Friday, April 8, 2016

Adepticon Field Report

Editor's Note: Last weekend my friend Jon (you'll remember his name from numerous battle reports on the blog) went up to Chicago to test out his Ten Thunders might versus the wider Malifaux field. He lives in Atlanta, which is sort of the birthplace of Wyrd anyways, and he's played at Gencon basically every year since becoming a Malifaux player, but this was his first trip to Adepticon. He was texting me the results from his game, and I said "Hey, how would you feel about writing up a report on the con for Malifaux Musings? He said yes, and this was the result. I look forward to doing more of these in the future, as a bachelor man like Jon is much more free to travel and compete than I am. So, this will be our first field report from roving reporter, Jon. Hope you enjoy!

Pictured: Not Jon. But definitely the image of him I'll be using in this article.

***

So where to begin…  for me this was more a spur of the moment type trip I was fully unprepared to take.  I logged into the Adepticon site a couple weeks ago for giggles to see what in all was going on.  The draw was they had an X wing worldwide event in 8 cities in 8 different countries and I was going to try to get a game in before I went. I have lots of ships but haven't played anyone, and I don’t want to be the guy that shows up to a tournament who has never played even.  I would play X wing on Friday and Malifaux on Saturday and maybe the story encounter Sunday.  So I found someone on facebook to split the expenses with me (who just so happens to be Wyrd's studio painter) and the plan was in motion.

So then the Easter sale dropped.  Now I have models to paint!  And anyone who knows me knows this is kind of an Achilles’ heel of mine.  So I spent almost all my free time the week before assembling and painting (skipping that x wing game I wanted to get in but it wouldn’t matter because I probably needed all day Friday to paint as well).  I ordered bases and they came in Tuesday (I was lucky to keep refreshing the Easter sale every 10 min until it went live so my order was close to first in the queue.)  My label generated Tuesday at 4, so I thought it would go out that day. Turns out Fail-Ex had different plans. Left Wyrd on Wednesday at 2 and I got it Thursday during work hours before I was set to hit the road. So thus began the comedy of set backs.  First up I get a call at 2 (estimated time of departure) ‘I have a flat’… so this set us back an hour.  Between rush hour and the rain we lost probably 2 hours in the commute.  Got in at 2.30am. We didn’t reserve Thursday because when we made the plan he was gonna drive Friday morning, but this changed because of his crystal brush contest.  So that hotel did not have a room for us.  We went over to the convention center to see if registration might be open because the swag bag was suppose to be worth it.  No such luck.  So he made the suggestion we could just nap in the car which I can totally do.  Turned out he cannot.  So after an hour we went in search of a hotel room.  We get that sorted and Friday was bearable.  Got there about 11 after the swag was gone.  Then we set up shop and paint.  Usually I do ok on 6 hours sleep so I paint until 2 am.  Then the fire alarm goes off at 4.30 am…  When I wake up I’m so tired and kinda in a hurry I couldn’t figure out how the coffee dispensers work so I left the hotel without and it was snowing.   How many signs of the apocalypse do I half to encounter just to play some Malifaux? So now that you have an understanding of where I started Saturday morning and that I don’t normally record games in any way to do battle reports, take this with a grain of salt.  And I didn’t bother to take any pictures because my camera is blurry and I need a new phone.
Editor's Note: I like to imagine it looked something this.

I declare 10 thunders
Game 1:  Lynch v Ramos Woke up                                                       upgrades for Ramos that probably did nothing Rising sun Expert Cheater Huggy w addict and recall training         Joss w Imbued Kang w recall training                               Howard w imbued Yu w wandering river style                      Johan Depleted                                                     Brass arachnid
Low river monk                                          mobile tool kit
2x 10 t brothers

I don’t know if anyone snapped any pictures of any of the tables but this one was a wrecked rail yard.

Stat and schemes: recon, convict labor, detonate the charges, exhaust forces, neutralize leader, take prisoner.
Deploy: Standard

I took convict labor and detonate. He took exhaust and take prisoner on Yu.
The game didn’t really go as expected.  He used his beaters to guard Ramos behind cover and sent spiders to contest recon.  Me not being awake at this point in the morning was too slow to counter this.  And I should’ve taken Torshiro.  And while I understand the function of depleted, getting them to work is another animal.  I score one for strat and 3 for convict labor.  Lose 9-4.  I go grab a soda for some much needed caffeine.


Game 2: Lynch vs Ironsides
Woke up                                                   upgrades
Endless hunger
Huggy w RT                                              captain w/ imbuded
Yin w/ smoke grenades                         envy with imbued
Pathfinder                                               mouse
Low river monk                                      Johan
2x illuminated                                         2x gunsmiths
2x 10 t brothers

This was table 18 with carnival terrain.

