Publish or Perish; or Sandeep and the Academic field!

Welcome

Howdy folks!  Thanks for stopping by for another post today.  We've got a little bit of everything today, but our big topic is Academic use with Sandeep.  I've trawled through a couple great sources (Wyrd forums, A Wyrd Place on Facebook, the Malifaux subreddit etc...) to dig up some ideas and opinions for this article, so I hope everyone enjoys!

Hobby

This week has been a little light on hobby (I'm in the middle of a commission and a move, so my hobby time is either sold or unavailable) but I did manage to get a lot of stuff based and put together!  Pretty much all of my GenCon purchases are all together.  This includes everyone's favorite magic professor, Sandeep, and the limited edition stuff, Miss Fire and the Wild Ones (I'd listen to that band...).  Unfortunately, no paint made its way to a Malifaux model in my office this week, so I'm a little disappointed with myself, but that just makes it that much easier to beat this week next week!

Gaming

I managed to get a game in with Sandeep this week, and it was an absolute blast!  I didn't take his unaligned sage upgrade for a spin (I don't have Transmortis or Sanctioned Spellcasters yet) but this was a setup that I would consider taking it with.  My opponent was my awesome local Rezzer (Hi D!).

The Strat and Schemes

The plan was to be prepared for Reckoning, but not too worried about it.  The abundance of summons with rezzers left me confident that I'll be able to kill a few models a turn, even though I don't have a ton of Killy models.  A well placed gamin with the buff upgrade can turn innocuous models into combat monsters, or Banasuva into the diety of destruction he is based on.

A hired wind gamin and a summoned wind gamin can easily take care of line or plant evidence on their own, assassinate typically is a bad plan into rezzers, a summoned metal gamin and/or a support piece will hold on to protect territory easily, and I had no hard plan for vendetta.

My Crew

50 SS Arcanists Crew

Sandeep Desai + 5 Pool
- To Command Another Plane (1)
- Arcane Reservoir (2)
Joss (10)
- Warding Runes (1)
Oxfordian Mage (5)
- Temporary Shielding (0)
- Blood Ward (0)
Oxfordian Mage (5)
- Temporary Shielding (0)
- Nemesis Ward (0)
Oxfordian Mage (5)
- Temporary Shielding (0)
- Doom Ward (0)
Large Arachnid (6)
Silent One (6)
Wind Gamin (4)
Ice Gamin (4)

Deployment

Deployment: Flank Deployment (11)
Strategy: Reckoning (Crows)
Schemes:
* A Line in the Sand (Always)
* Assassinate (Crows)
* Protect Territory (Tomes)
* Plant Evidence (3)
* Vendetta (5)

Flank deployment suited me well, with scheme runners in the top prong of the "L" and most of my crew in the left prong.  He countered my wind gamin with Yin (who I can't stop calling Y'inz, if you're from Pittsburgh you'll get it) and put the majority of his crew in the prong closest to my crew.

The Game

We'll keep the report itself pretty short to save room for the article.  I declared protect territory and plant evidence.  Belles did what belles do, I countered with my own movement shenanigans.  Yin worked its way to the center and Joss attacked.  I out activated my opponent, and was able to set up fairly well for the next turn, sending my arachnid on an extreme flanking maneuver while gamin set up for the schemes.  I jammed his deployment pretty early and he did not have much luck with summoning (his hands and flips were utterly awful).  We wound up calling the game at the end of turn four, with a grand total of zero summoned Rezzer models, and the only dead Arcanist model a summoned Banasuva.  Very fun game, that could have gone completely the other direction with some more successful summons and lures (I don't think I'll ever take oxfordian mages without someone to trigger their student loans).

Sandeep is the kind of generalist master that doesn't suffer from "Jack of all Trades, Master of None".  Who you hire with him is what will set the tone of what he will be doing.  He is capable of charging in and being supported by his crew, and equally capable of supporting his crew.

Academics

Let me tell you about Sandeep's classroom.  He doesn't judge, wether you are undead, a paramilitary wizard, or an imprisoned ticking time bomb on a leash.  Everyone has the opportunity to learn a thing or two.  What I don't want this article to turn into is "OMG theme lists are traps" or "You're not playing the game right if your lists aren't fluffy!".  What I do want to address is that I don't think the most effective plan with this gentleman is to hire an all academic list.  I have always been a fan of oxfordian mages and a librarian, so at its very worst the Unaligned Sage upgrade is a more efficient merc tax for the librarian.

