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!

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!