Malifaux: Finished Hamelin the Plagued

Hamelin the Plagued surveying his horde of plagued minions:

The base is from Model Display Products.  I've used their sewer bases on all my Hamelin models, but this one is part of their Diorama Display Bases.  The base gives Hamelin extra height, like he's looking down on his horde of rats and Stolen as they surge past him.

Malifaux: Stolen Sacrifice Sheet

As threatened in my last post, here's a quick reference as to what happens when a The Stolen is removed from the game:

The only thing I'm not 100% on the whether the rat arrives before or after the 6" pulse.

Malifaux: Rat Removal Result Reference

I've played 8 games with Hamelin now, and it can be hard to remember all the different interactions between Hamelin/Rat Catchers/Nix/Rats/Stolen, especially when one of the them is killed.  To help me remember what happens when a Malifaux rat is killed, I put together a quick flow chart:

I think this pretty much covers it.  Hopefully someone else might find it handy.

Malifaux: Jack Daw and Sue

These two guys form the basis of my new Viks Beatdown crew:  Sue and Jack Daw:

For Jack Daw, I've gone for an bit of an experimental monochrome paint scheme which has come out reasonably well.  I was kind of imaging him like a horrible black and white spirit from a Japanese horror movie like Ringu.

My current Viks Beatdown crew looks something like this:

The Viktorias
Student of Conflict
Freikorps Librarian
Sue
Jack Daw
8SS

The Viks and Jack Daw do the heavy lifting in this list.  Jack Daw is going to draw alot of attention, so he needs cards to keep him alive and that's where Sue comes in.  Sue has a (1) action called Hurt where he can take up to 3 Wds to draw the same number of cards.  Combined with Arcane Reservoir, you've got up to 10 cards in your hand giving you more chance of masks for Whirlwind and Heart Stopper, and chaff cards to discard to keep Jack Daw alive.

Malifaux: Nicodem crew

I've been feeling the draw of the grave recently, i.e. I've been thinking about playing Nicodem again for a bit. I've added a few models to the crew since I last played it, which is getting on for a year ago, and the Avatar is still sat on my "to be painted" shelf forlornly.

Anyway, I found this photo from last time I played Nicodem, it's kind of a crew summary picture which was taken for a club league last year:

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.

Hobby: Making tiled floor bases

Following on from my last post on Sim29, I thought I'd do a simple tutorial on making tiled floor bases which is what I've done on my McMourning crew.

I've refined the lab base technique I originally trialled with the original McMourning who now really looks like he needs rebasing in comparison to Sim29 and Miss Pack (which I've now done, see below).  The technique is very simple to do and looks pretty good I think.  Here's how I did it.

1-  Fill in the slot in the base with GS, Milliput or whatever.  You're going to be applying pressure to this later, so you don't want to be pushing your green stuff through the slot.  Let this dry before moving on to the next stage:

2 - Cover the base in green stuff.  I think I used Milliput on my original McMourning, but that doesn't work nearly as well as GS.

3- Smooth out the green stuff with your preferred sculpting tool to roughly spread it over the base:

4- Use something smooth and cylindrical (thank you, titter ye not) to roll the GS flat, even and smooth on the base.  I use the plastic tube that my green stuff comes in.  It'll end up nice and smooth like this:

5- Smooth out any bit where there are fingerprints showing or it's a bit uneven.  If necessary, roll it out again.  I don't get too hung up over slight imperfections here, as I figure that McMourning's lab floor is pretty far from perfect.

6- Score lines over the GS in your preferred tile pattern.  I use a fairly blunt hobby knife to do it with.  I usually start with a cross in the middle like this:

This cross then guides the rest of the lines.  Try and push down with this rather than dragging as you don't want to be moving the GS about on the base.  You could use a ruler or something to get straight lines, but I just do it by eye.  You should end up with something like this:

You might end up with the odd wonky line or slight bend (I've got a couple here), so just run up and down any lines again taking care to press rather than drag where possible.

7- Leave to dry then mount the model on it.  Ideally you'll want to pin it to the base.

Here's a finished example, minus the miniature:

As I'd made this, I decided I might as well rebase McMourning with it, so here he is:

There's a Flesh Construct still to come to finish off this McMourning specific part of the crew.

Malifaux: Little and Large

More models done, this time for my McMourning crew:  Zombie Chihuahua and Simulacrum-29.

If you haven't seen Sim29 in the flesh, then this thing is huge.  That's a 50mm base he's stood on to give you an idea of the scale.