Strat and schemes: Extraction, convict labor, catch and release, hunting party, leave your mark, and search ruins.
Deploy: Standard

I took convict labor and search ruins.  I think he had hunting party and I know he had ruins.  This one was kinda meh.  We traded pieces until I had yin, both brothers, the pathfinder and lynch and he had captain and mouse.  And this is where I misread and thought center line is where the markers needed to be.  So I won 7-4.  I had a ton of unmolested AP to score 10 and this cost me at the end of the tournament.

Editor's Note: Jon's models when he told them where to put the scheme markers.

Game 3: Lynch V Levi (Kyle from Schemes and Stones podcast)
Woke up                                                   iron
Endless hunger                                       I think there were other upgrades
Huggy w RT                                              2x waif
Yin w/ smoke grenades                         Strongarm w/ oathkeeper
Pathfinder                                               peace keeper w/ oathkeeper
2x illuminated                                         taelor w/ oathkeeper
2x 10 t brothers                                      necro punk

Table 13 was kinda like a valley with a few pockets of trees.

Strat and Schemes: collect the bounty, convict labor, quick murder, occupy turf, show force, leave mark.  
Close deploy.

I took convict labor and mark.  I think he had show and mark.  He sent the strongarm and a waif up one flank, necro up the other and everything else up the center.  I sent a bro up each side and sent yin and huggy to deal with the strongarm and the rest move up to deal with the host.  Yin put the minus wp debuff on the strong arm and then locked down his walk/charge.  Huggy came along and caressed him once to give brilliance and then the rest of the tentacles sodomized him for red joker 11 at the top of round 2.  Managed to kill the PK relatively easy.  The necro got 3 for mark.  Levi shot one bro, buried, then reversed field and killed the other one.  I scored bounty twice and got 3 from labor.  I think this ended 5-7 or 8 bad guys (this ran up to the timer and I was still kinda in zombie mode).  If taelor didn’t joker an Illuminated last turn I could’ve sprung her to tie this game but it was well played on his side.  I should have ignored the necro and used the pathfinder on the main host.  That might have made the difference in killing stuff to get me the win.

Game 4: Lynch V Ironsides (again ) (Tyler? from Malifaux's Most Wanted podcast I think (could be wrong))
Woke up                                                   
Endless hunger                                       upgrades
Huggy w RT                                              Johan
Yin w/ smoke grenades                        mouse
Kang w RT                                                2x gunsmith
2x illuminated                                         2x oxford mage
2x 10 t brothers                                      firestarter

Table 13 was kinda like a valley with a few pockets of trees.

Strat and Schemes: reckoning, convict labor, exhaust, frame, public demo, show of force. 
Corner deploy.

I took convict and exhaust.  He took exhaust and ? (this game was before the dinner break so hunger and fatigue made this game a blur but I remember both of us were laughing most of the time and he had Kang down to 1 wound for the entire turn 3 and could not get the last wound to score reckoning.  I may have cheated and red joker and told him got to work harder than that. I more or less rolled his forces as I advanced behind Yin with his double – to hit.  I think I won 8-3

Game 5: Lynch V guild mcmourning
Woke up                                                   
Endless hunger                                       upgrades
Huggy w RT                                              frank
Yin w/ smoke grenades                        sebastain
swordsman w RT                                   chihuahua
2x illuminated                                         abuela
2x 10 t brothers                                      nurse
                                                                  Watcher
                                                                 2x austringer

Table 7  town square

Strat and Schemes: Guard stash, convict labor, hunting party, inspection, set up, take prisoner.  
Standard deploy.

I took convict and Take Prisoner Frank,  He took set up and ? (I honestly don’t know).  This game started well enough.  I move up using building for cover.  He had abuela, nurse austringer and a watcher on 1 side, and the rest to the other side.  Turn 2 he shoots at the approaching swordsman only to faceplam when he remember I had bulletproof 3.  Huggy then told her to shoot the austringer and she said sure thing and smoked him.  He manages to throw mcmourning in lynches face then huggy, yin, and illuminate counter charge and remove him.  Then frank and Sebastian come up and try to avenge their master and this is where the game went sour.  He had sebastain behind frank but I still had line of effect to sebastain (I will concede he was very close to being hidden but he was not) So I attacked sebastain and he didn’t hear me and assumed I was going after frank.  When I get this sorted when he had frank on one wound, I had him move all those wound over to sebastain.  Then I thought he was gonna flip the table on me.  He was throwing his pieces and everything. At this point all I did was pass with all my models but only to take bare minimum to score 10.  I won 10- not 10(I think 5).  I think he was kinda ok after the game after I showed him I had take frank and that why I didn’t want the wounds on him.  But that was a sour game.  But I learned I need to be rested and pay more attention to what my opponent is doing.  I should’ve caught that before it became an issue.

Editor's Note: Or, just follow this advice.
But I am happy with my 10 (should have been 8th) place finish.  I had fun for 4 ½ games.  And I can’t wait for gen con and to go back next year.

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