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!

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!