I have nuclear ambitions, too, but will give them up for food. Or miniatures to paint.

Malifaux and beer. Like poker and whisky, these two things just seem to go together. Two other things that go together are the Showgirls crew and Killjoy, because…because…hey, look – an obvious distraction hiding behind a bush!

Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes. I had painted some more models and wanted to throw them into a game. Mark had offered to host (and also provide pizza and beer, which are grounds for beatification in certain Christian sub-sects) and we agreed on 35ss, Avatars if you were so inclined and a vague desire to flip some cards in between drinking and talking about comic books.

The Guild

• Lady Justice
o Avatar Lady J
• The Judge
• The Executioner
• Exorcist
• 3 Death Marshalls
• Starting Cache of 5

The Arcanists

• Colette
• Cassandra
• Killjoy
• Johan
• Performer
• Mannequin
• Starting Cache of 6

Why this crew? I wanted to use my newly painted Killjoy and Johan models. It would also give me a chance to try Colette without the Duet, which I have never done.

Strategies were Distract for the Guild and Contain Power for the Arcanists. Not a great one for Colette, but I had a bunch of hard-hitting models. If any Colette crew could stick it to Lady J, it might just be this one. On the other hand, Colette is almost impossible to beat with Distract because of her survivability and mad movement shenanigans.

Since I had to defeat Distract I went all-in and took Breakthrough. I knew Killjoy was going to be dropped in harm’s way, so I took Frame for Murder on him, and announced both. There was a good chance Mark would think I had selected Cassy for Frame for Murder, so he might try and avoid killing her with Lady J.

Mark announced Hold Out and Raid. Raid he would almost certainly get given our respective model counts, and if he got Hold Out as well then it would be a complete Guild whitewash, since I would have failed my Strategy and one of my Schemes. So for me it was going to be all about getting through the Guild’s defensive line, but stopping to kill Lady J on the way

I won’t do a Turn by Turn breakdown. One reason is I didn’t take any pictures. Another reason is that the beer mounted up as the game went on, so some recollections may not be 100% accurate. Also, at some point in the 4th Turn I shuffled my Control Hand into my Discard Pile for no apparent reason…

Some key points of the game:

