Sunday, April 29, 2018

State of the Blog, and How I Would Win The Iron Scorpius




It’s been too long since the last time I put something out. This makes the 2nd time in a row I’ve skipped a week between posts, and that’s not the commitment I made to my patreon backers, and that’s not acceptable. The underlying reason is the same one that most people have: life happens and you get busy. I’m in the process of interviewing for a new job at the moment and my wife is in the final stretch of finishing her nursing degree. Things are a little busy around Malifaux Musings HQ. But still, people are giving me some cash to put these things together, and I have a commitment to making it happen. That said, part of not having a lot of time is also not having a lot of bandwidth in my life for playing multiple games of Malifaux, which also means not having nearly as many good ideas for content. So, bear with me if you see more Through the Breach material or hobby posts in the coming weeks. I promise things will settle down at some point in the very near future and the blog will go back to “normal.” It's also likely that you'll see the day of publication pushed to Sundays, as I have more time to work on the posts over the weekend. 
Those of you who are Facebook friends with me may have noticed that I deactivated my account last week (though I posted to it so infrequently that it may not have made much of a difference, to be fair.) I have several reasons for this. First of all, as a researcher I know what is required to conduct psychological experiments on human subjects ethically, and I don’t consider a waiver buried on page 10 of a 12 page EULA to be “informed consent.” Facebook tinkers with their algorithm to try and find the right content to ensure you stay on it for as long as possible, collecting data on their users’ viewing habits and optimizing from there. This is unethical research, and I’m done supporting it. It doesn’t help that more and more they’ve tweaked it to show things that make the user upset, either. That “trending” column in the upper right links entirely to stories that make me angry, and I’m willing to bet the same is true for most of you. If you’re a gun control advocate, you can bet that all of your friends’ posts in favor of the second amendment will be shuffled to the top of your feed and vice versa.
None of that was news to me, however, and I’d put up with it for a long time. A couple of weeks ago, however, the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, revealing that 1) they were collecting browsing data not just on you, but also on the people on your contact lists regardless of whether they had signed the EULA or not and 2) that they had started selling that information to political and advertising agencies. Even that may have just been another piece of aggravation, but shortly thereafter my grandmother was contacted by some scumbag in Ohio who told her that I had been thrown in prison in Cancun, and that she needed to send them $2000 and not tell anyone about it, or I’d never be seen again. So, yeah, informational security is kind of forefront on my mind at the moment. Deactivating facebook doesn’t immediately fix that problem, but at least it removes an entity that has repeatedly shown itself to be unworthy of trust.
There’s a problem, of course. I promote this blog through Facebook. Most of my post traffic comes from people clicking in from A Wyrd Place. If I want to keep this thing growing, I need to maintain some level of access to this tool. To address this, I created a dummy account for Malifaux Musings and gave it administrative control of the blog’s facebook page. So, any content I produce from here will still be available on FB as usual (though I would still encourage as many of you as are willing to shut their FB down as well. Nothing would make me happier than to decide it isn’t worth my time to cross-post my links to three different FB groups every week.) Nothing should change, but I don’t check FB with any kind of regularity. If you want to talk to me, use @MalifauxMusings on twitter. Slide into my DMs, and I’ll be happy to chat. Or look for Agentrock on Wyrd’s forums.
Anyway, enough about that shit, let’s talk about silly plastic toys.

***

Mini-Musings
1)     Congratulations to friend of the blog Jamie “The F’n Red Dragon” Varney for his victory at the Welsh GT a few weeks ago. The organizers of the UK GT events had the cool idea to theme the prizes and trophies around the various nations’ national symbols/animals. The Welsh flag has a Red Dragon on it. Given Jamie’s proclivities for faction selection, I can only imagine that the results looked something like this.



2)     The Obsidian Gate Through the Breach event is still chugging along. Fated around the world are pooling their efforts to keep the Oni sealed away for the good of mankind. Are you doing your part? If not, sign up here (or get your Fatemaster to do it), grab a Fated and join in. No experience with the rules are required, as quick-play rules have been included for people new to Through the Breach.
3)      Finally, a fond farewell to Aaron Daarland, the mecha-tyrant of Virginia and lead designer of Malifaux for the past couple of years. He's moving on to greener pastures (or at least one with less Gremlins in it.) I'm sure we all wish him the best. 

