Malifaux Monday! The Dreamer faces Marcus and the beasts!

Another Malifaux Monday, and this time I got to play Brendan and his freshly painted Marcus-led crew! This was also my first time using my almost-but-not-quite-completely-done Nightmares, with creepy-fog effect!

Creepy Fog or snow?

We decided to do a 50ss battle (the first for both of us I believe). We got Normal Deployment, and Reconnoiter Strategy.

Scheme pool was Assassinate, Bodyguard, Cursed Object, and Plant Evidence.

I didn't like my chances of Assassinating Marcus...not that I really know if he's hard to kill or not, but the not knowing made me think I'd rather not try it. I considered taking Bodyguard on Widow and trying to keep her out of harms way, but I didn't think I could keep all his leaping Beasts away. Coppelius with Wings was something I considered, as he could just fly around and scheme and stay away from the meanies...but didn't sound fun. Instead I decided to try to use some Madness for Plant Evidence and follow my 'charge in there' instinct and take Cursed Object...I figured I could out-activate him and use later-turn activations to hand over an Object for easy points.

To that end, I chose to bring:

Dreamer (Dreams of Pain)
Teddy
2 Stitched Together
2 Insidious Madness
2 Alps
3 Daydreams

Brendan brought some models with which to proxy as the other things he's ordered aren't in yet, so was using some GW models to fill in. His crew was made up of:

Marcus
Myranda
Cojo
Saberetooth Cerberus
Razorspine Rattler
Jackalope
and 3 Gupps

He had many upgrades, but I didn't catch what they were called or what they did...Brendan, feel free to expound here!

As planned I chose Plant Evidence and Cursed Object. Neither of us revealed anything...and off we went!

He deployed with his fighty stuff central, and Gupps on the wings. I put Teddy and the Stitched centrally (ready to hand out cursed objects!), both Madness on my left, and the summoning crew went to my right, hiding behind a very attractive building! ;)

Neverborn Deployment

Arcanist Deployment!

I grossly underestimated the range and ability of the Gupps. I pushed both Madness up early, and the Gupps jumped on one and killed it! I then started pushing Teddy towards those Gupps, hoping that with Peekaboo Teddy could kill them both...if I could trade one of mine for two of his, I'd be happy.

But he had other plans, using Marcus to reactivate Cojo, pushing him up in Teddy's way and showing Teddy his junk, pushing Teddy back away from the Gupps.

A Daydream was Sacrificed for Masks, and since I had a super good starting hand (an 11 and two 13s!) The Dreamer went crazy, summoning Lelu, Lilitu, and Coppelius. Alps healed up the Twins, and all three went to the extreme right where he had only one Gupp...I thought I had a good chance of killing that Gupp, owning the two right Quarters for Recon, and putting me in solid position to control the game. Between activating near Dreamer (Waking 2), the Alps, and their own regeneration, the Twins were at 7 Wds. Coppelius was slacking with only 2.

Then with my final activation, Teddy...insulted by Cojo's display, went for the Gobble You Up on Cojo. He cheated in to beat Teddy's low flip, but I'd pulled off one of my summons with a flipped 12, so had a 13 in hand which I used...I figured the + Flips on Teddy would be more than worth it...

and I was right. Teddy Flurried, and killed Cojo with three sweet and loving hugs...after pushing him back out of position to make it harder for Myranda to heal him up if he lived, and get Teddy out of LOS for turn 2 charges!

Teddy pushes Cojo around and kills him with one activation!

Lelu, Lilitu, and Coppelius head up my right side!

Turn 2 and I ran my Madness back deep in to his Corner, hiding from everything hoping to stay alive long enough to get some Scheming done. Teddy did Gobble You Up on a Gupp, and I got ready to Flurry, then remembered I'm supposed to be handing out Cursed Objects, so saved my card, wasted a lot of AP on Teddy, and just handed the little baby lizards a Cursed Object.

I'd walked some Stitched up towards left centerline. The Rattler quickly charged one and took him to one wound, giving him Reactivate. Which I did, handing a Cursed Object to the Rattler! The Gupp Teddy was trying to hug Lept away next to the Stitched, and killed him with the Trigger that turned him in to a Silurid, which cleared away the Cursed Object on him! Oh no!

On my right, the Freshly Summoned crew moved out. I Schemed just past centerline on a small piece of terrain with Coppelius. Lilitu tried to Lure a Gupp to setup a charge for Lelu, but the Gupp activated and jumped away. Instead Lelu pushed himself (?!) and walked to place a Scheme in the forest on Brendan's side of the table. Dreamer then summoned a Madness to go down my right and another Daydream, going Chompy. The Daydreams pushed Chompy towards the Rattler. I finally got him up there, and had to intentionally not kill him...if I'd killed him I would not have scored that Cursed Object! Chompy left him with 3 wounds, and that was the end of the turn. I believe we both got a point for Recon, and I got a Cursed Object point on the Serpent!

Stitched hands the Snake a Cursed Object before the Gupps kill him!

Lots of effort went in to getting Chompy on the Serpent, then I had to pull back and not kill him because I needed him alive to score Cursed Object!

My memory from this point on is a bit hazy, sorry to say. I remember at this point that I actively (for the first time!) tried to determine what Scheme my opponent was doing. He'd been placing markers on the centerline, some not in terrain, so that indicated LITS. He was NOT placing any in terrain, so I didn't think he had Plant Evidence. He wasn't handing me Objects, so he didn't have that either. That left Assassinate (which would be bad, as I'd run Chompy up in to the shit!), or Bodyguard. I figured he wouldn't want to have to try to kill Dreamer, and since his Cerberus was lurking in the rear...well, he must have BG on the Cerberus!

