Malifaux Mauling

I had another game of Malifaux with Joe on monday night. This time we played 35SS with Joe taking Ramos and I went with Seamus. My crew was:

Seamus & 6SS
Grave Spirit
Madame Sybelle
3 Rotten Belles
3 Crooked Men

Joe took

Ramos & 5SS
Mobile Toolkit
Steamborg Executioner
4 Steampunk Arachnids
Soustone Miner

We flipped for strategies, I got Distract and Joe got Reconnoiter which he didn't like so he burnt a SS to reflip and got Slaughter which suited him fine. We then picked our schemes. I took Holdout & Bodyguard (Seamus) and Joe took Bodyguard (Ramos) & Kill Protege (Sybelle). I'm not going to give a blow by blow account of the game just the edited highlights.


My starting positions.

First turn I did a general advance towards the centre of the table looking to use my long range lures to bring his models closer where they could be killed. I also intended to use the Crooked Men as area denial and damage with 'Shafted' markers. That's not how things worked out!
I'd never played against Ramos so I didn't realise how fast his crew moved. Before I knew it I had a Steampunk Arachnid swarm in my face. Worse was to follow. The swarms have Melee Master (+2) and get a positive flip to its damage So the swarm proceeded to take apart it's first belle leaving it with just one wound left. So I retaliated by companioning Sybelle and the Belles expecting to quickly deal retribution. However the swarm has 9 wounds and Armor +1 and a combination of poor flips, a poor hand for me and a good hand for Joe meant that attacks from my four models only did 8 damage.

However I expected to kill it next turn, especially if I won initiative, which of course I didn't. Then I found out that the swarm has a zero action which allows it to make a healing flip. I was expecting the swarm to heal 1 or 2 wounds but Joe flipped the red joker which meant he got to heal all the swarm's wounds. The swarm then hit Sybelle with it's four attacks killing her and gaining him 2 vp. I again retaliated damaging the swarm but not killing it. His Steamborg Executioner then came rampaging through the woods into Seamus' face with it's paired attacks and 4/5/6 damage inflicting a world of pain on Seamus.

Joe won the iniative again next turn (I'm sure his deck only has 12's & 13's in it). So his swarm killed the wounded belle and proceeded to kill a second belle as well. Seamus managed to hurt but not kill the SBE and was using all the tricks he could think of to survive. Joe moved up his second swarm so now Seamus was facing a potential eleven attacks all with a positive flip. Things were not looking good. 

I managed to hold Joe off for a couple of turns by judicious use of Undead Psychosis and did finish off the SBE but in the end the weight of attacks proved too much and he died. At that point I conceded as there was no way for me to even hold out for a draw.



The final situation

So lessons learned. Firstly Joe played really well as usual and gave me a real battering. But I contributed greatly to my own downfall. Malifaux is all about completing strategies and schemes for VP's not just killing model's. It's easy to forget to that and just gung ho into attack like you do with most games. What makes it worse is that it's one of the first things I always tell new players and I still forgot all about it! The second thing I always tell new players is read your models cards. And, you've guessed it I didn't do that either. I thought the Grave Spirit gave Armor +2 to the model it's linked to but the model has to be undead which Seamus isn't. I also thought Seamus had Slow to Die so I could use soulstones to heal him back up and keep him in the game but he didn't! Always read your cards! All in all a humbling experience but hopefully I've relearned all the lessons I should have already known.