Let's talk about the upgrade itself first.  Sandeep doesn't hire academics regardless of faction natively, he needs to pay for the 1 soulstone non-limited upgrade Unaligned Sage.  This upgrade allows friendly academics to use beacon regardless of los and hire out of faction academics.  It also grants Sandeep two additional actions.  Action Through Inaction allows Sandeep to perform a (1) action that lets him suffer a damage to draw a card whenever an academic discards a card.  The Sight Beyond is a (1) action that allows other academics to not randomize when the target is near Sandeep.

So, who does this add to his hiring pool?  Sanctioned Spellcasters, The Students (Steel, Sinew, Viscera), The Valedictorian, and librarians (plus all of the Arcanist academics).  The Valedictorian is a beater without peer, and Arcanist upgrades are a great addition to an already good model.  She also shares the lecture notes ability with all of the students, giving Arcanists access to easy disruption.  The students...  Sanctioned Spellcasters...  Friekorps Librarians...  As far as Arcanist Academics we have the Mages, who are a fairly known quantity as far as what they do.  They have low wounds, movement shenanigans, and a powerful cast.  Kudra is a henchman that I haven't had success unlocking yet.  I also haven't had her on the table much, so I'm going to reserve judgement (though, four attacks on the charge is great against most hard to wound/high armor models).  Amina is going to take a lot of study to get right, and as a nine stone henchman she is up against some tough competition.  The Shastar Vidya Guard fill in that front line role, and I need to compare them to the students to figure out how to properly use them.

I like the idea of hiring Sanctioned Spellcasters to spread out my Oxfordian mages, and a block of three mages and two spellcasters comes out to 26 soulstones (with the oxfordian upgrades and Unaligned Sage).  The problem is, this is an amazing second line, but there isn't too much of a great front line.  Valedictorian with Warding Runes comes out to 11 SS and gives you a solid beater and a 37 point list with 7 models.  Not too bad, but a little bit fragile.  You have sanctioned spellcasters to protect the mages, a big flying beater, and room for a few more hires.  I would really want to hire an M&SU henchman to turn on student loans, this means Amina, Captain, Firestarter, or Joss.  We also want a gamin for summoning Banasuva, and a little bit of a cache.  We're missing a little bit of healing/support in this list, something a librarian or a silent one would fill, scheme runners (who could ideally be summoned), and we still haven't bought a limited upgrade on Sandeep.  Two to three stones for upgrades, two to three stones for his cache, and we have eight stones left for hiring.  I'd be tempted to hire an ice and wind gamin, one of his limited upgrades and arcane reservoir.  This leaves us with this list.

Nine models, some scheme running, some beating, and some support.  It is a thematic list that doesn't fall too far into the keyword trap.  The list may be a little stronger if I drop a Sanctioned Spellcaster for a Silent One or a Librarian, depending on how I want to shave points.  Something to keep in mind is that the hiring process is on a bit of a timer, and you always want to build to a goal.  This list has a lot of questions (from the war gaming idea of bringing a list that asks a question), has some great movement shenanigans for your list and the opponent, and can deliver things to some dangerous beating zones (woe to anyone that gets between the Valedictorian and Banasuva!)

That's it for hiring academics today, let me know if you agree, liked the exercise, or think I'm an utter nerd that missed the point entirely let me know!

Closing

Thanks for reading today!  I hope you enjoyed some of my ramblings on Sandeep and my own experiences with the hobby.  I hope I didn't wax poetic on the Academics for too long.  I have been having such a great time theory crafting with Sandeep (and even getting games in!) and I really look forward to getting him all painted up to show off here on the blog.

Keep an eye out for me next week, and as always if you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me via email at ToBeAnArcanist@gmail.com on Twitter @KFinchster and right here on the blog in the comments below!

I, Gamin, Will Save Us!

Introduction

     Howdy folks, and welcome back to a new edition of To Be An Arcanist!  Hopefully my World of Warcraft buddies pick up on this week's title.  It's been a long year with a lot of fun and exciting things going on in my life, and I'm ecstatic to throw my hat back into the blogging ring.  I've had my gaming energy revived by the latest release, and I figured the best way to get the ball rolling again is to have a discussion about my favorite master in the game right now, Sandeep Desai!