***



Next weekend, friend of the blog Travis Weyforth of Max Value fame will be running his Capital City Meltdown tournament in the DC area. They’re sold out, but they have a waiting list and people always drop from these things, so if you’re still interested I would consider contacting him.
One unique thing Travis has introduced for this tournament is the Iron Scorpius prize. This is a prize for the player in the tournament with the best record who plays a different master all five rounds, and it’s one of the smartest prop-bet style prizes I’ve seen in a Malifaux tournament. I doubt even he expected the number of participants going for it to be as high as it seems will happen, but just about everyone I’ve heard from whose attending is at least mulling over going for the prize. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the trophy for winning is this fabulous model painted by Craig Shipman.


So in lieu of having real games to tell you about, I thought I’d have a go at theory crafting how I’d approach each round if I was playing for the IS. I won’t be able to attend for reasons mentioned above, and even if I did I would be in no danger of actually winning the thing, so I’m not spoiling anything for myself. So let’s get to it.



Round 1) Standard, Ply for Information, Surround Them, Show Of Force, Set Up, Vendetta, Inescapable Trap



               My thought for this round is summoning Pandora. That crew typically brings a wide swath of enforcers who can carry cheap upgrades to score Show of Force, and Baby Kade is a dream model for Vendetta with his Lure to score the first point, high combat ability, and low soulstone cost. Models that want to Ply my models will have to walk into the bubble of badness that is overlapping Tannen/Widow Weaver/Tuco/Pandora/Poltergeist/Sorrow auras, which helps the crew out. I think this gives us a good groundwork to build from. Plus, Pandora can bring her Fugue State upgrade to penalize the models that do come in and take interacts.





2) Corner, Squatter’s Rights, Eliminate The Leadership, Take Prisoner, Set Up, Covert   Breakthrough, Dig Their Graves



               It’s been well over a year since I played Squatter’s Rights, and I’m struggling to remember the last time I did it with Neverborn. It may be reflective of this, then, that my first thought is “Ok, well, that means time for Sillurids.” I know they’re expensive and fragile, but they have Leap and they can handle their business for this strategy. Gupps supposedly can do the same job for cheaper, but 1) They also are even easier to kill and 2) I don’t own any of them. I’m tempted to try and lean into this even further, bringing a swamp fiend list with their From the Shadows upgrade. Maybe I could get a McTavish to carry the upgrade? Idk, that may be overkill since this is Flank Deployment. This is the one where I’ve got the least initial ideas. In any case, the Master and the other crew members will probably be busy fending off the enemy crew. I’m thinking the Titania and Barbaros crew, with Hoody as back-up. She’s free points for Dig Graves. Since Eliminate is in the pool, I’m thinking Pact with the Grave Spirit to help bring down the enemy Master.



Round 3) Flank, Headhunter, Eliminate The Leadership, Recover Evidence, Vendetta, Take One For The Team, Hold Up Their Forces



This one’s a pretty easy call, as Lynch with Cheating Bastard is made for Headhunter. Bringing in Beckoners who are able to cheat second on their Lures means, chances are, you’re not going to have to come far out of your comfort zone to drop some heads from the enemy. The rest of the crew would be hitters like the popular Hooded Rider/Nekima combination, or perhaps Stitched Together if my opponent makes me worried about shooting. Vendetta is in the pool again, so a Beckoner-Lure to get an easy 2 points at least is in play. I’m leaning towards Eliminate for the second scheme since I’m planning on doing a lot of killing anyways, though that would be dependent on who I’m facing. Dig Their Graves is also a strong option, since Cheating Bastard potentially lets you get some easy scheme markers down.





Round 5) Corner, Symbols of Authority, Punish The Weak, Dig Their Graves, Show Of Force, Search The Ruins, Take Prisoner



This one is going to require mobility and defense, so I’m thinking Lillith here. She and the Hooded Rider are there to play defense, using Root and oversized swords to discourage runners from getting to my Symbols markers. I haven’t had a chance to get Tuco back out since he became cheap enough to consider using, so he may be just as useless but for one stone less. However, placing him with From the Shadows behind a symbol that’s distant from the enemy crew seems like it could be useful to get one symbol down. The others will have to be acquired with a combination of crew mobility and/or Tangled Shadows. The crew typically brings a lot of enforcers and henchman, so again Show of Force is likely to be a good scheme choice. Lillith and Nekima are more than capable of scoring Punish the Weak if the enemy crew is vulnerable to it. I’m not a huge fan of Take Prisoner, as there just seems to be too many ways for it to go wrong during the game, but it’s probably my back-up plan if I don’t think Punish is going to work.



Round 4) Will be announced prior to Round 4 on Sunday.