• I got the Red Joker in my hand on Turn 1, and knew then that this was my best shot at Contain Power. If I could Red Joker Lady J on a damage flip, I stood a chance of killing her.
• I had to force the Guild to split up, since en masse they would crush my fewer and relatively more fragile models. I knew how much Cassandra irked Mark from previous games, so I threw her out to the right flank on her own. A Performer headed to the left flank and Colette and Johan headed up the middle. Colette can easily switch her crew around (provided they are Showgirls), so if I could make Mark commit some serious models to one side, then I would reposition to the other side. This worked quite well, and he sent The Judge, a Death Marshall and the Exorcist to head off Cassandra – who disappeared on Turn 2. This kept them out of the main melee on Turns 2 & 3, which helped enormously. In a crew like this, if you want to know where Colette is going, follow slow-and-steady Johan
• I made a dove and Killjoy popped out from it on Turn 2. He took a pounding, reminding me how much I hate Critical Strike and Slow To Die when I am on the receiving end! He wound up killing two Death Marshalls, and half way through Turn 2 was in melee with the Executioner and on 8wds (having already healed himself fully once). Cassandra then borrowed the Performer’s Siren Call spell to lure Killjoy out of melee and try and take him out of Lady J’s charge range. He got away, but I had forgotten just how far that blind nuisance can charge! She waded in and settled his hash good. +2VP for Frame for Murder, though.
• I had set up an attack run with Colette by moving the Performer up, and Colette popped in with Illusionist and went to work with Magician’s Duel. I got a straight flip, cheated in the Red Joker and flipped another Severe for a total of 10Wds on Lady J! That was enough to kill her outright, but a Damage Reduction flip left her on 2Wds – boo!
• Lady J promptly Avatared and all sorts of broken shit started happening (only kidding) She gives all kinds of buffs to her crew, and can hit like a truck. Johan tried to Flurry on her, but after one failed hit she just pushed him 4″ away and he was left swinging wildly at thin air. Poor Johan – he died to the Executioner not long after that. Lady J also killed Colette, who used a Healing Flip to avoid dying. I had the Black Joker in my hand at this point, and a healthy cache of SS to boot, so Colette was not in any real danger.
• Lady J also tried to Bury Cassandra, scoring very high on the Cast. If she had succeeded I think that would have completely altered the game, so I burned a Soulstone and kept her in play.
• Cassandra used her combos to good effect – getting within 1″ of several enemy models and putting up her Southern Charm aura to put them all on a negative flip for Defense. She then cast Breathe Fire on the one with the lowest Defence and put the blast onto the one with the higher Defence. She did this three times in the game, and each time caused Wds to Lady J or forced her to cheat or burn a soulstone. Unfortunately, she did too much damage to the Executioner and killed him – he promptly Slow To Die killed Johan and came back on full wounds. Lesson – don’t kill him unless there is no-one else around, and don’t even bother to try unless you know you can finish him off.
• Cassandra killed Lady J using the Southern Charm/ Breathe Fire trick, netting me +2VP.
• Everyone ignores the Performer and the Mannequin when Colette and Cassandra are around. So much so I managed to run the Performer up close to the Guild deployment zone, setting up some nice movement options for Colette.
• The end-game saw Colette Bury the Judge and then bounce around to (a) get Cassy out of melee with the Executioner and (b) swap with the Performer to get close to the Guild deployment zone. If you don’t kill the Showgirls, Colette will just keep doing this shit all game long!
• The Performer, who got left in melee, died. And so Cassandra got Re-activate! Yay! I finally got to use her Grand Finale ability and the game ended with Cassandra activating, re-activating and then activating after the game had ended! With three full activations in essentially the last Turn of the game it was not surprising that she killed the last Guild model still in the deployment zone (the Exorcist) and also helped get Colette away from the unburied Judge.

The game ended with Colette and Cassandra having a picnic in the Guild deployment zone (+2VP for Breakthrough), while the Judge glowered at them from just outside it, and the melee in the mid-table ended with the Executioner and Death Marshall swatting at nothing but a couple of Doves.

Result: 6VP for the Arcanists and 2VP for the Guild, who succeeded in their Raid Scheme with three Significant models alive to my two.

Thoughts: The Guild can hit extremely hard, and Slow To Die is horrible when your 4SS models can do a minimum 4Dg to you as they die. I want to play my Guild crews next game!

The Exorcist and the Judge would have killed Killjoy even quicker than Lady J did – fortunately they were on the other side of the table. The Exorcist seems a must-have vs Ressers and Neverborn, but another Death Marshall might be better against anyone else.

Avatar Lady J probably works best as a close support model that can counter-charge to help her minions out. She has some nasty tricks, esp that Bury spell that doesn’t cost a Soulstone to use, and that Even The Odds spell has some wicked potential.

Johan is not much use when your crew need to get places. He probably shines best in Strategies where ground needs holding, and where things that need hitting will come to him. Love that 3″ melee range, though.

I left Killjoy out on his own, and he got chopped up. I was just eager to get him into action, but next time I will probably hold off a bit longer. That way I might be able to out-activate an opponent, which will let me Summon a Dove, have it Sacrifice to bring out Killjoy and then let him Activate straightaway without taking hits. Siren Call and Disappearing Act are useful ways to move him around, esp to set up those free Blood Price charges he gets from Turn 3 onwards.

Just a quick update with some painted pics of two of my Malifaux Showgirl crew; Collette and a Performer:-

Collette took a single evening to do, which is pretty good from my point of view.  I abandoned my “quick paint” scheme with her and the Performer.  It works well for washed-out or dirty colours (like on Gretchin or Gremlins), but I want strong, vibrant colours on this crew, and that means getting back to basics with layering and highlighting.  The Performer needs her gloves and stockings finished to match Collette’s.