Sandeep's box

     In Sandeep's box you'll find the mystic himself, his henchman Kudra, his totem Banasuva, and three poison gamin.  He comes with 11 upgrades, two of which are limited. His limited upgrades are "To Command Another Plane" which enables his unique summoning and powers up his mace, and "To Behold Another World" which allows the other half of his summoning and gives his mace the ability to paralyze.  His non-limited upgrades are "Unaligned Sage" which allows him to hire academics regardless of faction and gives him some more synergy with them, and "Enlightened Soul" which lets him play around with incorporeal through a 0 action and let's him recover cards by killing enemy models.  Kudra gets "Free of Mortal Shackles" which buffs her for being close to gamin and gives her a 0 action that outright kills a friendly gamin.  This may seem a little counterintuitive, but between the affects that many gamin have that go off when they are killed (not sacrificed) and the limitations by which Sandeep's summoning is constrained, this is an extremely useful option.

     The last collection of upgrades are all extremely important to Sandeep's summoning mechanic.  He has two series of three upgrades, each series matching up to one of his limited upgrades.  These series are the "Commands" and "Visions" upgrades.  They are gamin only and can not be attached at the start of the game.  When Sandeep successfully uses his summon ability you must take an upgrade from the series that matches his equipped limited upgrade (we'll go more in depth on this topic in the next section).  In the "Visions" series we have "Visions in Flame", "Visions in Earth", and "Visions in Wind".  "Flame" disallows this model from cheating fate, but gives the model don't mind me.  "Earth" prevents the model from being moved or pushed (but not placed) even voluntarily, but gives it a 6 inch aura where enemy models must discard 2 cards to declare an interact action.  "Wind" disallows the model from making attack actions, but allows it to interact the turn it is summoned.  In the "Commands" series we have the similarly named "Commands in Flame", "Commands in Earth" and "Commands in Wind".  "Flame" also prevents the model from cheating fate, but makes it immune to slow.  "Earth" also prevents movement and pushing, but adds 1" of melee and 3" of shooting range.  "Wind" also prevents attack actions, but gives other models in a 3" aura + to all attack duels.

     That's a lot to unpack all at once, so let's take a look at what he can summon and how these upgrades interact with the summonees.

Summoning with Sandeep

     The man with the plan can summon 6 different models.  An 8 of masks will get you Ice, Fire, Metal, and Wind gamin.  A 9 of masks will get you a poison gamin.  The big daddy of the gamin however, is Banasuva.  Banasuva cannot be hired, but with a 12 of masks and 2 damage to an existing gamin you get this 8 cost minion totem.  Due to the upgrade based nature of Sandeep's summoning you will only ever have three extra gamin out at one time, but by getting them killed off you can get the upgrade back in the pool and summon something new.

     Let's start with the ice gamin.  At first glance these guys have two great roles, grenades for summoning Banasuva, and complicated buffs to Banasuva's damage.  Banasuva can steal abilities and actions from friendly gamin that are within 8".  The plan is you use the ice gamin' bite of winter to add +1 to frozen heart models' damage profiles.  Later in the turn you activate Banasuva, have him steal frozen heart from the ice gamin, and boom you have a true combat monster. (Thanks to Fog on the forums for pointing this one out at GenCon).  When summoning you've got a great set of options.  "Commands in Wind", "Visions Earth", and "Visions in Flame" makes the lowly ice gamin enough of a threat to incentivize getting hit by the ice grenade.

     Metal gamin, wether you love them or hate them since they were allegedly needed into t certainly serve a purpose in Sandeep's crew.  Turning them into a buff bot with "Commands in Wind" and casting protection of metal paired with going defensive is great.  Either of the immobile upgrades are great for shutting down a zone, and they allow you to use a 16" snipe shot of two damage to constructs by casting magnetism without caring about the push.  When summoned, these guys are great at holding a zone, and Sandeep's upgrades only make them better.

     Now we have the fire gamin.  These guys are probably my favorite choices for an ever so slightly more punchy option.  Increased range on their spit magma means you can get burning onto models from a crazy distance away.  These gamin also punish the opponent for killing them off, so any of the upgrades that buff a zone will put the opponent into a weird position, and I love it.

     Wind gamin are my favorite choice for scheme runners.  They don't really rely on their attacks, so the wind upgrades (go figure!) are great on them.  A wind gamin summoned in on the last round, leaping and interacting to clinch a last minute VP is such a juicy proposition.

     I am not claiming to have unlocked the mysteries of gamin in general, but the poison gamin still leaves me scratching my head a bit.  I'm positive that there are situations where you will want to summon them.  The push at the end of their activation is nice, the extra wound is useful and poison is nice.  That all being said, I still prefer burning to poison as an offensive condition.

