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!