The wife has expressed an interest in painting one of these – if I can get a paintbrush in her hands, I will stick a photo of the mini up here

Table by The Battle Bunker

 MrNybbles over at the Wyrd forums has been putting together a tactica for Collette’s Showgirls crew, with assistance and contributions from lots of forum users.  It is fascinating and essential reading for anyone playing (or playing against) Collette and here it is in Word .doc form. 

EDIT: Meant to link to the original thread.

Ridiculous:
another blizzard; the world
goes quietly white (Charles Lint)

With the eternal frost gripping the land of Caledonia and ice setting white spears on everything that stayed still for more than ten minutes, it seemed only fitting that my latest game should be against Rasputina.

Mark brought:-

• Tina
• Wendigo
• 3 x Ice Gamin
• Ice Golem
• December Acolyte
• Convict Gunslinger

35ss (4ss cache)

I done brung:-

• Collette
• Cassandra
• 2 x Coryphee
• Performer
• Mannequin
• Mechanical Dove

35ss (7ss cache)

With so many models that can use SS, and with me planning on summoning one Mechanical Dove a Turn, I needed a large cache.  I could have taken another Performer, but I’m not sure what they would have added.  I could also have taken my own Convict Gunslinger, but I decided to keep it 100% Star Theatre.

The terrain was Industrial Zone, and we got a Magic Nexus.  + to Cast and Resist flips for anyone within the Nexus.  We used a fountain for the Nexus, and put it mid-table.  It played no part in the game (no-one wanted to get wet).

Strategies:

Mark flipped and got Escape and Survive.  4VP to get 75% of his models at least 8″ away from their deployment zone. 2VP to get 50% there.  Insignificant models count, so Tina needed to keep 6 models alive to get max VP, so I had to try and kill 3.  Tina’s crew is slow, but even Tina’s crew can move 8″ in a game.  Keeping them alive is the trick.

I flipped and got Turf War.  4VP if I had more models in his half of the table than he had in mine, and one in his deployment zone.  2VP for more models in his half of the table than he had in mine.

What This Means: If Tina got into my table half in any kind of numbers she would score VP for her own Strategy and deny me VPs for mine.  I only had five non-Insignificant models vs Tina’s seven, and for Tina to win she needed to get six of them past the 14″ mark on her side of the table.  If she managed that, I could not get any VP for Turf War, since at best I would have five models vs her six, and she would get full VP for Escape and Survive.  If I killed the three models I needed to in Tina’s crew, and assuming the Wendigo (who is Insignificant) wasn’t one of them, Tina would be down to four non-Insignificant models left, versus my five – summary, I couldn’t afford to lose a single non-Insignificant model and if I did I was going to have to kill more of Tina’s crew to make up for it.   This was going to be tricky.

Schemes:

Mark announced Bodyguard on Tina (keep her alive to win 2VP) and chose another Scheme, but did not announce it.  From our previous games, and from his deployment of the December Acolyte, I guessed it was Sabotage on a large tower in my half of the table (interact with it to score 1VP).  I was right

Since I was going to have to leave my half of the table to win, I picked Power Ritual (which I had to announce).  1 VP if I can interact with every corner of the board (I need a model within 8″ to do so), +2VP if I can complete this before Turn 5.  I also picked and announced Breakthrough, which is a no-brainer vs Escape and Survive.  It meant I had to get more models in Tina’s deployment zone at the end of the game than she did, for 2VP.

What This Means: Mark could get a maximum of +3VP from his Schemes, and I could get a maximum of +5VP.  If I killed Tina before Turn 5, I got another +1VP thanks to the rules of Bodyguard.

So, even if Tina won her Strategy (4VP) and I lost mine (0VP), I could still win if I got all my Schemes and killed Tina before Turn 5.  Right…

It is for calculations like these that Strategy and Scheme cards are (I have now decided) essential, so you can sit and work out all this before the game begins.  Here are some great ones.