Painting wise Sim29 was actually pretty quick to get done.  The whole thing was painted in several thin layers of VMC Flat Flesh before a several washes of various hues, some purple, some flesh etc and then drybrushed highlights.  Once I'd drybrushed the highlights I went back over several areas of the model with a thin paint layer of the same colour in order to smooth out the highlight.

I'm in the process of writing up a quick tutorial on how I did the bases, so stay tuned for that.

Painting: Blood Strings Effects

Following on from my last post on using Tamiya Clear Red to make blood effects, you can use the same stuff (and a couple of other things) to make blood strings.  This is the kind of effect we want, shown here on Kirai's shears:

This is really easy to achieve, and here's what you need for it:

-Some cocktail sticks, bits of sprue or something you don't mind getting ruined.
-Some Tamiya Clear Red
-Paint or ink to darken the Clear Red, for example brown or black
-Some UHU All purpose clear glue.  This stuff:

This cost me about a pound for a massive tube.  It's very, very stringy which you will notice as soon as you squeeze any of it out.  Of course, stringy is exactly what we want for this effect.  UHU glue holds a special place for me since back in the very late 80's it was the same glue I used to stick together my first ever plastic miniature kit:  Skeleton Army.  As I re-call it pretty much sucked for that, but it's good for blood strings!


Step 1:
Squeeze some glue out on to a suitable surface and quickly mix into it whatever paint or inks you want to use to tint the glue:

This was a mix of Clear Red and Vallejo Charred Brown.  Having tried it with both brown and black, I think I prefer the black/clear red mix.


Step 2:
Grab a cocktail stick, scoop up some glue and apply it to the model where you want it.  You'll need to work very quickly here as the glue starts to set fast, literally you have less than a minute to do this.  Make sure you draw the glue between which ever surfaces you need to have the blood strings between.  You should end up with something like this:

Step 3:
Leave it to set and you're done.


These strings are very thin, so it goes without saying you're going to need to be careful if you're going to be handling this model alot.  You may also want to do this after you've varnished the model, since I can't tell you what effect varnish will have on it (probably none but test it first).

Of course, you don't have to use Clear Red for this, you can use any colour you want to get different effects like slime, drool etc.  Here's some examples of where I've used the technique:

This is a zombie from Studio Miniatures, which I use as a Mindless Zombie in Malifaux.  Make's his insides look like they're about to drop out.

A ghostly Malifaux Drowned.  This one is slimy rather than bloody, as she's just crawled out of the water.  In this one I mixed the UHU with green ink to tint it green.

I've also tried the effect to simulate saliva on my Rogue Necromancy but it's quite small so I couldn't get a decent photo of it.

Painting: Blood effects

A club mate put me on to this stuff, and it is really nice for making blood effects:

Tamiya Clear Red X27. I got mine in Model Zone which is a UK high street model shop for about £2 or something.

It says on the side it acrylic paint, but it's weird stuff not like GW or Vallejo acrylic. Just use a brush you don't care about on it.  It also reeks so use it in a well ventilated area.

It's quite a bright red, so mixing it with brown or black paint (just normal acrylic paint works) makes it a bit more gory. Once you've mixed it, then stippling it on the area you want gory, poke it with a brush. I like to use an old tooth brush to flick blood over the area as well, but you might need to water it down a bit to do that.  If you take a look at good ol' Avatar Seamus' fists here, this is an example of effect we're looking for:

One thing, the clear red has a gloss effect, so either you want to do this post varnish or go over it after using gloss varnish.

Clear Red is also going to be useful when you're making blood and gore strings which I'll cover in the next post which should be up over the coming weekend.

Malifaux: Kirai crew so far

I've put in some work recently on the Kirai models that I got for Christmas.  I've got a couple of Gaki done which are kind of meh (not a fan of the models, therefore didn't do a very good paint job).  I've also got the chaff part of the crew done, all the Seishin and Lost Love:

As you can see, I've decided to go with bright colours with this crew.  That's something that I don't paint very often at all, so it's more of a  challenge.  The models above are mostly done with Vallejo Model Colour Blue Green which is rapidly becoming a favourite of mine (see my Seamus and aSeamus for example).

