It’s that time again!
Captaincon is my One Con of the Year, at least until either 1) I get a job that works 50 or fewer hours per week, or 2) my son gets old enough to come to these things. I don’t think I’ve played a single in-person game of Malifaux since last Captaincon. Vassal is fun, but it’s really not the same.
My last few weeks before Captaincon were a flurry of painting, but with my forces battle-ready, I packed my bags and headed down to sunny Warwick, Rhode Island. The mission? Kick ass, take names, and hopefully not tilt off the face of the planet. As you will see, I accomplished two of those three goals.
Setting the Stage
Jesse Ellis of the Boring Conversation podcast was, as always, the host, but this year he really shook things up. The Malifaux Content Creators’ Invitational was no more; instead, Friday was just an ordinary three-rounder, a warmup for the main event over the weekend. Booty and Plunder returned, with some major changes – to be discussed next time!
Last year, I had a disappointing 3-2 finish in the five-rounder, so I was looking to redeem myself a bit this year. Could I pull it off?
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have a whole three-round tournament to get through on Friday.
Prologue: Shipping Down From Boston
I arrived Thursday evening, checked into my hotel room, and went to get dinner. Sorry, that’s not very interesting. I didn’t have quite as much time for extracurriculars as I have had at previous Captaincons; in order to be able to take off time from work, I had to work a half-day Thursday and do some work in the evenings over the weekend. But it was nice to get to the hotel. I feel like hotels are kind of liminal spaces, sort of located metaphysically outside the ordinary routine of work and home. They are haunted spaces, either by malicious spectres or nerd BO. The Warwick Crowne Plaza is pretty nice, at least.
The best part of the pre-show is getting to just sit down and talk Malifaux with my friends for a while. To be honest, that’s one of the best part of cons generally; whenever I go to a Malifaux event, in between rounds everyone is constantly just talking about Malifaux. What’s strong, what’s weak, what tech picks are hot lately, and of course, why we have to nerf Guild.
For the weekend, I had already decided to play as much Brewmaster as I could. Thematically, Tri-Chi is one of my favorite Bayou keywords; my Tri-Chi keyword is painted up very nicely; and Brewmaster just got reworked, so he’s really strong right now. How strong? I had only played 2 post-rework games with Tri-Chi prior to this weekend, so I wasn’t sure. But probably very strong. I brought my other keywords, but planned to rely on Tri-Chi until it became clear I couldn’t.
Spoiler: this did not occur.
Friday: Hot Singles In Your Area
Friday brought the only singles event of the weekend, a fun little three-rounder to warm us all up for Booty and Plunder. Why not, right? I declared Bayou, as is my wont, and set off for adventure.
Round 1: Burning Ring of Booze
Round 1 is always a bit odd; pairings are totally random, so you could end up clubbing a baby seal or matched into someone playing for the podium. I ended up running into Brian G of the Breachburnt crew, who was definitely closer to the latter end of that spectrum than the former.
The pool was Plant Explosives, on Standard deployment, with In Your Face, Outflank, Deliver a Message, Sweating Bullets and Ensnare. I declared Brewmaster while Brian, who was on Guild, declared Sonnia.
Sonnia has just recently been reworked as well and, while I had not played her yet, word on the street is that she’s really good now. That’s fine. I need the practice. I decided to go with Brewmaster2, who better supports what we call a “shitters” playstyle: lots of little dudes, nothing big enough for In Your Face. I took Brewmaster, Moonshiner with Twelve Cups of Coffee, Apprentice Wesley, Cooper Jones, two Fermented River Monks, three Moon Shinobi (two of which had the Two Gremlins in a Ghillie Suit upgrade), and Hoochdini.
Brian picked Sonnia’s original form (obviously), the Purifying Flame, Director Rodriguez with a Lead-Lined Coat, an Ashbringer, an Investigator, a Guild Steward, and two Rocketeers. The Rocketeers and Flame, unsurprisingly, went up the flanks, while D-rod and his support staff went right up the middle. I flanked with Moon Shinobi while keeping the others in the middle to do my poison-stacking unpack. I picked Sweating Bullets and Ensnare.
I played Turn 1 pretty cagey, unwilling to let him spread too much flame on me. He did get one big Sapping Flames off, but I was able to remove two models’ burning with Wesley’s Sober Up while removing Wesley’s burning with Hoochdini’s I Need a Volunteer. That left me decently well protected, and the Shielded from Cooper Jones prevented me from suffering any Burning damage.