I deployed first.  I didn’t take pics of the whole game, but you can see the deployment zones on this picture.  6″ in from each table edge.  My deployment zone is shown by the red line at the top of the picture, and Tina’s is shown by the red line at the bottom.  This pic was taken on Turn 2, which shows you how fast the Coryphee are!

My two new canal tiles are in the middle, and the new harbour tile is on the left, in Tina's deployment zone.

Turn 1

Init: Collette

I had taken care with my deployment (for a change).  I had one non-Insignificant model within 8″ of the two table corners in my half of the board, so those models took a (1) Interact action when they activated, and secured me 2 of the 4 I needed for Power Ritual.

The Mannequin started in base contact with Collette, Linked to her, and would stay there the whole game.

I had to block the December Acolyte from getting Sabotage, so I managed to get a Coryphee between the Acolyte and the building.  Those things are fast!  Then Cassandra jumped forward and charged the Acolyte, doing some damage.  The other Coryphee moved up to join its pal, and everyone else just moved forward.  Collette made a Dove.  I put my starting Dove within 3″ of the Coryphee just in case they needed to use a soulstone before they activated next Turn.

Tina’s crew put some ice pillars in front of my Coryphee, which was fine by me as it shielded them from ranged spell attacks.  The ice pillars are the two white circles on the photo.  An Ice Gamin charged Cassandra, and did nothing.  The December Acolyte put two wounds on her.  Everything else moved up, and the Convict Gunslinger (I forgot to mark him on the photo) took up position looking right down the length of the canal.  He pretty much stayed there.

Turn 2

Init: Collette

I activated Cassandra first. She took a (1) Interact action with the table corner and got me my third of four table corners, then wailed on and killed the Acolyte.  Tina tried to get some shots on the Coryphee, but failed to do any damage as line of sight was mostly blocked.

A Mechanical Dove attacked the Ice Golem with Magician’s Duel and did 3 Wds after armour, getting swatted in reply.  Not the best use of the Dove.  I should have been focusing on Ice Gamin, not the Golem.

Collette moved up behind the terrain piece on the left of the photo, and made another Dove.

I waited until after Tina had activated (never move out of cover until then!), and then the two Coryphee moved out from their ice pillar shield, past the Cassandra/ Ice Gamin duel (making their disengage easily), then Danced Together to form the Duet, ending up in cover as you can see in the photo.  I didn’t want two of them together on the table taking double blast damage (a consideration I promptly forgot in Turn 3).

I moved the Mechanical Dove that had been with the Coryphee over to join them, for the same reasons as before.

Turn 3

Init: Collette

I activated Cassandra again, flipped the Red Joker for damage on the first hit and killed the Ice Gamin (taking 2 Wds from Shatter) and then moved up to join the Coryphee.  I put her too close, however, making the trio of Duet, Dove and Cassandra far too tempting for Tina

Tina and the Wendigo Companion activated, and Tina sent some December’s Curse towards the Duet.  She burned through all her remaining soulstones, but this ensured repeated Overpower triggers, letting her cast December’s Curse again and again for free.  The first shot had a Casting total of over 30(!), and I flipped a 1 and a 2 for Defence on the Duet!  Severe damage followed, and although the Duet only took a couple of points of damage, both Cassandra and the Dove were wiped-out by the blasts.  Tina failed to kill the Duet off, despite repeated successful casts.

An angry Duet made a Healing Flip (2 Wnds back), moved into melee with Tina and her Wendigo and went to town.  I needed 2 Moderate and 1 Severe damage to kill Tina, and I had the cards and soulstones to ensure the wintery bint didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell   With Df2, she went down on the third hit.

The Convict Gunslinger decided to Rapid Fire the Duet.  There followed an incredible series of card flips by Mark, where despite all the odds, all three shots hit the Wendigo instead of the Duet!  I think his hands were shaking with the cold.

After that Collette moved forward and got within 8″ of the fourth and last table corner.  I would have Power Ritual on Turn 4.