Having got those done, I went to do Kirai next and I'm very happy with how she came out:

Again, I've gone with the bright colour scheme for Kirai.  The sash is the blue green again, and the purple is done using VGC Warlord Purple (I forget the exact name) which is the Vallejo equivalent of GW's Liche Purple, another favourite colour of mine.  For the face makeup I've gone for Geisha style makeup which was different and challenging.  This was started from a pale grey base and built up from there to white.

You can't see it that well on the picture above but I've added some blood strings between the shears here.  I've had more of a play with this since I took the photo and I've got it to look a bit better so I'll probably try and get a tutorial done for that at some point.

Since Kirai was done, and I'd had so much enjoyment in painting her, I decided to get Ikiryo done next.  Here they are together:

As you can see Ikiryo is in a similar colour scheme to Kirai.  I did this as Ikiryo is Kirai's vengeance and anger embodied so I wanted it to look like an extension of Kirai herself hence the similar colour scheme.  Rather than go with the exact same tone, I went for a more muted, washed out tone with Ikiryo and carried on the grey theme into her face and skin.  This was achieved by mixing the blue green and purple base coats with a mid grey (VMC London Grey in my case, but Codex Grey would do it as well).  Highlights were done by adding more and more VMC Light Sand (like Bleached Bone) to that basic mix and then layering them on.

Bases for crew are metal inserts from Black Cat bases.  All my Kirai crew and Izamu are on the same bases, and I suspect any future Misaki or Yan Lo crews will go the same way.

*I'm aware I've used old name for GW paints here, I don't know and can't be arsed to find out what stupid name they've got now.  I'm still pissed off they've got rid of the names Skull White and Chaos Black.  Anyway as you may have detected, I'm also moving to Vallejo paints away from GW.

Malifaux: The Freikorps

I'm on a painting roll this week, so the Freikorps box is now all done:

The Strongarm suit has been built and primed so he's next on the list.  I've tried out the Strongarm suit in one game so far, and he was a bit underwhelming.  He's going to need a few more try out's I think.  In the game I played with him (against a Molly crew), his WP4 really hurt him.

Malifaux: Nurses and complete Seamus crew

Finally got some time this past week to do some painting.  With work, family and playing on Vassal my
painting time has crunched down a bit since Christmas.

I've managed to get my three Nurses done, one for each of my book 1 Ressurectionist masters:

L-R:  Nicodem's Nurse, McMourning's Nurse and Seamus' Nurse.  Not the best things I've ever painted, mainly because I generally suck at painting white.

However, the Nurse was the last model to complete my current Seamus and Molly crew (Sybelle got done a week or two back), so here they are:

And a bit closer:

These are the models I've specifically got based to go along with Seamus, all my other Rezzer models can run with him as well.

The base inserts are post apocalyptic city by Fenris Games, and I chose them primarily for Molly as I thought they made a good stand in for the ruins of Malifaux's Quarantine Zone where Molly and Seamus like to prowl around.  Unfortunately, they only do 30mm inserts, so I had to make something approximating it for the Rogue Necromancy.

Still to do on the painting table (major projects):
-Kirai and her crew
-Von Schill and his crew
-Hamelin and his crew
-aPandora
-Simulacrum 29 plus another couple of bits for McMourning.

I'm going to try and get Von Schill done first I think as I would like to have him done ready for my next tournament in 12 days time.

Malifaux: Viktoria Tactica

I've been playing the Viktorias since last summer with reasonable success so I thought I'd share some thoughts on the Viks for those starting out with them.  I don't really want to repeat the info you can (and probably already have) read on the excellent Pull My Finger wiki.  If you haven't read that, then stop reading this and go over and read the PMF entry for the Viks, then come back here.

Still here? Good, let's get started!

Sisters in Spirit can lead to Sisters in Death:
The Viktorias are extremely mobile.  Most of the time, I tend to companion them together to launch them like a missile at the enemy.  The usual tactic is to move Gun Vik forward 5", Sisters in Spirit Sword Vik to within 3" (note that's within not completely within) and launch Sword Vik from there.  This gives Sword Vik a potential strike range of 20" (5" walk, within 3" push, 2 5" walk and a strike at 2").  It's easy to get overconfident with this, and this is very often the un-doing of Sword Vik for me.  Being half way across the board and alone will usually end up with either a dead Sword Vik or you having to burn stones to keep her alive.  I've burnt 7 SS in a single turn before to keep Sword Vik standing against Perdita, and in my last game at the GT I got over-confident with them and threw them into a Gremlin gunline (they both died).  Carefully consider what you're about to do and whether it's worth it in the grand scheme of the game.  It may be better to delay for a turn so that you can get the strike in with Sword Vik but retain enough AP to either Sisters in Spirit back out again, or move to a safer position.  Sisters in Spirit is a (1) action so you can use it once to swap Sword Vik and Gun Vik around and then again to bring Gun Vik back to Sword Vik.


