Malifaux Musings Vassal Nythera Campaign League

A long time ago in a play area far, far away (Nebraska) my friend Phiasco and I played in the Lincoln Blood Bowl League, once of the best organized play groups in which I've been privileged to participate. The model was built around players being assigned an opponent during a week, working with them to set up a time to meet and play their game, and then reporting them back to the commish for accountability to make sure of no collusion. It was my favorite, and the recently released Shifting Loyalties Malifaux Campaign system allows for the possibility of doing it with Malifaux in the future. Problem: Phiasco now lives in Atlanta and I live in Virginia. Solution: Vassal!

Phiasco and I are looking to organize a campaign league for a small number of players to run the length of the Nythera event (starting in week 3 at the earliest, obviously, since we're already under way.) I'm hoping to get 6 people who are willing to commit to one game a week against a predetermined opponent with a strategy and scheme pool defined (IE everybody is playing the same game, with the weekly event in place, so everything should be roughly level.) To counter the somewhat reduced growth people would see from limiting the number of games to one a week, the factions will put in place "Emergency Resource Allocation," a home rule wherein factions will receive 1 scrip per vp they acquire in game (as opposed to 1 per 2 vp) and all crews start the campaign with a bounty of their choice pre-purchased. 

Rules are still being written and finalized at the moment, but I wanted to take people's temperature on them and start gathering interest. Players will be responsible for scheduling their game with each other each week, and I'm still determining what exactly will be the consequence if people can't get their game lined up. We're North American Eastern Time Zone players, so unless you want to be up until the odd hours, probably best to stay within the North American time zones. Skype will probably be required for communication during the game. Obviously you need Vassal. It's meant to be a fairly light-hearted league/campaign (IE not super-competitive) so if you can't get your game in during a specific week it will probably just count as a double forfeit with no penalty/benefit for either player. Repeatedly missing will result in removal from the league and replacement with another player. I'm open to discussion on this point, however.

Ideally, I'd like to have everybody using a different faction, so I'll keep this up to date with players and their faction as they sign-up.

Edit: I've added a second ten thunders crew. Essentially, if they play in-faction their games won't count for the Nythera Event. 

1. AWOL - Guild 

2. Phiasco - Ten Thunders

3. Asrian - Outcasts

4. Tawg - Ten Thunders

Hit me up with sign-ups on the Wyrd Forums Thread if you're interested, or to provide rules suggestions. 

Nythera or Bust pt. 1

Seems like a lovely place to visit...

Today the details were released for Wyrd’s Fall 2016 organized event, in which players will battle to claim and profit from the discovery of a ruined city in the Badlands, Nythera. For the fluff heads out there, Nythera is sister city to Kythera, which the factions battled over back in book 1 due to it containing a portal to a realm of death. The living managed to seal it up and deal the Resurrectionists a blow there, but with the discovery of this sister city, the battle is on once again.

            On the Malifaux side of things, players sign up on the Wyrd forums for one particular faction that they will represent during the event. The factions will then battle it out on a map of the Badlands, fighting to seize territory for their side and defend their holdings from the enemy. Players will report their game results, and will be granted access to secret forums where the factions can plan their objectives for the week. It sounds very similar to the Dead of Winter event from several years ago which, ultimately, led to the creation of the Tara crew and the Kaeris alternate sculpt released earlier this year. This time around, the winning faction gets to be the 2016 Nightmare Edition Gencon crew, and second place gets the Miss alternate sculpt model. Cool stuff. I’m also intrigued by their integration of the Campaign system from Shifting Loyalties into the event, with players working towards constructing strongholds for their faction during the course of the event.

The campaign map, pre-violence.

            Excitingly, they’re also including the Through the Breach roleplaying game as part of the event. Fatemasters sign up to receive three one-session scenarios with characters responding to the Nythera events back in Malifaux city. Character generation will be skipped for this event in favor of pre-gens, which is a little bit of a bummer, but I understand why it will be necessary. In place of the destiny mechanic, each player will have individual goals that they will be trying to accomplish for their character. At the end of the event, the character which most-frequently accomplishes their personal goal will be made into a model for the Malifaux skirmish game! Awesome!

            I’m signed up for both sides of the event, so I see a lot of time spent on the other side of the breach in my future. My regular Wednesday Google plus gaming group is down for the Through the Breach stuff, though I’m going to have to figure out how to do it online, using Vassal perhaps. I am signed up for the Guild in the Skirmish game (natch) so I’ll be doing my best to earn us some new miniatures at next Gencon. “But Adam,” I hear you saying, “The Guild has already had a Nightmare Edition boxed set and two Miss models. Wouldn’t you rather see the Ten Thunders get something new?” And my answer is, frankly, no. We’re the Guild. We’re Law and Order. We deserve to get more Nightmare models, just in exchange for keeping peace and order in the city. And, frankly, that kind of seditionist talk is just the sort of thing that could get you thrown in prison or added to a work gang.

You wouldn’t want that, would you?

For more information, head to the Event section of the new and improved Wyrd forums.