Malifaux - The Guild Grows...

Looking back over my posts about Malifaux, it seems I have a small flurry of posts each year. Two years ago I covered the painting of my Lucas McCabe crew. Last year I chronicled my introduction to the game itself. This year, it's more toy soldiers : )

My gaming group has recently started playing Malifaux again, so I figured it was a good chance to try a new crew and paint up some more models. I have a fondness for all of the different Guild crews and I like the idea that I can keep expanding my collection and will, in years to come, be able to pick and choose from a large pool of minis.

It was a toss up between Sonnia Criid and Lady Justice, but I felt the Death Marshals would take a bit longer to paint up when hobby time is at a premium. The Witching Stalkers are very cool little models too - this helped sway me.

Here is my Sonnia Criid, flanked by Samuel Hopkins and the Perpetual Flame. I decided to go for magical blue flame on both Sonnia's sword and her totem, rather than the standard orange fire. This way I'll be ablate match them to the Death Marshals when I get to them (probably next year).

I really like my wooden plank bases and figured that a creature like the Perpetual Flame would create some charring damage. Over the top of the wood I sculpted some charred wood texture with greenstuff, then painted it up to look the part. Over the top of the grey edges I lightly drybrushed some Blue Green to simulate some OSL.

The very cool Witching Stalkers. I love the poses, the swords, the robes, all of it : )

And because I love to push around more than the average amount of models, I added these two Guild Guards to the crew. These two are perfect for dropping Scheme markers and getting in the way or slowing down enemy models.

I have also decided to build a handful of models that could work as Guild Guards or Wastrels. This figures are from the Through The Breach Male Multi-part Models box set. There are some interesting parts in the set, but also a surprising amount of repetition. Still, these four are pretty cool.

Anyway, I have to get back to my painting table : )

Cheers

Dave

Winner, Winner...

My apologies for not posting this yesterday, but I was struck down by an as yet unidentified lurgy. Anyway, with almost 200 entries (both here and on the DTM FB page) I hit up random.org to generate the winners.

The first winner (and soon to be proud owner of a Battle Foam Malifaux bag) is Joshua Tumbry!

The second winner (and soon to be proud owner of a NIB Izamu) is Mark Liszewski!

Congratulations to you both, please get in touch asap so we can get the prizes out to you.

I'd also like to mention the incredibly wide variety of miniatures selected by you all as your favorites. I think that's a real testament to the quality (and delightful insanity) of the Malifaux range as a whole! Well done Wyrd : )

Malifaux, Interviews, Facebook, and a new Competition!

Quick Tip: This is quite a long, but snappy post, with a good pay-off at the end : )

Since the beginning of the year, I've been able to play four games of Malifaux. I've blogged about the experience of the first two games HERE. At the end of that post I suggested that my friend John Swann would likely steamroller me the next time we played.

Well, as luck would have it, I drew John in the very next gaming session we met. I told him about my blog post, we had a chuckle, and then jumped straight into the game.  I won't bore you all with the details of our McCabe vs Yan Lo game, but suffice it to say I was unpleasantly surprised by the abilities of the punk zombies. Basically like throwing a blender into a fish tank.

Anyway, I was also very worried about the abilities of his walking suit of samurai armor (not used as Izamu, but another nasty guy whose name escapes me right now). I was pleasantly surprised when his attacks against Sidir Alchibal (inspired no doubt by Captain Nemo) all missed, and my cards triggered his defensive response. Without even activating, my henchman (Sidir) had taken out John's "tank". The photo above shows the final result of the game. Five of my models stood ready to take down a wounded and lonely Yan Lo. I had developed a plan, learned more about my crew's skills, and had some lucky flips at the right times.

The photo below shows my casualties admiring the view from their tower.

Of course, that sweet taste of victory would not last long. At the following gaming session, as we had all played each other before, we drew cards to pair up. Lo and behold, I found myself across the table from John Swann again! My crew was exactly the same, John's was similar, but with a few important differences. Our table (below) had a few more LOS-blocking pieces of terrain too, something that would play an important role in my eventual downfall.

I tried to refine my plans, working with a slightly different grouping of models - surrounding McCabe with the Wastrels to try and keep him alive longer, and putting Sidir and the two Riflemen together for a solid base of fire. My initial net gun attacks worked incredibly well, paralyzing the focus of John's crew, Izamu (the real one this time).

John had learned, however, and even though I constantly gained the initiative each round, I was unable to neutralize the threat, and John slowly whittled down my crew until I was completely ineffectual.

Dave - 1, John -1.

So, on to the next portion of this mammoth post, the Interview.

As you may remember from this post earlier in the month, I have recently started my own business providing all manner of services to other businesses in the wargaming industry. In order to help me promote that business, Romeo Filip invited be to be the guest on the next 40KRadio podcast (out today, if I remember correctly). We chatted for a long time about various things, including some of the services I can provide, but of course it always comes back to toy soldiers.