You’ll notice that I skipped round 4, and that’s because we don’t know anything about it yet. part of Travis's personal plan to make Alex Schmid crazy (and I suppose test people's crew building abilities) is to make folks wait until Sunday morning to learn what the fourth round game will be. I left Collodi for this round, because he can be built to do most scheme pools and strategies and because he’s the master I know best out of the faction (outside of Lynch, I suppose, but I’ve had more recent experience with the Puppetmaster.) For the time being, I’ll leave the post like this with a blank here. Next Sunday, I’ll add an addendum here and in a new blog post updating it with how I would build a crew to respond to the actual scheme pool.


              



Sunday, April 15, 2018

The Two Crews You Need for Tournament Play


I owe you a blog post for this and last weekend, but I'm a little light on content and time at the moment. Here's some random thoughts, and a look at the Through the Breach worldwide event.

***



I’ve had the idea kicking around in my head that there has to be a compromise between “Build a new crew every game for the strats and schemes” and “Play fixed list every game, regardless of the set-up.” Both have their merits. Going with the former philosophy puts you in a position to minutely tune your crew to the game you’re going to play, while the latter lets you master the operation and synergies of each model in your crew. They both have drawbacks as well, though. If you change your crew completely every game, you run the risk of becoming a jack-of-all-trades master-of-none type player, while if you stick with one crew to exclusion you become predictable to opponents and leave yourself inflexible when the strategy and scheme pool strongly favor a different crew than what you brought. As an example: I’ve been playing a lot of Cheating Bastard Lynch recently. I don’t like it when the cards turn on me, so I like his manipulation of your draw and ability to stretch the value of the cards in your hand by forcing the opponent to cheat duels they don’t have to. This crew works well in a lot of scenarios, but its reliance on a bubble (well, two bubbles) means that Symbols of Authority, for instance, is a tough strat for that crew.
So, to find a compromise between the two, I’ve been refining a theory that the best way to approach tournaments is to have two crews pre-built: the one you like and the one that fixes the bad matchups of the crew you like. Since most of the time this split falls along one specific access for me, it tends to come out as “One crew that focuses its strength in one place, punching into the enemy in one specific location and then holding it” versus “A crew that can spread wide around the field and operate relatively independent from support.” There are obviously elements of both in most games (the strategy is something like Turf War, for instance, but the scheme pool is full of stuff like Undercover Entourage), but usually you can focus on one plan of attack and then make up what’s necessary from the other points after executing it.
As mentioned above, one of the options for my close-together crew is Jacob Lynch. You don’t have to be completely bunched together with them, of course, since the cheating aura comes out of both Hungering Darkness and Mr. Lynch, but this crew still works better when operating in tandem. If half the crew is outside the cheating aura on a given turn, you aren’t getting all of the value from the upgrade that you should be. Some other options with which I’m toying are Summoning Pandora and Fated Collodi. Collodi is more mobile than some of the other options on here, which means he’s actually one of the few examples of a master that can run both types of crews, but the Collodi playstyle with which I’m most familiar keeps him close to the rest of his crew to provide mutual support for most turns of the game. I’ll fiddle with them to decide which I want to use for if/when I go to a tournament next, but at the moment Lynch is in the lead, if only for sentimental reasons.
My spread out crew is in a bit more flux. As an unintended glitch, most of my games lately have been involving the bubble crew, so I haven’t had as many opportunities to try new ideas here. Lilith has classically been my go-to here, and that hasn’t changed much. Bringing her along with a crew of heavies (Nekima, Hooded Rider, etc.) that can spread the offense and interference around the board while the rest of the crew either lends them a hand or runs objectives is a pretty simple strategy for this one. Mama Monster’s biggest competitor in my head at the moment is Zoraida. Lilith is good at interfering with the enemy team between her root and tree-summoning abilities, but she’s surprisingly fragile in close combat and her primary trick, Tangled Shadows, has a CA value just low enough to be unreliable as a means of disrupting the enemy. Zoraida’s Obey actions, on the other hand, can provide both disruption of the enemy plans as well as offensive attacking power by triggering a charge by the aforementioned heavy hitters in exchange for 1 master AP, a pretty good deal. While Zoraida’s never going to kill anything on her own, the Will o’ Wisp summoning and condition shenanigans plus stealing the opponent’s heavy hitters to use against them can substitute for some of this. For some more direct interactions, I’ve considered Titania, as a recent test game underscored just how much more survivable she’s become. And then, of course, there’s Collodi, possibly with Bag of Tricks or possibly still with Fated but letting the crew spread out a bit more. He has no shortage of mobility due to friendly crewmembers being able to push him with his defense trigger, and his attack is the definition of disruptive.
The point is, I think there is a sweet spot between the two extremes of tournament crew building. You don’t have to lock yourself in and master one crew to the exclusion of everything else, but you don’t have to learn the whole faction to do well either. Find some middle ground, master two crews that complement each other, specifically one crew that excels on doing their work up close and one that does better operating as individual models rather than a unit. Then you just have to tweak things here and there to reach a high level of mastery and tactical flexibility.


