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.

Malifaux: Seamus

I've been playing about for the past few games with Seamus, and more specifically Seamus, Avatar of Dread.  I really love the model so I wanted to try it out.

And two casts of Face of Death and a (2) Manifest Action later...

Painting them both at the same time meant I could get the colour the same on both models really easily.  The bright jacket he's wearing is a bit different for me as I don't usually paint bright colours.  I'm starting to move away from GW paints abit, so the jacket is "Blue Green" from Vallejo's Model Colour range.

I've only had a few games with Seamus so far, and I've tinkered around with a few build.  I did run a few games with a Terrifying/WP build of:

Seamus + Avatar
Nurse
2 Onryo
The Hanged
Rotten Belle
7 or 8 SS (what ever the balance is out of that lot)

The idea being everything attacks Wp.  aSeamus debuffs Wp, plus triggers stupidly high terrifying checks and bellow like a big bastard.  The Hanged has a nasty - to Wp trigger, and the Onryo can strip Wp Immunities.  I need to run it a few more time to get the hang of it, but it's OK.  The Nurse is their for the free turn 2 manifest but hasn't proved to be worth 5SS as yet.

Malifaux: UK GT 2012 round up

I thought I'd share some thoughts on the UK GT.  I'm not going to go play by play, just give my overall impression of the event and the five games I played.

The format for the event was five games, fixed faction, with sizes varying from 30SS to 40SS.  Three games were played on Saturday and two on Sunday.  I played Outcasts as my faction, and I ran the Viktorias for all five of my games.

My aim for the tournament was to win 1 game, with my stretch goal being to win 2 games.  I managed to surpass this and actually win 3 games!  On Saturday I managed to get 3 wins in a row which was pretty surprising.  Going into Sunday I was on table 4, but I went on to lose both my games on Sunday.  The final results aren't published yet, but I think I'm somewhere in mid-table which was a good showing for me.

All five games were really good, and I played some masters I've not played before.  I played Ant with Kirai, Chris R with Von Schill, Graham with The Dreamer, Joel with Zoraida and Collodi, and Bram with Ophelia.  All 5 were great games, the one against Joel was the standout one.  It was one of those games where I was having to think hard about every move and it swung in both our favours throughout.  Joel went on to win 5-0 and finish 2nd overall.

The event was an absolute blast, I had a really, really good time.  If you're in any doubt about attending a Malifaux GT or a tournament, then you shouldn't be.  Everyone I played was really nice, and I'd play any of them again in a heartbeat.  The GT was very well run and well organized by Jo and James, and I will definitely be back next year.

Edit:  The final results are up now, and I finished in 24th place of 54 players meaning I just squeaked into the top half of the table.

Malifaux: York Garrison Doubles Tournament

A couple of weeks back, I played in my second Malifaux tournament, this time at my local club and run by And (guildmonkee on the forums), our local henchman.

The format was a 40SS brawl with a shared fate deck.  Each team had to nominate a single Boss master that had to be used in every game but then were free to use any other Brawl compatible master for each game.  The 40SS could be split in whichever way the pair wanted.

My original plan was to play Pandora with Lilleth, but my original partner was unable to make it which left me at a bit of a loss three week before the event.  Fortunately, clubmate Jake was short of a partner and was playing Lady Justice.  The only master I have that was compatible were the Viktorias, so it was decided that would be what we would play.  In the event we pretty much ended up playing a Guild crew with the addition of the Viks.  This was a bonus all round as it meant I could learn about both the Viks and Lady J in one.  The downside of the Viks in Brawls is that they cost 5SS to use.

In the tournament run up, I got in a couple of games with the Viks, taking two wins at 35SS singles vs Colette and Kirai.  We also played one doubles warm up game which we also won against And and Sam.  That game took a long time as And and Sam were running McMourning and Kirai and so had a ton of activations.  Since the tournament was 90 minute rounds, and the game took the best part of three hours, And and Sam decided to switch faction to run guild.



On the day, it was a great turn out.  There were 12 teams in total, from both local and further affield (Harrogate, Norfolk, Manchester, Leceister, Sheffield).

Our games panned out like this...

Tournament game 1 - Shared Treasure Hunt
We knew the draw for game 1 in advance so we knew we were drawn against James and Craig (mythicfox and ukrocky), and so we also knew this would be a tough game as they're both very, very good.  They ran Marcus and Colette.  We had Lady J, the Viks, Von Schill, couple of Witchlings, Nino and something else that I can't recall.
It was a great game, and we came pretty close to getting the treasure at the end.  Colette is so fast, she had the treasure in her hand and was half way back to her deployment zone in the first turn.  Both Viks had a good go at taking her down, forcing several Slow to Die healing flips from her but she slipped away.

The best moment in the game was Sword Vik getting stuck in combat with a Jackalope by failing her disengaging strike.  Sword Vik turned round and hit the Jackalope and got a double severe on the damage for 12 wounds.  Turned out though, they'd taken an unannounced Frame for Murder on the Jackalope...

In the final turn Collete was holding the treasure in her deployment zone with Von Schill bearing down on her, but it closed out an 8-2 loss to us.  We got our 2 points from the Raid scheme.  There's also a brief write up of the game on James' blog at mythicfox.com.