     Time for the main attraction.  Banasuva the big blue flaming ball of death is ready to rumble.  Melee expert and a 3/4/5 damage spread with the option for blast damage on a tome, burning on a mask, and the option for +1 damage from ice gamin shenanigans all add up to make this guy an absolute monster.  He can throw height 1 models in the same fashion as the ice golem.  I imagine a magical Christmas dreamland where an ice gamin has set up his buff, Banasuva 0's to gain frozen heart, melee experts his first app to punch something, second ap to punch and finish it off, and third ap to throw the gamin at another model (or two), killing the gamin to trigger an explosion and finish off what it was thrown at.  Lofty goals, I know, but a man can dream.  "Commands in Flame" and "Commands in Earth" are my favorite upgrades for him, but any upgrade that doesn't prevent him from attacking is a solid choice.  Just remember with the earth upgrades you can always use Sandeep's 0 to place him into a better position.

     One last note about these guys.  There are five different little guys that can all work together to summon a big blue superhero.  Each of the little guys is associated with an element (earth, wind, water, fire, and something only vaguely associated with an element heart/poison I'm looking at you).  Where have we seen this before...

Closing

     Again, I am in no way an expert on the game, these are just my observations.  I'd love for the conversation to continue in the comments, let me know if you think I'm full of tuna fish, or if I'm the best thing you've ever heard!  We had a pretty lengthy article on the possible uses of Sandeep's summoning, so no battle report or hobby section this week, but look forward to more as we enter the wild west of wave four.

     If you like what you saw this week make sure to follow me on Twitter @KFinchster, email me at ToBeAnArcanist@gmail.com, or even leave a comment down at the bottom.  Thanks again and I look forward to getting back into the rhythm of things here on the Internet!

Kevin and the Hidden List!

Howdy folks!  Bet you didn't think a post was on it's way today huh?  Well here it is!  I think we've got something new and exciting to talk about today, which has me pretty excited.  There is a tournament coming up at one of my local game stores (Legions Hobbies and Games, check it out if you're in Pittsburgh), so I am going to need the help of the To Be An Arcanist nation!  More about that in the Gaming section.  I've been working on several non-model projects that don't make for particularly interesting bloggery, so I'll cover all of that in the Hobby section.  No games this week, but I did get a great game of Through The Breach in (our crew even met Willie!).

Hobby
I've been working on a few more tiles for a 4x4 table, a light box (I found a sturdier base for the box itself, but that is leading to difficulty in construction), and a few other non-Malifaux modelling projects (I was thinking about Malifaux the whole time though, I PROMISE!).  X-wing and Warmachine have been stealing a little bit of my hobby time, but I'm finding ways to make a balance.

Gaming
The second game of our Through The Breach campaign was an absolute BLAST (thanks Willie!).  The crew came up against an ancient evil and some new ones, then managed to keep themselves (mostly) alive.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next game.

Another exciting gaming piece of news (and the reason I've called you all here today) is that I've got a tournament coming up in a couple weeks!  It will be a 100 point pool, 2 master, Strats and schemes (so far) unannounced event.  I will be throwing everyone for a loop and choosing Arcanists (note to self, design sarcasm font).  My two masters will be Ramos and Ironsides.  I've decided that between them, they can both do stratsy and killy schemes, they just have different choices as far as positioning.  Ramos can spread out, Ironsides likes to stay clumped up.

The pool includes non-summoned models and upgrades, and it looks a little something like this:

Ramos - Free

Ironsides - Free

Brass Arachnid - 4

Mouse - 4

Joss - 10

Mechanical Rider - 12

Oxfordian Mage x 2 - 12

Johana - 7

Freikorps Specialist - 9

Arcane Effigy - 4

Gunsmith - 7

Performer - 5

Union Miner x 2 - 10

Willie - 6

Arcane Reservoir - 2

Blood / Nemesis / Doom Ward - 0

Challenge the Crowd - 1

Electrical Summoning - 1

Frontline Leadership - 2

Imbued Protection - 2

Iron Determination - 1

Warding Runes - 1

I'll also be painting up all the models that are likely to be summoned, they include :

Mechanical Rider's List

Fire Gamin

Metal Gamin

Steam Arachnid

Electrical Creation

Mannequin

Ramos's List

Steam Arachnid

Electrical Creation

Steam Arachnid's List

Steam Arachnid Swarm

And Here They Are!

This pool allows me a little bit of bunch, a little bit of scheme manipulation, and a little bit of shooting.  Depending on the strat/schemes I can load a little heavier in any given one of those options and mech rider's summoning lets me adjust to the board on the fly.  I look forward to going against someone who is all in on scheme markers with a performer, some summoned arachnid swarms, and the specialist.

