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.