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.