What do you guys think?  Is it a balanced pool?  Am I going to get absolutely hosed by a strat? Is it impossible for me to paint the unpainted guys in 2 weeks?  Let me know!

Thanks again for reading today.  If you have any questions (or feedback on the list seriously I need all the help I can get!) feel free to leave a comment below, email me at ToBeAnArcanist@gmail.com or tweet @KFinchster.  I always appreciate the reads, so have fun and I'll see you next week!

The School of Missed Posts!

Howdy folks, long time no see!  First off I want to apologize for missing last week's post AND yesterday's post.  It was bound to happen eventually, so now we've got the off schedule bug out of my system.  Today's post will be a brief recap of the last couple weeks, paired with a little bit of anticipation for the next couple of weeks!

Hobby
Most of my hobby time has been taken up by school exploration (hooray for going back to grad school as a non-traditional student!) but I have managed to get some paint on a few things.  Some steam arachnids have slowly approached tabletop quality and more layers have gone onto my mechanical rider (the true brains behind the operation).  Willie and Joss have also gotten closer to painted, bringing my painted M&SU count even higher.  I've been having a great time experimenting with skin tones and techniques and I cannot recommend experimenting outside of your comfort zone  highly enough!

I also painted up a mini for a game of Through the Breach (that I tried out just after the last post).  I'll talk more about the game in the gaming section, the mini was a blast to paint!  It was from the multipart male kit and I think that that kit is a wonderful tool for anyone getting into the RPG

This week's major project is to finally get a real photo booth/tent set up so I can post some better photos for everyone.  I have about 70% of the materials, but since this is a project that benefits the site aaaaaaand my wife's Etsy store it may be a little easier to justify.  I'll forego pictures this week to build some anticipation for next week (and shame myself into being ready for next week.

Gaming
I played two games of Malifaux and one game of Through the Breach during my absence from the blog.  All three of the games were terrific!  I won't do a full batrep for time, but here's a quick summary:
Game 1 was a 35 Soulstone game with Reconnoiter, Bodyguard, Murder Protoge, Protect Territory, Make Them Suffer and Line in the Sand with Standard deployment.  I took Protect Territory revealed and bodyguard on Mechanical Rider.  I tried Ramos out for the first time and was not disappointed!  I think he will be my first compliment to Ironsides.  For as good as Ironsides is in a clumped up situation, Ramos can spread out across the board without a care in the world.  My opponent played an elite Sonnia Crew and we called the game at the end of 4 because of the shear number of spiders earning me points.
Game 2 was a 50 Soulstone Game with Squatter's Rights, Protect Territory, Spring the Trap, Bodyguard, Outflank and A Line in the Sand with Flank deployment.  I took Ramos again and used the plethora of scheme marker schemes to bluff my opponent (who was playing Leviticus).  I chose outflank and unannounced line in the sand.  Mechanical Rider with Imbued protection gave a strong signal toward Bodyguard, and defensive models dropping markers faked protect territory.  My miners did a great job of halfway setting up spring the trap as well.  I was proud of my ability to approach the game sideways and send spiders in to tie up a first turn Killjoy, while letting Leviticus downright delete a model or two a turn.  I wound up winning by getting ahead on squat markers and focussing on my schemes.
Game 3 was Through the Breach, and I think a mix of mechanics, a super skilled fatemaster (that gets me a free reflip at some point right?), and a great setting made this one of my favorite RPG systems that I have played for a while!  After some stutter steps in the character creation process I've found a good groove for my character to match and I look forward to playing another game tonight!

The last little bit of gaming news is pretty exciting.  http://zacgoldenhall.blogspot.com/ Is managing another season of Tale of Malifaux Bloggers!  This is a way for people to keep themselves on track (kind of like how I've been using the blog) and encourages getting a new crew painted and on the table.  I plan on picking up Rasputina's box set in the near future (at one of my FLGS's Drawbridge Games).  I look forward to adding updates to this set of games, and will be doing so outside of my normal posting schedule, so keep an eye out!

Thanks again for reading folks!  If you have any questions feel free to contact me at ToBeAnArcanist@gmail.com, tweet to @KFinchster, or just leave a comment below!  I always appreciate any criticism or encouragement and I'll apologize for the missed post one last time!

