background and game explanation. Yes I forgot the fences.

Two of the victims, I mean players checking out the stat cards.

Shawn gave a quick run down on the background and rules and the players were eager to pile in and give it a go. We had tweaked the scenario a bit and changed the strategy to shared turf war which meant one team's models had to outnumber the other team's models in their enemy's  setup zone(their 6" side of the table edge), and their enemies half of the table scoring VP's in the process. This way slow and fast moving crews would not be penalized.

Once again it was Guild/Resurrectionists vs. Arcanists. The figures used were:
Guild with Perdita, Nino and the Peacekeeper.
Resurrectionists with Nicodem, Mortimer and 2 Punk Zombies
Arcanist with two crews:
Ramos with 2 SteampunkArachnids and the Steamborg Executioner
Rasputina with Wendigo, Ice Gamon and a Ice Golem.

The game proceeded with the crews closing on each other with Nicodem raising a few extra troops along the way and Ramos raising a Arachnid swarm. Nino took to a rooftop while Rasputina starting throwing up her ice columns to block LOS and movement into her side of the table.
 

The crews close in. Nino's on the roof and ice columns are up. One was destroyed by the the Peacekeeper.

The Arcanists, agents of chaos advance while talking tactics.

The Resurrectionist player. I suspect Nicodem is about to raise another Punk Zombie.

As the crews approached each other Nino took out the Ice Gamon and damaged the Steamborg. The Steamborg charged in causing chaos by pushing Zombies out of the way to get to Nicodem but couldn't quite make it. Perdita charged across the street followed by the Peacekeeper while Rasputina's crew moved to head her off. There was a mighty brawl in the saloon with the Wendigo going down and the Ice Golem smashing through a wall.  Rasputina then channeled Biting Chill through the Ice Golem which
brought Perdita down to 1 point . Then the Peacekeeper joined in and speared Perdita in the back of the head killing her. Way to go Peacekeeper!(if you remember they were on the same side)

The Steamborg about to shove some zombies around.

 The game ended with the Steamborg getting torn apart by Punk Zombies and the Arachnid Swarm meeting a similar end. Ramos then blew himself up but failed to take out the Punk Zombie next to him allowing zombie models to cross over on that side of the table for VP's

The corpse counter left by Perdita after her own Peacekeeper speared her through the back. It is experimental equipment!

The Peacekeeper trying to smash it's way in. Not successfully. Did I mention it was experimental.

The game ended shortly after with a victory going to Guild/Resurrectionists. Only Nino was alive for the Ortega's but Nicodem was stronger than when he started with undead allover the place. For the Arcanist I believe it was Rasputina and the Ice Golem left in play but not in a position to get any VP's. Ramos' crew was wiped out but I have to say the luck of the cards deserted him at the end.(and I should know about that)

Overall a great game, the guys that joined in where great to play with and caught on to the mechanics quite quickly and most importantly I believe they had fun. The game generated some interest and who knows maybe a few new players. Some people that were not able to play expressed an interest to try it out in the future so perhaps the Halifax area Malifaux group will grow.

If I got any points of the battle mixed up I'm sure I will be told as I am just going off memory.

Contemplating what to do.

Other than that not much else to say. I played Runewars with my son over a few days and pulled out a win there.

More Malifaux

Shawn and I have been doing some prep to put on a Malifaux demo this coming weekend and to this end we have played a couple of games and also worked on models and terrain.

The first game we played was between Shawn's Rasputina's crew and my Ortega's. Ice pillars were everywhere and although Nino Ortega made a gallant attempt to halt the stampede of victory points by Rasputina the game ended something like 6-0 for the Ice Queen.

The second game was with 4 small crews which is the way we are going to run the demo. It had Nicodem and the Ortega's vs. Rasputina and Ramos. Nicodem/Ortega had the Reconnoiter strategy while R/R had A Line In The Sand. We did not use any schemes as this is going to be a teaching game and we thought we would avoid the extra confusion. For the other 2 players we had my son who has played once before and another friend, Pierre who has never played. We teamed up one grizzled veteran with one new player per side. 

The game went well with a win for Nicodem/Ortega and I think we learned just a few things we will do differently for the demo. Both new players did suffer at the hands of the veteran players but they still hand fun (there is a lot to learn). The true test being the fact that I believe Pierre will be joining in for some more games in the future.

Other than that I have been working on completing models and terrain for the demo.

If anyone is interested in a proper battle report let me know and I will throw them in every so often.

If you want to check out a great Malifaux podcast take a listen to The Aethervox Podacst at  theaethervox.com/. The guys do a great job and they are only a 3-4 hours away from me so maybe sometime there will be a game. 

I am also going to be starting a miniature painting service if anyone is interested and I will add details here as things progress.

Here are some pictures of models and terrain for the upcoming demo and I will tell you how things went next time.

The completed Peacekeeper.

The buildings for our Malifaux frontier town.

Malifaux for the Young

Let me say that I would generally not recommend Malifaux for a younger gamer. There are a number of reasons for this, the background content, the models(some are...well intense), the amount of special rules for each model and the math is a little more involved than the typical d6 style games.  

My son, who is 10, has wanted to play though. This is probably because he knows it's the game I "sneak" out of the house to play without him. So a few days ago I said to him that if he really wanted to play we could play a small game and we set up a scenario. The 2 crews we used were Perdita, which he would use and Nicodem which I would use. We also played with small crews which turned out to be three models each and drew for a strategy each but no schemes.

And the game went quite well. It didn't take my son long to get into the flow of the game and he has the patience to read through the stat cards.(he will probably have them all memorized soon!) He probably enjoyed the game even more than some others because he could concentrate on a few models and each one was a character.

Having said this there are certain crews and models I would not like him to play at his age and I would not let him read the stories in the books. Also when we played we both described the model's actions as we were playing, weaving a story as we played the game. I definitely described the actions with a lighter tone and in actually the game can be quite humorous, who knew. 

It was a fun game that ended in a tie and I'm sure there will be more.

On the building front I have completed the 3 buildings I've been working on for Malifaux I just have to give them finishing details to make them Malifaux specific. I will work on getting a water tower together and get the zombie horde painted in time for a game demo at the end of the month.

Talk to you soon.

A view of the Ortegos. The three round markers were evidence I had to destroy.

Nicodem's side approaching the town.