Malifaux: First Blood

I wanted to add an addendum to my Viktoria tactics article and talk a little about the Viks specific scheme First Blood.  Here's what it says:

Special:
This scheme must be announced.

Victory:
If the first two models killed during the encounter were models in enemy Crews, you score 2 VP.

The first thing to notice about this scheme is nowhere does it mention that you have to kill those first two models.  The second thing to notice is that it says killed, as opposed to sacrificed.  Third thing is that those 2VP are locked in and can't be taken away from you.  I always prefer schemes like that (such as Kill Protege) rather than one's that arrive at the end of the game (such as Stake a Claim).

This is a scheme I will always save to use against certain masters.  Here's some examples where you can use this scheme to pick up some easy and early VP:

-Ressurectionist masters.  Alot of times your Rezzer opponent is going to sit back and cut up dogs, desperate mercs etc in that first turn to get body parts, corpse counters etc.  Either they're going to carry on doing that and gift you the VP, or they're not going to do it in which case, they're now playing your game and not theirs.
-A popular trick with Kirai is the dog/desperate mercenary cut up in order to get Gaki/Onryo/Seishin between Kirai and Datsue-Ba.  That's two VP's for you, or they wasted the points buying those two models.
-Hamelin.  Those rats die easily, go for the rats for the two easy kills.
-Leviticus.  The classic Levi list is to take the Canine Remains, kill it first turn and turn it into a second Hollow Waif.  That's one half of your scheme done.  The second kill comes in when Levi inevitably kills himself, ideally at the end of the first turn.

Whoever you take this scheme against, always make sure you're looking for those easy kills early doors, but remember not to risk your key pieces like Swordmistress Viktoria to get them.  Von Schill is good for this as he can move about the board very quickly and pick off vulnerable models easily with his clockwork seeker.

As an example of this, have a listen to the Bayou Broadcast episode 20.  Craig talks about his last game at Vapnartak tournament where he used Von Schill to move around and pick off those easy kills from Joel's Dreamer crew (Daydreams in that case).  Craig was using Ten Thunders for that game, but it's a good example of using the speed and ranged punch of Von Schill to get early kills.  That can easily be extended into your Viks crew.