The Path to Nythera

Howdy howdy folks!  Thanks for reading again!  This was another great week for hobbying (even if I stretched out into another couple systems.).  I managed to paint a few minis, make a few boards (experimenting with different texturing techniques) and I even got a Nythera game in!  I have really gotten an extra level of enjoyment out of my hobby since I've started blogging about it, and I want to thank you guys for that.  I'm surprised by how regular I've managed to keep the posts, and here's hoping I can keep that regularity up!

Hobby

As far as hobby activities go I've assembled my coryphee from GenCon (I'm working on being able to swap their bases between 2 on a 50mm or individually on 40mms), I've started painting my mechanical rider (she is a MONSTER on the table, who knew?), and I've painted up 2 demo boards.  One is specifically for Guild Ball, a 2x2 pitch for demo games, and one is for Malifaux demo games (although, it wouldn't be a bad display board for a certain cult of martian mechanics).  I'm looking forward to picking up the Malifaux starter set from one of my FLGS's this week (Drawbridge Games!  check it out if you're in Pittsburgh!), so I'll probably spend some time this week building up different pieces of terrain that you need to run the demo scenarios.  I still haven't gotten around to setting up a nice photo booth, so i'll have to describe some of the painting on mech rider.  I used a progression of blue to purple to pink for her flames, base coated and washed all the metals, and use a brass color to accent around the steel colors.  The coryphee are on flagstones that are slightly larger than the cobblestones I typically base my Arcanists on, but this will help with the magnetizing.

The TARDIS conveniently showed up for the Coryphee to lean on.

Try to guess which one is the Guild Ball pitch!  I hope my wife doesn't turn the fireplace on...

Gaming

In the slightly modified words of Nux from Mad Max (just go see it already) What a week, what a lovely week!  I played a Nythera Global campaign game with my local rezzer player and he took the dreaded Nicodem!  We flipped for all the campaign bits, and he wound up being the attacker and set his sights on Slate Ridge.  Here is the Strats and Schemes pool we flipped.

Hmmm, Turf War you say?  Arcanists you say?  Who should I bring?

After little to no deliberation, I decided on Ironsides.  Half because I want to get more games in with her, half because she's painted, and wholly because it was turf war.  The hard part was figuring out who else to bring?  I brought al little bit of shooty support with the mages and the gunsmith (who had a real tough time slowly descending from their vantage point), 2 Miners came along as hybrid scheme runners/counter scheme runners,  Johanna and Mouse came along to heal, and Willie brought his wheelbarrow.  Johanna had the extra usefulness of being able to remove conditions in a pinch (but her ability is REALLY hard to get off without the ability to use soulstones!) in case he dropped McMourning, and Willie was there to manipulate scheme markers or blast if he went heavy summoning.

Let me know if I made any dumb choices!

The game started off with a bang!  We each deployed in our corners and declared Plant Evidence.  He had breakthrough unrevealed and I had Vendetta unrevealed  naming my gunsmith and his punk zombie.  I'm really liking the trick of using Mouse to damage a friendly model for Ironsides' ability (and the fast trigger on the gunsmith), reposition the model, and then have the opportunity for a heal.  I don't like bottlenecking my own models on a flight of stairs.  Everyone generally meandered towards the middle.

My Deployment

His deployment

The first summon was rough, a Hanged right at the turf marker.  That hanged stuck around for a crazy amount of the game.  Next the punk zombie got hopped up on some sort of meds from the nurse and came right for my Gunsmith.  I got initiative on the next turn and use a lot of resources to have the Gunsmith put the punk back into the ground, earning me full points for one of the schemes.

End of turn 1

End of turn 1

Center scrum!

The game was a rough fight and there was a lot of back and forth in the Turf Marker scrum.  At the end of the day my fringe guys managed to stop his scheme running canine remains before they could run away with the game, I earned full scheme points and 3 strat points.  He earned full points for plant evidence, but none for breakthrough and 2 for turf war.  Slate Ridge was successfully defended, but at great cost in Arcanist lives.

Where'd all those extra bodies come from?  How did Mortimer's spleen turn into a zombie lady of the night?  Where'd the clothes come from!?!?!

Some of the highlights from the game include two Hanged keeping everyone afraid of everything, Ironsides making 5 or 6 attacks in one activation to knock out a punk zombie and most of his buddy, and the sheer amount of damage Nico put out with his attack spell (decay? despoil?  delovely?)

This was another excellent week for the hobby, and I look forward to another one this week.  You guys have all kept me on track and I just want to thank you for that again.  If you want to get in contact with me you can leave a comment, email me at ToBeAnArcanist@gmail.com, or tweet me @KFinchster.  Thanks again and I'll see y'inz next week!