I clearly had my brain off in turn 3, as despite having more activations, I set myself up in a pretty bad position. I went first, and did something worthless with an Alp. He then went with the Cerberus that was lurking behind the church and killed my Insidious Madness back there! Damn, I should have done him first, placed a Scheme and hid! Oh well!

I did something else unimportant, and he activated Myranda, healed up the Snake, then Companioned the Snake, which killed Chompy! We both Cheated a lot, but Chompy just wasn't tough enough to take it. I probably could have (should have?) burnt some stones to try to stay alive, but...I failed. He pushed Chompy somewhere even more inconvenient before Dreamer popped out...groggy and Slow and feeling very vulnerable (damn...maybe he does have Assassinate!?) All I had with Dreamer were some Daydreams and a Stitched. Teddy was near enough to support, but I decided to use Teddy to try to kill the Cerberus. I cheated a 13 on the Gobble, but he did too, and the Cerberus was kept safe. So instead Teddy walked and placed a Scheme marker for me near the church. Take that!

Coppelius got healed up a bit more and moved back to try to chase down the stupid Silurid that spawned from the Gupp. Jackalope charged Dreamer but failed to do anything. Slow Dreamer chose to stay where he was, summoned a Madness to try to tie up the Jackalope and the Serpent (at least forcing it to Slither if it wanted to get away). The Stitched chose to remove another Scheme marker, despite his early Schemings he was down to 3 on the centerline now. I got a point for Recon, he got none, and I got Cursed Object point.

Turn 4 and he revealed that he was Bodyguarding the Cerberus. I felt ok leaving Dreamer exposed now! As the hour grew later, though, my awareness and memory of things grew slimmer. Coppelius charged the Silurid...I forgot about the - to Charges, though, and though I collected a few eyes I couldn't kill it, leaving it at 1 wound. It of course Lept away before I could finish it with a nearby Alp or Madness. Sad Madness moved to centerline and removed another one of his Schemes. Sabertooth moved out from behind the church. Lilitu did Blood Whispers then Lured the Sabretooth, getting him in Pounce + Charge range for Lelu. Not sure what Brendan did after that activation, but I was able to do just that with Lelu, taking off a big chunk of the Sabre's health and leaving him poisoned. Marcus then charged Lelu, turned him in to a beast, and despite some really sobering debuffs to Lelu managed to not kill him, leaving him at two wounds! The damage from Black Blood left the Sabre with only 2Wd, and Poison ticking!

My Madness gave the Serpent another Cursed Object, and I think that was that for the turn. I got another point for Recon and one for Cursed Object, he got none.

The Dreamer (barely visible behind a tree) takes a Jackalope to the face, and calmly holds his ground to summon some friends!

Lelu takes on the Sabretooth and Marcus!

Very key, I won the initiative here on turn 5. Lelu of course activated first, doing a Vampiric Bite to the Sabre for 1 to finish him off, then doing 1 to Marcus too to heal up a tweak. Marcus didn't care, and killed him anyway. We maneuvered around a bit with little serious action. I tried to get Coppelius in to remove a Scheme at the middle of the table he'd placed, but he jumped a Silurid thru the window to prevent me from Interacting without killing the Silurid...Coppelius tried, but couldn't do it in one shot, but killed it with the second.

Marcus and a Gupp did something scary to my Madness at mid-table to kill it, and the Gupp turned in to another Silurid which was able to Scheme. Another Gupp moved towards one of my scheme markers, but wasn't able to get in base. I stood an Alp on top of it to at least make him have to kill me before he could do it. Playing for turn 6, Myranda sacrificed herself to become another Sabre which he set up to clear out my right side (at this point down to Lilitu and an Alp on 1wd).

Teddy failed Gobble You Up on the Snake, so Dreamer used the auto-Mask on Empty Night to push him 3 times and was able to kill the Snake and the Jackalope, and the flip for end of game came up and it was over!

Endgame!

I revealed my unsurprising Plant Evidence, which got me 2 points (I had 3 markers down at this point...extra credit?). He revealed his LITS, but with only 3 markers down he got no points.

I scored 4 for Reconnoiter, 3 for Cursed Object, and 2 for Plant Evidence.
He only got 1 for Recon on turn 2. No Bodyguard on turn 4 as he wasn't far enough from his Deployment Zone, and I took all his LITS Schemes away

9-1 for Dreamer!

My opponent and I are both still really new to the game. Any evaluation on Dreamer Summoning ability should take that in to account! Brendan seemed disappointed with his Scheme selection...having one of his heaviest hitters lurking behind his lines didn't do him any favors, and he said he misread Plant Evidence or he would have taken that one along with BG on Myranda (who likes to live behind the Beasts anyway) I think.

This was a tremendously fun game, with some great amusing flips (Red Joker for Gupp Leap was hilarious!). My initial hand (11 and two 13s!) made for a very potent first turn of summoning. Teddy was nice until I got him stuck way out of the way, though he was still able to do some scheming (removed one of his, planted one of mine) while dominating a big chunk of the table thru pure threat. Lelu and Lilitu are great summons. I'm still unsure on the Alps. I like the IDEA of them (that being they heal up my initial summons then push forward to be a Pain with their Aura on enemy), but I still haven't really made it work. Coppelius did very little, but that was more on me trying to use him to keep up with models that are considerably faster and able to leap out of melee.

Brendan seems to be really liking his crew, and is anxious to get his Gupps and Silurids in. He's also got some Molemen on order to try out!

I've got to get a few more small things done on the Nightmares, then get the Jacob crew painted and I'll be ready for Nova! One small thing before Nova, Gamer's Gambit is having a small 25pt Henchmen-only 3rd event on Monday Aug 11th! Come on by if you're in the area!