We chatted about my recent dabbling in Malifaux, and out of the blue Romeo offers to send me a Battle Foam Malifaux bag (shown below) to give away in a promotional competition!

Obviously I said yes, so this is where we move into the Facebook and Competition section of the post.

Last night I launched my company Facebook page - Dave Taylor Miniatures. This morning I have put up a competition post. All you need to do to enter is one (or both) of these two things:

1. Go to the Dave Taylor Miniatures Facebook page, 'Like' the page, and leave a comment naming your favorite Malifaux model.

2. Come back here and leave a comment naming your favorite Malifaux model.

That's right, you don't have to go to Facebook if you don't go in for that sort of thing, but folks who do can basically get two entries into the competition. The competition will run from now until next Friday, March 21st, at 1pm EDST, when I will randomly select the winner from those who have liked and commented here and/or there. I'll announce the winner here and on my FB page and that person will have two days to get in touch. If they do, I'll ship them the case free of charge, and if they don't, I'll draw another winner.

I'll also randomly select a second winner and send them a "new in box" version of the model that seems to be fast becoming my nemesis - Izamu the Armor!

Have fun everyone!

Cheers
Dave

Malifaux - A whole new world!

A little over a month ago, I posted that I was going to be playing my first game of Malifaux that night. The request for a report on that game was pretty significant. I certainly wasn't expecting that kind of response from you, my faithful blog readers. I wanted to post a report straight away, but I didn't. I didn't post a report because I felt it would be hideously unfair to both you and to the game of Malifaux.

"Unfair?" I hear you ask. Yes. Unfair. Read on and I'll tell you why.

Neverborn face off against Arcanists in the streets of Malifaux

 On that first night of Malifaux gaming, I went along WOEFULLY unprepared. I've never been much into the "gaming" aspect of our hobby, preferring to spend my time immersed in the "painting" aspect of things. Having said that, however, I have played at least a dozen different gaming systems in my time, possibly closer to two dozen if I count those games played once or twice. As I've grown older I've realized that I absorb rules faster and more thoroughly when I learn them from another player. I learn more aurally than visually. I've also learned that most miniatures games follow a particular pattern, and there typically aren't many situations where luck can swing things completely out of your grasp. Generally speaking, in most miniature wargames, you can tell what's going to happen next. You can be confident the odds are either in your favor or stacked against you.

Knowing these things about wargaming (and my approach to it) lulled me into a false sense of security. I'd painted up a nice looking crew of models, I had my character cards (they came in the box with the models), and I had a scary sense of knowing exactly what I was getting into.

This turned out to be tragically* wrong.

The Ortegas (Guild) unsuccessfully attempt to rein in the activities of a Ten Thunders crew. 

Upon arriving at my regular gaming haunt (my friend Eric's basement, we meet every other Tuesday night) I was met by my other gaming friends and an excited flurry of chatter that might as well have been in another language. You see, the other four players had either played plenty of games or had read the rules a couple of times and absorbed them fairly well. As there were five of us, I volunteered to sit out the first round and watch (and download my 2.0 Beta character cards from the Malifaux forums).

I must admit I felt a bit like Antonio Banderas' character in The 13th Warrior, sitting around the campfire night after night, slowly piecing together the language of the Northmen (in my case it was the language of Malifaux). Negative flips, +3 Rams, dropping Scheme Markers. It all seemed fairly impenetrable.

But I took my time, I watched what the guys were doing during their game, I compared their character cards to my character cards, and asked questions. Slowly I felt I was getting a handle on things. And then it was my turn to play. I was up against my friend Thomas, who was running his Decemberist crew, the same one I painted for him last year (see it here). Malifaux has quite a strange order of things before you actually get into the game. Unlike 40K, for example, you don't actually choose your army/crew makeup until after you know the placement of terrain, your deployment area, the schemes you'll be trying to achieve, the faction you'll be facing. This allows you to tailor your crew to suit all of the opportunities mentioned. Of course I've never done that sort of thing before, and not having played the game I had no real idea of how this would benefit me immediately, so I simply chose the models I liked the most.

When we leapt off into the game, I figured that the models would all perform best for me by doing the things that they looked like they'd be good at (Guild Riflemen sitting back taking long ranged shots, McCabe using his grenade launcher to blow away the big guys, etc). This is where things fell apart a bit - I discovered that missile ranges in Malifaux are quite short and that a rifle that was taller than the model wielding it could only shoot 14", and my "grenade launcher" was actually a "net launcher", not so good for blowing things up but better for slowing things down.

Suffice it to say that my first game went the way I expected it to (down the tubes in a hurry), but for completely different reasons than I expected.

The Ortegas clash again with remnants of Lucas McCabe's Relic Hunters.