The Rotten Flowers of Malifaux City

Howdy folks!  This was an amazing week for the hobby!  We had the announcement of the new Nythera global campaign, I managed to get a fair amount of hobby and painting in, I even got a great game in at one of my FLGS's!  That was a lot of exclamation points, but stream of consciousness writing demands it.  There are some great things on the horizon for my meta.  The Nythera global campaign is going to set a sense of urgency to most of my general pick up games, the regular Shifting Loyalties campaign options are opening a lot of cool things for some tied in games, and one of my local stores is planning a tournament soon(TM).

Hobby

I assembled a bunch of miniatures and set them straight into my "to prime" box.  The weather was super friendly, so I got a chance to spray prime a large number of models.  I spent a little more time painting Howard Langston, and really enjoyed putting paint on this mini.  The body portion really leant itself to being painted, the texture was great, there weren't too many spots that were hard to reach, and it was pretty clear what parts should be painted in what colors.  Once I painted Howard I had an itch to keep the spider train rolling, so i cranked out six more steampunk arachnids.  If I ever go down the sneaky path that is Summoner Ramos, I intend to be prepared.

Arachnophobia much?

Stay Away, I'm covered in BEEEEEEES

Gaming

I got another game in this week!  I had an absolute blast playing my local Rezzer.  We were both signed up for the Nythera Event, so we decided to make the game count for that.  He was the defender, and I was the attacker for (drumroll please) Nythera itself!  We set up terrain, he declared Rezzers, and I declared Arcanists.  Our strats and schemes were Stake a Claim, Line in the Sand, Power Ritual, Plant Explosives, Protect Territory, and Breakthrough.  We had standard deployment and I immediately went to my binder to figure out a list.

I was afraid of what kind of conditions a Rezzer could throw at me, so I knew I would need some sort of condition removal.  Rezzers hate burning, so I knew I would need access to that condition.  I intended to play fairly scheme heavy, so I needed some scheme marker shenanigans.  Mech Rider and and declared power ritual seemed pretty strong.  I tried to bluff plant explosives with Willie and one undeclared scheme, which I wound up choosing breakthrough for.  Here was the final list.

The first turn went pretty straightforward.  We both dropped scheme markers in corners and moved some guys forward.  Seamus jumped to chase some of my scheme runners on the right, and some Rotten Belles attempted to tempt my miners.  A bystander mentioned "That's what you get for tempting a Miner" to which another witty bystander noted "No, 10-20 is what you get for tempting a Minor!"  insert Statler and Waldorf laugh.

Run all over the place!

Firestarter places a scheme marker for a Moleman, who proceeds to jam into Seamus's face.

The game got really close after that fun interaction (spoiler alert moles hate hedgeclippers) and I neglected to keep accurate photos throughout the match.  I got too carried away with little things like thinking about the game, and trying to win.  we had some awesome interactions and Seamus did what Seamus does.  Lots of close range shots to kill stuff, followed by summoned Belles and Doxies.  Eventually Seamus went for the assassination run on Ironsides from the third floor of a building in the middle of the board, but didn't quite finish the job.  As a result the Copycat Killer teleported to the third floor to try to finish the job.  He shot and missed, but that gun had one heck of a kick.  three stories later a tiny corpse with a smoking gun was all that was left of the Rezzer totem.

I REGRET NOTHING!

The game progressed and we wound up with a 3-5 loss for the Arcanists.  I'm still learning the flow of the game and the interactions, but I truly had a blast getting my butt handed to me.  Seamus really is a nasty customer, fortunately Ironsides is tough enough to take a shot or two and keep on punching.  I liked playing Ironsides, but was a little timid with her.  She would have been the perfect target for a Belle Bomb.  Belle pounces for 1, Ironsides punches back etc...  Overall the game was a great learning experience and I can't wait to progress the Arcanist cause with my next game!

His backfield

MVP Doxy

The center scrum.

Final Standing on his side.

Thanks again for reading folks!  I really appreciate all the feedback and support I've been getting for the blog.  This has been a great tool to keep me focused on the hobby, motivate me to play games, and expose me to the awesome community that plays Malifaux.  If you have any questions or just want to say hi, feel free to contact me in the comments here on the blog, at ToBeAnArcanist@Gmail.com, or on twitter @KFinchster.  Thanks again for reading, and I will see you all next week!

Kevin and the Grind Stone!