***


The Obsidian Gate worldwide Through the Breach event is in full swing. Fatemasters are leading crews of Fated Earthside to try and stop a plot to weaken the barrier between the material world and the realm of the Oni. A crew of misfits (what else could pregens be, really) including a shapeshifted Siren, a former compatriot of Sherlock Holmes, an Abyssinian engineer and his companion Redati-5, and a Japanese version of Michael Scott from The Office, along with a slew of other possible characters for fated to play, enter a Buddhist monastery just as disaster is about to strike, and are wrapped up in a plot to stop a cult's evil plans, facing enemies that defy comprehension. Sign-ups are still going on for new Fatemasters, and the Fated character that receives the most play will become a character in The Other Side! Plus, quick-play rules are included to help those unfamiliar with the RPG to learn and get playing as soon as possible. What do you have to lose? Sign ups continue for another week or so, I think. So sign up! 

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Wanted: Bear Force One


              



             Citizens of Malifaux, we at Malifaux Musings come before you today to inform you of the greatest threat our fair city has ever faced. This enemy has come down from the northern hills, leaving panic and chaos in its wake. This furred foe represents an unprecedented level of danger, violently smashing through all who oppose it while simultaneously distracting them with obscene, strangely alluring dancing. No pic-a-nic basket is safe until this crisis passes. We urge, we IMPLORE, all who read this to stay in your homes. Lock your doors. And, for the love of god, don’t let them give you a hug!

               We are speaking, of course, of Bear Force One.

***
 
He tried to warn us, but did we listen?
               First presented in A Wyrd Place over a month ago by Max Value host Travis Weyforth, Bear Force One is a crew list featuring the Slate Ridge Mauler with their 0 stone upgrade, Circus Bear. It’s half a real, powerful crew list, and half meme. It was further discussed by Alex Schmid on his youtube channel, who went on to run it through an acid test in a tournament which he won, demonstrating the viability of the list as a concept. I actually assumed this was just a joke when it first came out, but I assure you the threat is real. Let’s take a look at it, because it very well could be something you could run into during a tournament game and, if you don’t know what you’re seeing or how to approach it, you could very well get wrecked.

               When I say that this list features the Slate Ridge Mauler, I mean that you’re going to spend something like 80% of the points in your crew on them. This is a spam list. The recent soulstone reduction the bears received in the January errata made this possible, as you can now cram 6 of these brutes into your crew. They must be world-beaters, right? Well, don’t get too excited. Their crushing claws are a Melee 5 (6 with the upgrade) attack that deal 2/3/5 damage. They have a (0) action to give them a little extra speed, but their walk is nothing to write home about so they aren’t going to set any speed records. The reason you’re using them is for their (0) action, Bear Hug. It’s a Rg 4 attack action that gives out the Slow condition and, with a trigger, pushes the bear’s target into base-to-base contact with them. 

Avoid at all costs.


                 It’s easy to see the appeal of spamming slow, especially if you’re familiar with a similar Weyforth creation, the Voidspam list which featured a half-dozen void Wretches for a similar purpose. The advantage these bears have over the weird void parrots is that they’ve got serious staying power. They have 10 wounds, Impossible to Wound, and Hard to Kill. You can’t use blasts or pulses on them, either, because they have Bearskin Armor (literally) that makes them immune to those effects. And, if you knock them below half wounds (so down to 5 or fewer) their Melee attacks deal +2 damage. 4/5/7 is a pretty scary damage line. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of that.
            
               Five or six of these coming across the board at you makes for a nasty wall of wounds. They’re only Defense 4, so you’ll have no trouble hitting them. But the question is, can you kill them? Because the worst thing you can do is knock their wounds down to the point that they get the bonus to damage and then let them hit back. Worse, when playing against the bear spam AP efficiency is critical, and wounding them would make their AP more efficient and give them the ability to slow something in your crew, making you less efficient. The rest of the crew is built around either improving the efficiency of the bears or taking care of the jobs they can’t do. The bears aren’t fast, and they’re no more effective at completing schemes than any other model. The obvious master to pair with them is Marcus, and one of his more important jobs is to move quickly around the board and grab Symbols of Authority or complete a Breakthrough or Entourage style scheme. In the most committed bear crews, one that brings the full complement, the only models you bring with Marcus is something like a Malifaux Raptor and the Jackalope. Some of the other crews will drop one bear to give them a bit more flexibility in crew construction, letting them bring in some utility players with Well Rehearsed to help balance it out.