Sisters in Battle and Whirlwind:
Sisters in Battle is pretty much the only spell I ever use with the Viks.  It needs a 6+ of Rams to cast, but the Viks can add a Ram to their Ca so it's just a 6+ in most cases.  My usual choice for the affect is the +2 Dg, there's very few reasons to take either of the other two.  The + on attack flips can be handy if you're facing something which has - on attack flips, like Lucius for example, but generally I want to have +2 Dg, especially since Sword Vik has paired swords anyway.

With the +2 Dg, you're now doing 5Dg on weak hits which is insanely good.  This is where Whirlwind comes in, since I'm now doing 5 Dg on weak, it doesn't matter to me whether I win the attack dual by 0 or 11, I'll happily take 5 Dg on a  - - - flip.  If you are able to Whirlwind multiple targets look to do this, and look to use any Masks in your hand to get the trigger off even if you have to cheat down to get the Mask in your total once you know your opponents total.  I've seen 5 attacks go off from a single AP.

Don't forget to draw a card when you kill a model either.  This is great against something which relies on trash models for protection (like Nicodem) as you can Whirlwind away all their protection, drawing cards as you do it, and building your hand ready for the final strike against the master.  Bear in mind it's when you kill a model so it won't work on Seishin who always count as sacrificed when killed unless Kirai uses her Seishin Beacon ability.


Support models:
The Viktorias crew isn't one built around combos or mutually supportive models, but there are a couple of models which I would take to help them out.  The first is the Student of Conflict.  His ability to give another model within 3" fast is massive, it's another 5" of threat, another strike or a cast of Sisters in Battle where you didn't expect it.  Since it's an all action, it more than likely won't happen every turn but it's something nasty for your opponent to deal with.  Don't forget to you can use the double Sisters in Spirit trick to flip Sword Vik and Gun Vik back again to be close to the Student for another pop at this the following turn.

The Freikorps Librarian is a hugely valuable support piece.  You may allow any spell which affects one Viktoria to affect all friendly Viktorias in play, so the Librarian can let you make 3 healing flips on each Vik per turn (with her furious casting)and only one of them needs be within an 8" range.  You can cast this on Gun Vik, who is usually further back, and let Sword Vik heal as well.  She also has Arcane Reservoir, giving you more cards in your hand, and so potentially more Masks for Whirlwind.  With the Librarian, try and keep a low Ram in your hand to use when she activates.  That way her Healing Energy goes off on a 4+ of any suit, as she can add the Ram to her Ca.

Von Schill is, well, Von Schill.  He's an awesome addition to most crews, and for the Viks he's in faction so only costs 9SS.  Von Schill gives you excellent mobility and nasty shooting amongst all his other cool stuff.

The Black Joker:
The Viks, more than other crews I've played, can be royally screwed by flipping the Black Joker.  If you can draw this into your hand, try and keep it there for as long as possible.  Flipping the Black Joker for defense is bad, flipping it for damage is worse since Whirlwind relies on you doing damage to go off ("After damaging defender with a Masamune Nihonto Strike...") and part of your defence is making models die.  So, draw the Black Joker, keep the Black Joker.

Soulstones:
The Viks are made of paper, they will die pretty easily.  I normally want at least 7 soulstones, preferably 8 to keep them standing, and your going to have to pay for every one of those stones.  Loosing a single Vik is losing alot more than 50% of their ability since they rely on each other for alot of their movement.

Vanessa:
I've got nothing that inciteful to say on Vanessa as yet, as I've only tried her out in one game.  From my initial impression, she looks good with her ability to be a target for Sisters in Spirit, plus her ability to give the Viks a defensive ability (Slow to Die, yes please).  She does mean you can't take the Student of Conflict so that will be one price to pay for her.

Malifaux: Vapnartak Tournament

This past weekend I played in the first Malifaux tournament at Vapanartak in York.  Vappa is a one day, independent gaming convention run by York Wargames Society and is held at York race course (a really nice venue).