Tournament game 2 - Shared destroy the evidence
We'd dropped to table 5 now, and we were matched with another Harrogate team, this time Adam and Steve (Iron Skies and scurry on the forums).  They took Hoffman and Leviticus, along with Collodi and 8 Marionettes.  We took Lady J, the Viks, Von Schill, Nino, Sam Hopkins and some other bits.  Scheme wise we took Breakthrough, Stake a Claim and First Blood.  This was the only game where we took 3 schemes, figuring First Blood would be easy given Levi would almost certainly be killing the Canine Remains he'd bought with him to get a second Hollow Waif.

I've not played against Collodi before, so we were in for a shock.  First turn, first activation, Collodi activates, companions every marionette, makes them all Fast, and two of them melee experts.  He then dances across the table with his puppets, destroying every evidence counter, and putting a serious hurt on Nino (who'd they'd grudged) and Sam Hopkins (who'd they'd got Kill Protege on).  It was an incredibly impressive move since neither me or Jake had seen it before, and they were very sporting about it.  Collodi had done his job and got 4 VPs straight off, but it had left him within a few inches of Lady J and both Viks so he didn't last any longer than turn 1.

The remainder of the game saw us move across to engage Levi and Hoffman.  We managed to get the drop on Levi about turn 3 or 4.  Von Schill killed him and then we managed to take out the Waifs on the same turn ensuring he couldn't come back.  Hoffman went down as well due to some back luck on their part as they failed to get Protect on him from the Guardian.  Lady J and the Viks went to work, and we cleared the table, acheiving all our schemes and destroying the remaining evidence.

We won 9-6, and we'd achieved our goal of winning a game.


Tournament game 3 - Shared claim jump
This was the last game of the tournament as the fourth game was dropped due to time constraints.  We didn't really struggle with the times but alot of people did, especially people playing Ressurectionists, or with alot of activations.  With dropping the fourth game, it meant this one could be played to a conclusion by everyone.

In this one we played the last of the three Harrogate teams, Ant and Liam (Stryder and Shut Up on the forums).  As with all the Harrogate guys, these guys are great players (Ant is ranked number 1 in the UK).  They played Kirai and McMourning, both with their Avatars.  We went with Lady J, the Viks, Von Schill, Executioner, 3 Witchling Stalkers and Fransico.

The game seemed to be going pretty well early doors.  We got our Kill Protege early on (Sword Vik killed Datsu Ba) and Von Schill managed to Steal Relic from McMourning but subsequently died.  We then consolidated around the claim marker, but of course being Rezzers they'd spent the early turns getting prepped for the manifesting of their avatars.

Turn 4 it went down hill...  McMourning and Kirai both mainfested and ripped us to pieces.  McMourning's "Crawling Doom" ability which gives negative flips when you're near him meant we really struggled to put him and the Simulacrum down.  I think in the end they pretty much tabled us.

Result was a 10 -3 loss to us.

Overall, we finished on 3TP and a -10 VP difference so we ended up placing 11th of 12 teams.  We faced three very tough teams though, and it turned out we'd played the winning team (James and Craig) and the second place team (Ant and Liam) so I think we did pretty well overall.

We didn't come away empty handed, as we did take the Best/Worst luck prize.  Not sure which one we got it for as we had some heavy doses of both!  Prize was a cool certificate and a retro fate deck.

I'm looking forward the the GT now.  I'm going to be taking the Viktorias to that as I really like their fast, beat face style of play.

If you want to hear other's experience of the tournament, check out the Malifools episode 14.

Malifaux: Pirate Gunslinger all done

Avast! Here be me Pirate Gunslinger:

It's been 10 years since Captain John Butler, known as One Eyed John, crossed into the Breach, on the run from the Naval authorities of four countries.  These days, bereft of a ship and a crew, he spends his time in the taverns around Driftwood Docks, selling his guns to the highest bidder.

Malifaux: The doctor will see you now.

There never seems to be enough time to get games in with all your shiny toys does there?  After the end of the York Garrison League last month I was looking forward to playing something other than Nicodem (I've played almost 20 games in a row with the undertaker) so I got my new Molly and McMourning models painted up.  Then Avatar Nicodem arrived and I got distracted with that...

Anyway, here is Dr Douglas McMourning.  The base is a little wonky on him but I might re-base him at some point.

One thing I've always hated about the McMourning artwork is his ginger fright wig and I briefly considered sculpting a hat or something on him but in the end I settled for giving him grey hair instead of ginger.

I need to get some practice games in with the good Doctor now as I plan on playing Ressurectionists at the UK GT (if I can get a pass for it), and he'll give me a second option after Nicodem.

Malifaux: Avatar Nicodem first game

Early this week I played my first game with Nicodem, avatar of decay against guildmonkee's Rasputina crew.

It was a chance for me to try out the avatar and see how things work with him, how to manifest and so on.  I tried a few things with the crew as well using models I've not used before:  Madame Sybelle and started the game with a Flesh Construct, plus I took 3 dogs, a punk and the convict gunslinger.  The strategy was shared Contain Power.