               While Marcus is the obvious pairing, due to his beast synergy, they don’t interplay as much as you would think. It is nice, however, to keep him with a bear so he can pass attacks off to them and let them soak the damage, improving his survivability. Ultimately, the master at the top isn’t as important as long as they can do their job without relying on crew synergy. Sandeep is one obvious choice, as he is just good on his own and can summon Wind Gamin to round out the crew’s capabilities. Ramos is an interesting choice, as his summons can help to offset one of the crew’s weaknesses (spamming 7 stone minions means activation control is going to be an issue in a lot of games.) Additionally, his new upgrade Vox Populi allows him to place Hazardous Terrain that does 3/4/4 damage on the board. The bears can then use their Bear Hug to drag targets through the Strike Markers, which will usually end up dealing 7 damage. Other Arcanist masters may work, though I think those three have the most obvious synergy. Ironsides could get in and mix it up along with the bears, though that seems more like a win-more situation rather than adding in someone who could complement the bears. Colette could actually be pretty interesting with them, using Prompt to push the bears into position and give a free swing, shuffle them around with Disappearing Act, and let them perform some interactions with Rehearsed (though the latter means not using Bear Hug, which is obviously not optimal.) Rasputina, Kaeris, and Mei Feng don’t have incredible synergy with the bears, so you’ll probably want to avoid them, though a splash of, like, 3 bears into their normal crews could make for a decent sledge hammer.

               So, when this unstoppable wall of bear flesh is…bearing down on you, what do you do? Well, you have one pretty clear advantage when you run into Bear Force One: you aren’t going to be surprised by what they’re going to do on the table. They’re going to come at you relentlessly with the bears leading the way, absorbing your attacks and draining your AP with their (0) action. While you’re tied up/getting mauled, the other parts of the crew will likely be scoring VP in the background and/or supporting them. So what do you do to counter it? First, you have to focus your fire. Put your whole crew’s attacks into key bear models, kill them, then move on to the next. The more hard-hitting min 3 damage you can bring along, the better. Additionally, if you can use terrain to make them come at you piecemeal rather than all at once, that is much better and will let you deal with the bears individually. Keep your crew together (though, obviously, not if the leader of the Bear crew is Raspy) so they can support each other and employ combined arms. And, obviously, figure out what the enemy crew is going to do and how to counter it. The bears aren’t experts at scheme running, so the models the opponent brings in the rest of the crew should telegraph how they intend to approach completing their objectives. If you can figure out what they’re doing, you can figure out how to counter it.

               Ultimately, the bear list is real. It seems ridiculous, especially given that the Slate Ridge Mauler was considered an almost laughably bad model prior to the January Errata (what a difference one stone makes, eh?) but this is a legitimate threat on the board, and if you don’t approach it the right way you will get rolled up and crushed by models one can only assume are wearing silly red fezzes. You don’t want that, do you?

Look into the face of fear.


               That said, this crew isn’t a set-list, take-on-all-comers army. In the right scenarios (Public Execution, Ours (though not with Guarded Treasure), Supply Wagon, etc.) they’ll be a force to reckon with (a Bear Force, that is...I'll stop, I promise). However, they’ll struggle in other games that require more finesse. The analogy I used to describe it is that they’re a great sledge hammer: awesome for knocking down walls, not so great for putting together an Ikea wardrobe. I think the real danger of this crew is that it can be sprung on you when you’re not expecting it. It’s one thing when someone announces they’re playing all bears every round of a tournament. When you know it’s coming, you can build to counter it. When you aren’t ready, though, you may not have the hitting power to take down the bears efficiently and may end up having to work around them instead. Additionally, they can function as a modular unit, especially if you go down to three or four bears rather than the whole crew, so there likely won’t be many clues that the bears are coming until you reveal crews. If you have a Guild crew of heavy hitters, you’ll be ok. If you’ve brought something like Shen Long that focuses its attack potential into a couple of elite models, you may end up swamped. As always, you have to read the game state and make a plan for how best to approach it.


Back to hell, abomination.