Ok, maybe today's title is a little bit of a reach, oh well.  Howdy folks!  I hope everyone had a super productive hobby week!  I'm excited because I got some models put together, I got some models painted, and I made a neat trade on Bartertown for some limited edition models (Dead Justice!).  Not a bad week.  Unfortunately I didn't get any games in, but it was for a good reason.  I spent the weekend camping with my wife for our second wedding anniversary!  As a result, no battle report, but maybe we'll work a little theory-faux in to make up for it.

Hobby

This week I put together a bunch of models for game systems that shall not be named on this blog (only because it is roughly 40,000 years in the future) and a Malifaux faction that shall not be named on this blog (it ain't easy being green).  As far as painting goes I painted up my Metal Gamin and Mei Feng, I'm still going to focus on using Ironsides until I get her down though.  I had a lot of fun experimenting with skin tones and the orange that I wound up using for her fabric.  Wonderful model to paint.  The Metal Gamin provided me with a lot of hard questions to answer.  Mostly "How do I not just drybrush this with metallics 400 times?".  In the end I hope I painted up a solid looking model my opponents won't begrudge me for putting on the tabletop.

Still haven't gotten the hang of this "Photography" thing

Effin' metal...Gamin

Gaming

Like I said earlier, no game this week, but there are some neat things on the horizon and we have a little space for some theory-faux.

On the horizon, one of my local stores has a big tournament planned for the nebulous "future" (maybe mid-October), and another of my local stores is trying to plan a campaign/achievement league to drum up interest in the game.  I'd love it if we could get enough people on board to really work on this new campaign system.  I have been reading the new book and I've got to be honest with you, It looks awesome.  The classic example that the Mistakes Were Made guys keep referring to is probably my favorite.  You can have an Ice Golem with a jetpack!

Theory-faux : You have declared Arcanists and your opponent has declared Guild.  Terrain has been set up and identified, and the following scheme pool has been revealed.  How do you choose your crew for a 50 SS game?

I Like the idea of Ironsides in Turf War.  She gets in the scrum, and she punishes your opponent for being in there.  Unfortunately, assassinate is also in the pool.  This means I either need to leave Ironsides on the shelf (she's pretty good at dying on turn 4-5) or I need to devote crew to protecting her.  For this exercise, I'm choosing more protection because it lends to the turf zone, and my opponent can't drop Molly across from me.  This means a Metal Gamin or two and at least Mouse, maybe even Johana.

Now that I am devoted to some sort of protection I feel the strong urge to keep protecting.  This way I can double down on each point I spend on keeping something alive.  Bodyguard seems like a logical choice, but who do I choose?  This is where things get a little dicey.  Murder Protoge is in the pool, so I need to keep costs in mind, I'm already bringing Johana, so she is a solid target with her condition removal and healing.  Another solid strategy is to bring Oxfordian mages and use them to manipulate the scene and keep my opponent guessing for my Bodyguard target.  Flooding the board with defensive enforcers and Henchman seems like a good call.  If flooding is the plan 2 Mages and The Captain seem to achieve this plan pretty well.

So, our list currently looks like :

Please, disregard the email and low Wi Fi

We have plenty of support for our middle scrum, ways to keep our intended targets alive, and ways to move targets in or out of the middle to our liking.  Unfortunately we don't have a deliberate second scheme, and winning on 7 points is not a great proposition.  The Mage/Captain package could probably put my opponents most expensive model into the ground, but with Guild being declared I don't like my odds against a Peacekeeper or Francisco (though with enough relic hammers any construct is in trouble).  This strategy does lend itself to keeping my Bodyguard target alive, because the most expensive model tends to be the most killy, and if it is dead, it isn't killing my Bodyguard target, or achieving Assassinate.  The danger of running under this assumption is that I leave myself vulnerable to a tanky expensive model soaking up the hits while I try to earn Protoge.  That's a risk I'm willing to take though.

Overall I'm happy with the list and the thought process, but let me know what you think.  Would you take a different master?  With no Deliver the Message or Cursed Object is Mei clearly the superior choice?  Am I crazy for not taking Mechanical Rider and declaring Power Ritual?  You tell me!

Can these plucky Union men (and women, and...robots?) Achieve their goals in the face of the oppressive Guild?

I hope you guys liked today's blog and remember you need to keep me painting!  The more people that read this the more responsible I feel for getting stuff painted for you to admire, and the more responsible I feel to get games in so I can chit chat about the game with you.  Feel free to contact me through the comments on the Blog, Via Email at ToBeAnArcanist@Gmail.com or on Twitter @KFinchster.  Thanks for reading and I'll have more up for next week!