I wanted to get manifested early doors, so I went for the dog-kill-summon method.  This meant I pretty much spent the first turn arsing about in my deployment zone killing dogs to Arise and fulfil one of his manifest requirements, then manifested in turn 2 to give me the most time to give him a good chance to work.

Some things I learnt:

-I need a fast way of killing dogs in the early turns.  I ended up with my crew spending all their time killing dogs and nothing else.  That's not too bad in Shared Contain Power but in other strategies this is more difficult.  Conventional wisdom is to use Rafkin to bomb them with poison to do this quickly so I'll need to get him.  I had hoped to use the Punk Zombie to pulse them to death but I didn't get the mask that spell it needed.

-The avatar got manifested turn 2 as an all action, which obviously costs Nicodem a whole turn.  I thinking Nurses might help here:

• Turn 1, Nicodem uses Arise to raise at least 3 Mindless Zombies
• Turn 2, Nicodem acts as normal taking his normal actions
• Turn 2, Nurse casts Massive Dose (Speed) on Nicodem, giving him Reactivate
• Turn 2, Nicodem re-activates, uses his (all) action to manifest.  As part of the mainfest steps, you end all effects on Nicodem, Avatar of Decay, which I am assuming includes Speed ensuring he doesn't get sacrificed.

I'm not 100% sure on this one, I might stick it on the forum.

-Nicodem is hard to put down with zombies around him, but blasts, pulses and auras will do it and take out his MZ.  He died to Snow Storm's shatter ability as I forgot about it.

-Rigor Mortis is still awesome.

-In the starting list above, with hindsight I should have taken a 4th dog and killed that giving me 4 corpses counters.  I had 3 crows in my hand turn 1, so with 4 corpses counters I could have summoned the Rogue Necromancy and made my Soulstone spend back with interest (4 dogs is 8 SS, RN is 10 SS).

-One sticky rules question that came up was around his "Restless Dead" ability.  The wording says:

After a non-Mindless Zombie Corpse Counter is placed on the table within 6" of this model, this model may Place a Mindless Zombie into base contact with the Corpse Counter and then discard the Counter.


This caused us some confusion as to it's meaning, and we played it that the MZ died, dropped a corpse counter and then came back again.  Looking at the forums we weren't alone in this confusion, but this is not the case.  Here's the ruling and clarification from Ratty:

After a Corpse Counter drops from a model that is not a Mindless Zombie, Place a Mindless Zombie touching the Corpse Counter and then discard the Counter.


Mindless Zombies do not cycle like Malifaux Rats. So if someone kills Bishop, you will get a Mindless Zombie, if you kill that Zombie you will not get another one, you will just have a Corpse Counter lying on the table.

So we'll know for next time.

-I forgot he was Terrifying for the whole game.  My fault.

I'm looking forward to running Nicodem, Avatar of Decay in future games.

Malifaux: Molly completed

Miss Molly Squidpiddge, investigative reporter for the Malifaux Daily Record (deceased):

I loved painting this model.  It's a great sculpt with a lot of character in it.  I think Molly had one of the best stories in book 3 which is one of the reasons I wanted to get her model.  The image of Molly pushing Phillip in a pram with Mrs Choke the re-animated eyeball tucked behind her ear is one that Wyrd should capture in a miniature.  If Rezzers win the Dead Heat campaign, that's the mini I hope we get.

4 Years of Blogging

Somehow I've managed to get through four years of running this blog.  I've not been as attentive of the thing as I should have been, but at least I've stuck with it.

Here's to the next year!

Malifaux: Pirate Gunslinger WIP Part 2

I've got some more work done on the pirate gunslinger:

I've added the jacket, and the epaulettes.  That's going to be a medal on his chest when it's painted.

The back of the coat needs a little more smoothing out so that's next on the list.  After that, I think I might be done with one.

Malifaux: Necrotic Machine

Just a quicky paint job finished on Molly's totem, the Necrotic Machine:

Not much to it, mostly just drybrushed Tin Bitz.  The verdigris could stand to be a little more green, it came out a little bit blue.

Molly herself is on the painting table next.

Malifaux: Pirate Gunslinger WIP Part 1

The Convict Gunslinger is pretty cool.  He's got cool rules, he's good in game, and anyone can hire him.  The model is nice and chunky, and he looks pretty bad ass.  The only thing I'm not so keen on is his head.  His face looks a bit odd, and I really not a fan of his little mohawk.

So I knew I wanted to change this and kind of make him a bit more bad ass.  My initial thought was to make him look a bit like Sirius Black in his wanted poster:

So he needed new hair first up.  First thing that went was the mohawk, then the greenstuff hair went on.  I was largely making this up as I went along, so I went with adding an eye patch as I was on a roll.  This gave him a Snake Plissken sort of look.  But then I hit on what I was really leaning towards... a pirate!

First thing a pirate needs:  a tricorn hat.  Second thing:  Big beard.  Here we go:

I'm liking the look.  The hat might stand a bit more smoothing out with some liquid GS, but I guess a pirate convict would have a fairly battered hat anyway.  He's probably going to get some form of coat next, maybe some epaulettes.