At this point Mark conceded the game.  Three of his non-Insignificant models were gone (Tina, Ice Gamin and Acolyte) for one of mine (Cassandra), and his Wendigo was locked in melee with the Duet, who would surely kill it next Turn (and probably the Convict Gunslinger, too).  I was about to get 5VP for my Schemes as well as +1VP for killing Tina, and as the most he could get was 3VP, there was no way he could win.

Summary:  More than anything, this game has brought home to me the complicated ways the Strategies and Schemes interact, and how tactical a pure VP system can make a miniatures game.  My crew had little chance in an outright fight with Tina’s, since she could wall me off with Ice Pillars and Ice Gamin and then slaughter me with December’s Curses and the Ice Golem.  Fortunately, I got a Strategy that at least made the most of Collette’s crew’s amazing movement abilities, and my Schemes followed from that.

What could Tina have done differently?  It is a solid Tina crew, but I don’t think Mark was ready for the kind of movement that could get a 14ss model (the Duet) behind his lines on Turn 2.  From there, Tina was exposed to a melee, which rarely happens.  Collette’s crew has limited blast attacks, so grouping the Gamin around her would have kept Tina safe(r).  If  the Golem was closer to her that might also have helped keep the Duet at bay.

I could have been more aggressive, and could have got the Duet easily into melee with Tina on Turn 2 if it had occurred to me, but I was crippled with second guessing myself about what I needed to do (a common theme of my Malifaux games with Collette’s crew).  That would not have kept the Duet safe from December’s Curse, and would probably have kept Cassandra and the Dove alive.

Rules I Forgot:  Models in melee receive +1Def for every model in melee with them when being shot at.  Models in Hard Cover receive +1 Armour.

I kept this image in mind as I played. Not really, though.

Not only did I get to try my new Colette crew out last night, but I took my new Malifaux terrain along to the club and played the game on that.

Mark and I agreed 35SS.  He brought Kirai (3 Gaki, 2 Onryo, Datsue-Ba, 4 Seishin and the Spirit of Lost Love) and I took Colette with Cassandra, 2 Coryphee, Performer, Mannequin and a Mechanical Dove.

The Strategy was Shared something or other, where you had to have models in the opposing player’s table half and none of his in your own.  For Schemes, I picked Sabotage (mistakenly thinking it was a new one) and Bodyguard for Colette.

We didn’t get the whole game in (just 3 Turn), and that was down to the sheer number of rules and abilities each model in our respective crews had.  There are many obvious and hidden synergies in both crews, and they depend on them to function at their peak, so Mark and I sat there for long periods studying our cards and asking baffled questions of one another.

But despite this mutual befuddlement, we still had a very fun game.  It seemed that choosing 35SS was a mistake when I was playing this complicated crew for the first time, but in hindsight it gave me an opportunity to see all the key models working on the table together.

First Thoughts: Colette’s crew is very powerful.  It just isn’t obvious at first how she and her Showgirls can deal the damage.  With practically every model able to access soulstones in some manner, no model gets left swinging in the wind if you don’t want it to, and with a large starting Soulstone cache and Colette’s abilities you can be churning new soulstones out all game long.

Colette: She didn’t see much action, as I kept her back, but even so she was central to the fight:

• Reactivates every Turn for free;
• Disappearing Act is awesome.  If a model is causing trouble, pop it in your magic box and move near your heavy hitters (Cassandra and the Coryphee).  Pop that model out at the end of the Turn and kill it next Turn.
• Disappearing Act becomes even more awesome with its triggers.  You really want a medium Tome in your hand (although a low one will do).  Then you discard a Soulstone to add another card to the casting total.  You get to flip two cards when doing this, and you want either Tomes or Crows.  Tomes gets you a new Mannequin (and good luck to the model you hit trying to resist your Casting total!) and Crows gets you the Soulstone back.  And Colette can try this spell 4 times per Turn!
• Soulstone factory.  Her abilities and spells let her churn these out.  I wonder if hiring a Soulstone Miner is even necessary.
• Mechanical Dove factory.  These things are among the best totems in the game, and you can (a) make them for the cost of 2 control cards, and (b) have up to three at a time.

