Jan 6, 2014

The Best Laid Plans… My Journey into the Breach

I’m going to take a bit of a departure from talking about models and such and discuss my approach to Malifaux. There probably be some rambling and tangental rants but hey, it happens! Hope you enjoy...

 I was introduced to Malifaux in about 2010 or so in the winter. I played a demo game with my friend. I used his Lilith and I think he played Lady J, while I thought it was a cool game, I really didn’t think too much about it. That all changed when I saw the LaCroix in the summer of 2010.  I enjoyed the Kin and I had some respect for a game that would so blatantly poke fun at itself. However, Rising Powers would be out for some time before I took the plunge and bought into the game over the summer of 2012. My first actual game (using my friends Ortegas as proxies for the Kin) was against Kirai. My opponent was friendly and we had a good time but I was wiped out by turn 3. I was just learning the crew and all the fun things that it can do. Often I would look for odd combos and just try them out regardless of the strategy flipped. Zorida, Ophelia and Candy was one of my favorite combos that doesn’t exist anymore. So from my first steps into the game I was playing more for fun than for actual competition. It was during this time I got my brother in law into the game as well. His first purchases was Pandora and Dreamer. Ugh. I played so many Ophelia v Pandora games that it just wasn’t fun anymore. I could tell how the game would go from the time we revealed our crews. Pandora would be the only model left on the table at the end of the game and hopefully I could score enough points (not likely since it was all end of game scoring) to win. So the race for escalation had begun Viks, Von Schill, Somer and Levi for me, Rasputina, Mei Fang, Ramos, Collete, and Lilith for him. In the escalation phase, I wanted to get Hamelin but I couldn’t just bring myself to push the auto win button.  I had become a bit more competitive (against my brother anyway) but still not table flipping, rage quitting, competitive. When Malifaux Second Edition was announced, I met the news with a ton to trepidation. At the time, no one in the general Malifaux community knew what to expect. I managed to finagle my way into the Beta in May and was pleasantly surprised by most of the rule changes. The Soulstone changes were the ones that took the most to get used to but it seemed every change was for the better. The best news was that the Gremlins had become their own faction. So during the beta I was always looking to break the models to help balance. Sometimes it worked others it worked due to a misinterpitaion of the rules. Sometimes it was an entire theory that looked good on paper and may have one corner case where the stars align on a Tuesday in June with a full moon then it would work. Anyway, after helping to Beta the game for a bit our group was burned out. Somewhere along the line, Malifaux went from being fun to competitive to “OMG! Gonna break it!” to an unpaid job. The last couple of games I have played have been wave one models and just for fun, as it should be, it is a game after all.

  Well if you have read this far here is my approach to Malifaux, whether it is a competitive game or a casual game. I take the models that always give me the best chance to win, sometimes. Malifaux is a game and if you aren’t having fun playing it then something is wrong. Well that and my fate decks seem to hate the hell out of me. Seriously! How in the blue hell do you pull a hand full of weak cards and then flip an ace and a two on a positive flip? That’s not to say that I take models willy-nilly. If my opponent has declared Ressers, I would look to Moon Shinobi to counter the Hard to Wound characteristic that seems to be intrinsic to the faction. This is the best thing about Gremlins (as they currently are), I can take any Master and so long as I choose the correct Henchman, I can run entirely different lists independent of the Master. So, I guess you could say I build lists from the bottom up rather than the top down. Either way, I build a list that I think will give me not only the best opportunity to win but also one that will be the most fun to play as well as fun to play against. It’s for this reason why I don’t often field the Pigapult; some people find it unfun to play against so I just leave it alone.  Moon Shinobi drive my Resser friend nuts but in a fun way. Well at least I think so! Now as time progresses and I find myself becoming more competitive I am sure that I’ll have no reservations about playing the Pigapult or other models that may be unfun to play against. That said, here is the best thing about Malifaux. Even if I bring a list designed  completely to destroy my opponent, sometimes the cards won’t let me. I guess that is Fate telling me that we need to take a step back and realize it’s a game that we play to have fun. If we’re not having fun, then I guess we should sell the minis and take up crochet. That’s all for me, Have Fun!

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