Malifaux: Bat rep, Nicodem Vs McMourning (25ss)

I played my first (almost) full game of Malifaux last night. This was at 25ss. I say it was almost full, we just both used the Slaughter strategy rather than flipping for it, the idea being to keep it simple as I'm still learning the game and my opponent was still learning a new crew.

He was my list:
Nicodem, The Undertaker
Mortimer, The Gravedigger
3 Crooked Men
1 Vulture
Soulstone Cache of 7

And the opposing crew:
Dr Douglas McMourning
Sebastian
Flesh Construct
4 Canine Remains
Soulstone Cache of about 5-6

Deployment was just standard across the board.

I kept back, and castled up my crooked men around Nicodem. Mortimer dug up a corpse counter and Nicodem raised a mindless zombie from it to protect himself. My vulture headed forward and I attempted a Decay through it against the dogs, but I was cheated out of it.

McMouring and his crew headed forward fast, McMourning using his scalpel sling off the Flesh Contrust to catapult himself another 6" of so forward, but wounded the Flesh Construct in the process.

Things were starting to look bad around turn 2 or 3. I was really thinking I was going to get kerb stomped as I was not confident in my own crew's melee abilities, but this point was where it turned round.

My Crooked Men used Shafted to block the route between some terrain. This meant the Flesh Construct had to risk it, so my opponent sent his dogs into clear it, wounding them in the process. I dropped another Shafted on my activation in the same place, so he had to send in another dog. His other surviving dog charged and wounded my third Crooked Man. The FC then killed a Crooked Man. At this point, he had two dogs and a wounded Construct (I'd softed it up as it advanced using Cave In) very close together.

Nicodem then used Decay to kill the dog that had wounded my Crooked Man, leaving him free to Cave In the Flesh Contruct, killing it and using the blasts to kill the two dogs near him.

Next turn, Nicodem had what he needed: alot of Corpse Counters. I summoned my Crooked Man back and then raised 6 mindless zombies. Nicodem then used Rigor Mortis to paralyze McMourning. I pretty much managed to keep McMourning paralyzed for the rest of the game, which was just as well, as on the one turn I didn't do it (thanks for a rubbish control hand), he caused carnage, killing Mortimer and a zombie and healing 8 wounds. I eventually killed Sebastian and McMourning resulting in a win, mainly thanks to Bolster Undead making my zombies much tougher.

A great game overall, very tactical and I really had to think about how my crew works, particularly with more of a support caster like Nicodem. I'm not sure how I would have faired in a strategy which required me to move around the board more.