The tournament format was 35SS, fixed faction, using the new 2013 Gaining Grounds tournament rules (rules pack here).  There's some changes in this document with regard to proxies, time limits and things like that, but the major change is the new strategies.  For this tournament, strategies were not determined until on the day so I'd only played a couple of them before and we didn't know what we were playing until the start of the tournament.  In the end the strategies were shared land grab, shared line in the sand and shared beatdown.

I played the Viktorias for all three of my games.

Game 1 vs mythicFOX (James) - Shared land grab
Me: Viks, von Schill, 3 ronin, student of conflict
James: Perdita. Enslaved neph, von Schill, 2 wastrels, 2 witching stalkers, watcher

Me: Stake a claim (hill on his left side) and kill protege on wastrel
MythicFOX-  Raid! and stake a claim (fence in my deployment zone)

Von Schill didn't get off to the best start in this game, being red jokered by Perdita in the first turn.  I kept him alive with his Slow to Die healing flip, only for the exact same thing to happen in the next turn.  Von Schill went on an ultimately unsuccessful hunt for my Kill Protege target (who got Drain Soul'ed).  Perdita eventually did for him when she shot him, triggered anticipation then put the Black Joker on top of my deck for his healing flip.

Things went well on the other side of the table for the Viks.  Von Schill, a wastrel and a witchling stalker pushed down that flank, and I was thinking of Vik bombing them turn two, but I held back until turn three to hit them with both Viks.  Gun Vik proved to be the star of the show and did for the witchling stalker and Von Schill before completing my Stake a Claim.  Sword Vik killed the wastrel.  Perdita completed Stake a Claim but I had the models left to continue to claim the table quarters.

Result 4-3 win to me.


Game 2 vs Ben  - shared line in the sand
Me:  Viks, von Schill, student of conflict, Lazarus, Freikorps Librarian
Ben: Seamus, Molly, 2 belles, 2 desperate mercs, hanged, grave spirit

Me: first blood, hold out (unannounced)
Ben: hold out and army of the dead

Ben won best painted, and it was well deserved as his Seamus crew was really, really good.  Shared line in the sand was probably my favourite strategy on the day.  For this one, I decided to take Lazarus as he's the only model I have who is Immune to Influence.  Much of the spell casting power in Seamu's crew (like all of Mollly's spells for example) are Wp resist, plus Lazarus is non-living and so immune to terrifying.

I thought my plan was to arm and hold 3 of the markers and ignore the other two so I set up on my right hand side to do this.  Von Schill did his thing and got three markers armed before getting the red joker on a damage flip against him and getting removed from the board (The Hanged has made sure he couldn't heal).  Sword Vik did what she does best killing two Belles, the grave spirit and the Hanged.  I got both my schemes and three turns worth of having the most markers armed.

Result: 6-2 win to me


Game 3 vs Rhinobuster (Paul):
Me: Viks, von Schill, student of conflict, Freikorps Librarian, Lazarus
Paul:  McMourning, chihuahua, bête noir, Dead Rider, Izamu

Me:  steal relic, bodyguard on von Schill
Paul:  breakthrough and something else (can't recall)

I was on table two for this one, so I was punching well above my weight.  Paul is currently the UK number one ranked player as well, so I knew this was going to be hard.  It looked even harder when I saw the list he'd chosen.

McMourning was on me quickly in turn two as the Dead Rider dragged him forward.  Lazarus quickly fell to the doctor.  Sword Vik has identified the Rotten Belle as easy pickings so knocked her down to 1Wd turn 2, before finishing her turn 3 and flipping back to Gun Vik with Sisters in Spirit.  Bete Noir then appeared, Dead Rider rode down the student of conflict and Izamu was closing fast.

The Dead Rider was exposed on a hill close to Von Schill who unloaded with his Clockwork Seeker and killed him.  McMourning slammed into Sword Vik, made her Easy to Wound 2, and then went for the coup de grace Dissection.  Fortunately I resisted this.  By the close of that turn, a melee between the Viktorias, McMourning, Bete Noir and Izamu was kicking off.  The initiative flip for turn 4 was crucial and I was lucky enough to win it.  The Viktorias companioned and killed McMourning and Bete Noir before doing the same to Izamu in the following turn.  I'd got my Steal Relic off McMourning and Von Schill was still alive.

Result: 7-1 win to me

So I ended the day on 9TP/17VP/+11 and took first place on VP diff!  I was as surprised as anyone else really, but I was very happy with the result and the way I'd played.

The prize vouchers are going towards building up my Viktorias crew.  It seems only fair since they'd won the day for me.