Mechanical Doves:

• A flying soulstone that any Showgirl can use.  Coryphee about to go into some serious action?  Keep a couple of these close by and if the Coryphee get attacked they can make the Doves go poof! and use them as a Soulstones to boost their Defence or Resist duels.
• Magician’s Duel.  10″ move and cast this spell as a melee attack.  And – since the Dove can use Soulstones – you can use this on practically any enemy model to cause damage where the enemy least expects it.  It’s even better against enemy Masters…

Cassandra:

• Melee beatstick that gives enemy models –neg flips on the Defence.
• With the Coryphee on the table, she has insane movement.
• Breathe Fire works at the range she likes to be at (close up) and does superb damage.
• Triggers keep her moving, and Sublime Performance ensures she gets them.
• She has some cool abilities for both before and after the game ends.

Coryphee:

• What’s not to like?  Low wounds, but they are hard to hurt in the first place.
• More insane movement, with one being able to slingshot the other (and then Cassandra!).
• Dance Together.  Kirai’s crew could find no response to this beast.  It zipped across the table, killed two Gaki, healed itself and zipped back.

Performer:

• Not sure how to use her yet.  She could use Siren Call and her Clockwork Derringer to draw enemies out of cover and shoot them, but her main focus seems to be debuffing the enemy.
• Seduction is one of the best debuffing spells in the game, and it has a decent range that should keep the Performer out of melee.

Mannequin:

• I made a mistake with this model, and Linked it to the Performer.  This is an example of WHAT NOT TO DO.
• I will try linking this model to Cassandra, Colette or (maybe?) a Coryphee.  The benefit of Mirrors was obvious, but with the Mannequin linked to the Performer, I couldn’t work out how to get it into play.  Mirrors, by the way, allows all Showgirls within 2″ to ignore weak damage.  When your main beatsticks can all practically ensure the enemy is hitting them on a –neg flip – wow!
• Lastly, it lets you do an 18″ Get Out of Jail Free move.  Link the Mannequin to Colette.  If any of your Showgirls (say, Cassandra) get into trouble within 18″ of Colette, use Illusionist to swap Colette and Cassandra.  Then use Illusionist again to swap Colette and her Mannequin.  Then activate the Link (always on) to snap the Mannequin back to Colette.  And there you have it – an 18″ reach and grab that pulls your big hitter out of a tricky situation.

Overall, the Showgirls are extremely fast movers that can carry out surgical strikes on elements of the enemy army.

And if the enemy army bunches up, just kidnap a key model and tear it apart.  Kidnap works like this – get close with either a Mechanical Dove, Colette or Cassandra (and with their movement and swapping abilities this shouldn’t be hard) and then use Disappearing Act to capture an enemy model.  Remember, all three of those models can not only use the spell, but can use soulstones :)  Use Illusionist as above to get the model out of there again.  At the end of the Turn place your captured model in melee range of your hitters and wipe it out.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

A very fun crew to use, although I get the feeling I haven’t even scratched the surface yet.

Oh, yes – I need to paint them

A showgirl and her pole, yesterday.

With the Kroot Mercenaries a distant memory (albeit one that still causes a spasm of pain whenever I remember the failed Ld10 test) tonight sees the turn of Malifaux to soothe my gaming urges.  I will be taking Colette and her Showgirls out for a spin in my pimped out terrain set, and going up against another new Master from Rising Powers, Kirai and her spirit crew.

Since I have no real idea how Colette is meant to play, this could be a short game, but I’m willing to bet it will be a lot of fun.  I’ll see if I can kill anyone with a dove, perhaps.

Also looking forward to trying out some of the new missions and encounter locations, provided that whatever encounter location we flip, it’s going to look an awful lot like a gothic city.

I actually looked up a list of quotes from the film Showgirls to see if any of them might make an amusing post title, but all I learned was exactly why that film earned the, err, cult following it did.  Wow.  Showgirls does for good dialogue what Ed Milliband will do for the left.