Fast forward to last Tuesday night (we'd missed a gaming session in between to snow, which only seems to fall in Maryland on gaming night). In the weeks between sessions, I'd gone out and bought the small Malifaux rulebook (quite a good deal at $15), and ordered my Fate Deck (which sadly didn't arrive in time), and added a Guild Pathfinder and four Clockwork Traps to my pool of models to draw from.  I made sure I read through the rules and looked at my character cards. When I arrived at Eric's we again had an odd number (yes, and all of us are a little odd too) so I sat out the first round again. Watching the other games and reviewing my crew, I started to understand the things they could do. Finally, it was my turn to shine, or at least polish some of the tarnish off my initial experience.

We played a small game, only 25 Soulstones. My crew was led by Sidir Alchibal (toting a rather tasty machine gun) and had a few Wastrels, two Riflemen, and a lone Clockwork Trap (that I deployed incredibly poorly and then watched him clank ever so slowly towards the enemy).

I decided to be bold with my Wastrels and swaggered them forward at most opportunities, but taking the time to attempt a well-placed shot when appropriate. My Riflemen raced forward to take up position early, and then hunkered down, either firing away at an Ortega on my left flank or building up Focus on my right (this Focus helped me take out a Guild Guardsman with one shot).

I could see what I was doing right, and I could see what I was doing wrong, and I was developing potential strategies for future games (like possibly leapfrogging a trio of Wastrels around the board so they would constantly have one of them in a position to heal one of the others).

Although my second game was cut short by the late hour, I was pretty confident that even if my next five games of Malifaux end with me crying into my pocket handkerchief, I would learn so much about not only what I could do better next time, but how I could foil my opponent.

Unless, of course, that opponent is John Swann... I'm pretty sure he'll crush my crew faster than I can understand ; )

Cheers
Dave

* Obviously it wasn't literally "tragic", but I felt the hyperbole was helpful in making my point ; )

My first game of Malifaux...

Well, it's my first ever game of Malifaux tonight. I'll be using some combination of the models in this post. Wish me luck! ; )

Cheers
Dave

Wastrel or "wasting my time"?

So, do you think I should enter this guy in the painting competition at Kublacon today?

Cheers
Dave

Starting on the Relic Hunters

In between other projects (and boy, aren't there too many of them) I decided to start blocking out my colors on the Malifaux Relic Hunters I was tempted to purchase last month. Usually I'd have a clear idea of scheme for all the models and then I'd work on them in batches, starting with the darkest colors and layering up.

Most of the scheme has been decided for me (I'm sticking pretty close to the Wyrd "Studio scheme" for this group), so I'm going to have some fun with it by starting with mid-tones, highlighting up, then pushing in some other colors for shades. Fingers crossed it'll work alright.

I couldn't help myself and just had to start highlighting and shading the coat of this Guild Rifleman. Such beautiful models : ) I also enjoyed the detail on the gaiters.

And here's my tester for the bases. I think the freshly laid wood is going to work well against the black, blue, grey, and white scheme.

Cheers
Dave

Oh My... Shiny!

Apologies for the crappy photo, taken on my phone late last night.

There are sometimes I know I just shouldn't go to my FLGS (Dropzone Games), as I'll see something there I might not be able to resist. I find I'm more likely to be distracted if I have a LOT on my painting plate already (currently ACW, Mechanicum, Lamenters, and a couple of other things), so here's the new, shiny thing I've purchased.

Photo from Dakka member Valtyr, used without permission.

I picked up the Relic Hunters box, and have added a Guild Riflemen box that the nice folks at Wyrd sent me in January. After putting together these plastic models, I must say I'm very impressed. I'm not just impressed with the level of detail and the number of components that increases the layered feel of the models, but I'm also impressed by the amount of character pushed into each sculpt. Bravo Wyrd, bravo!

Now don't worry, I won't be suddenly playing Malifaux, but this does give me a chance to scratch the itch to paint these lovely figs. Once I'm done I'll be selling them off, that's my justification for buying them in the first place ; )

Cheers
Dave

Cold snap!

And now I have completed the Malifaux crew for my friend Thomas. I don't pretend to understand the game, but he told me the other night that all the models I had painted for him were those with the Cold Heart ability/special rule/connection, sounds suitably chilly for this cold snap we're having.

When we talked through the scheme at the start of the project we agreed on a palette composed primarily of pale blue, purple, and bone. It was a lot of fun to try and restrict everything to these colors, as well as taking cues where possible from the original "studio paintjobs". As a refresher, here are the first batch of beasties.

This Ice Golem (on the left) was interesting to paint, and by interesting I mean it took me four times as long to finish as I thought it would. lots of layers over the entire model, and even the there could have been more.

Here's the whole crew assembled. I hope you like them : )

The cool bases are from Dragon Forge Design. The clumps of snow on the bases are from Secret Weapon Miniatures crushed glass kit.

The list of paints I used for the project are as follows (in manufacturer groupings):

GW Seraphim Sepia

GW Thunderhawk Blue

GW Averland Sun

GW Boltgun Metal

GW Mithril Silver

GW Rhinox Hide

GW Nuln Oil

P3 Morrow White

SWM Amethyst

SWM Storm Cloud

VGC Black

VGC Hammered Copper

VGC Glorious Gold

VGC Hexed Lichen

VGC Turquoise

VGC Tan 

VGC Dwarf Skin

VMC Pale Sand
VMC Deep Sky Blue
VMC Beige Brown
VMC German Grey

Perhaps you'll seethem on the Malifaux tables at Adepticon : )

Cheers
Dave

Feeling the chill...

Snow Storm

Sitting here in my basement, I can feel a slight chill seeping in under the door. Although we didn't get the projected 1-3" of snow, it did snow for quite sometime. Just perfect weather for painting up these Malifaux models for my friend Thomas.

You'll have heard me mention Thomas before, whenever some laser-cutting needed to be done. He is the guy who reverse-engineered my Imperial truck design and turned it into the files you can find here. He has also helped me with loads of other stuff over the last four years. So, I finally thought I should start paying him back. To that end I'm painting up his Malifaux warband for the tourney at Adepticon. Here you can see the first nine models complete, only six more to go.

The bases are from Dragon Forge Designs, the Ice Kingdoms round-lipped bases.

Ice Gamin

Essence of Power and Wendigo

The Warband so far

I hope you like them.

I'll try to squeeze in another post before the new year, but as hectic as the last few weeks have been, I wouldn't count on it ; )  If not, I wish you all a safe celebration, and I'll see you on the other side!

Cheers
Dave

Malifaux in plastic!

A week or so ago a nice brown box landed on my doorstep. I was unsure what it was, but as it was addressed to me I figured I should open it. Turns out it was a cool preview/review package from the guys at Wyrd Miniatures, makers of the very popular Malifaux and its lesser-known cousin Puppet Wars. Inside the box were some samples of their cool new plastic models (above), alnog with some packs of their new colored bases. While not really my style, these bases could certainly work well for many gamers when basing their particular factions. Oh, and did I mention they're plastic? Hard plastic, not plastic resin, in a similar style to the plastic sprues from Mantic and the latest sprues from Wargames Factory.

Like many of you, I like big robot suits too, so the first box I broke open was LAZARUS.

Inside I was pretty surprised to see how it was all packaged. The hard plastic sprues were unlike any I've seen before and certainly not what I'm used to (surrounded by a plastic frame, for a start). Also included in the box was the unit card for the game, and a set of assembly instructions.

Four small sprues of hard grey plastic pieces, and one sprue of soft blue plastic cables. I assume you could save these until after you've painted the rest of the model and glue in the "glowy" bits, much like the green rods on Necrons. Or you could just as easily include them in your build an paint them another way.

The second box I opened was Willie the Demolitionist and there he was, all on a small sprue, much like the way GW are offering many new plastic character models. Also included were his base and unit card.

There is no doubt that Willie is nice and finely detailed. Check out those small bundles of dynamite!

It seems the sprues are also designed to be stacked in the warehouse, much like the sprues from Wargames Factory.

The Willie model was just so dynamic and characterful I just had to put him together.

Finally I took a look at the Dark Debts box. After the two different sprue presentations in the previous boxes, I was unsure what to expect (although I thought there might be multiple sprues), but upon opening I found all the parts of the Dark Debts models on one sprue.

The sprue certainly had the feel of a GW special box set (like Dark Vengeance and Space Hulk) about it. Obviously everything has been digitally sculpted and then digitally sliced apart to be arranged on the sprue in the most efficient manner. As each model really only goes together one way (although there are a few options for one of the Illuminated), it was cool to see what could be done.

I couldn't help myself, and had to clip a couple of my favorites from the sprue. Jakob Lynch (on the left) consists of seven parts, and a full ten parts go into the making of the Illuminated model on the right!

Initially I feared that the detail might be a bit too soft, much like the first few offerings from Wargames Factory a few years ago. It seems, however, that Wyrd have been able to push past that initial learning curve and jump in at what I would consider the "quite crisp" segment of the digital-sculpting-to-miniature spectrum. The details aren't as crisp as you'd expect from GW, but then again, GW have invested vast amounts of time and money to get to where they are now. For first offerings these are certainly some VERY impressive pieces.

Even if you don't play Malifaux (or aren't interested in playing) then you can always pick up a few of these sets as they release and incorporate them into your other gaming!

EDIT/UPDATE: Here area couple of other reviews of the Malifaux plastics
• Viruk's review on Independent Painters
• GentleBen's review on Bell of Lost Souls

Cheers
Dave