Both of us got our summon engines going, him summoning a Witchling Handler while I summoned a string of Whiskey Gamin. Brewmaster dove hard into the Investigator; I simply was not willing to let that thing run around the board scheming and ruining my day. I killed it pretty easily and from there tied up Sonnia, the Steward, and the Ashbringer with Brewie.
My Moon Shinobi raced up the flanks, but I made a crucial error: I played them aggressively, hoping to pick up his Rocketeers and then start scheming. Unfortunately, while Moon Shinobi are surprisingly good killers, Rocketeers are not effective targets for them, as they have 7 health and Armor +1 and can reposition my guys with Up We Go. Moon Shinobis’ 2/3/3 attacks are not good at cracking through that, especially as Rocketeers are much faster and more maneuverable and can also use Heat of Battle to get extra AP. The net result was that I didn’t kill either Rocketeer and my scoring was extremely delayed, causing me to fall behind on strategy points early.
Hoochdini’s fat butt also made wiggling up through the center difficult, as he was blocked in by terrain. Brian, by contrast, had a nice clear route for Rodriguez to get in there and start punching people. Brewie could lock him down for a while with a 2″ engage and Twelve Cups to prevent him from hovering away, but when he eventually got free he ate through my Shinobi very quickly. Meanwhile, his Rocketeers scored him Outflank and started dropping Strategy markers, while he also managed to Deliver a Message.
Luckily, I had held back my Sweating Bullets Moon Shinobi and was able to run him in to engage Rodriguez for the first point there, while Brewmaster’s Drunken Clarity made Ensnare easy. I didn’t really need to kill anything else from there, just keep him engaged and unable to Interact to pick up my Strategy markers. I ended up having to scramble for enough AP to score, but Fermented River Monks are super durable, and one was able to run up and punch the Ashbringer to death with no trouble. That left me with enough material left on the board to cover all my bases: I could drop a second Strategy marker (although I never was able to score 3), lock down Sonnia and D-Rod to score the second point of Sweating Bullets, and scatter enough Scheme Markers around to score the endgame point of Ensnare. While Brian was able to score three points on the Strategy, he didn’t have the AP left to put a Scheme Marker near Brewmaster and keep it safe, so he was locked to one Deliver a Message point. That left us tied at 6-6 – a reasonable result, though I feel that if I had just focused on getting my bombs out ASAP with the Moon Shinobi before going into Kill Mode, I could have probably gotten a 7-6 win. Something to remember for next time: scheme first, kill later!
Round 2: Dreaming of Bacon
Round 2 I drew into Maeve. She’s a good friend and a solid part of the Malifaux scene, but she suffered a Model Bereavement recently when a moving accident destroyed (and I mean destroyed, beyond recovery) most of her collection. She plays a lot of MCP and has been rumbling about maybe moving off of Malifaux altogether, so this event might be her swan song, though I hoped it wouldn’t be.
The pool for this round was Raid the Vaults on Corner deployment with Power Ritual, Espionage, Outflank, Protected Territory and Information Overload. I think Brewmaster could have played this pool, but I wanted to try something else, so I declared Ulix.
I decided to play something other than Brewmaster, since the pool supported it and I wanted some variety this weekend. I landed on Ulix, a master I’ve always enjoyed, and Maeve picked Dreamer. I assumed Dreamer2 was coming since he’s vastly superior to his original incarnation – that’s a great matchup for Ulix, since pigs are fast enough to hunt Dreamer down and hit hard enough to just murder him. That kid is fragile and really relies on not getting hit.
In addition to Ulix’s title form I hired Penelope, Old Major, Bo Peep, two Piglets, Gracie and Big Brain Brin, as well as the new kid on the block: a Swine Twirler. Maeve took Dreamer’s title form, as expected, as well as Lord Chompy Bits, the Widow Weaver, two Insidious Madnesses, three Daydreams and two Stitched Together. So far, so standard. I picked Protected Territory and Power Ritual, since my crew is very fast and can scatter Scheme Markers wherever I need them.
This game didn’t last long, so I’ll focus on my unpack, which was the thing I really wanted to practice. Starting packed into the corner, I activated as follows:
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- Bo Peep used The Race Is On to push everyone up and Focused.
- The Swine Twirler attacked Old Major and Gracie to set them both on fire, then used Take by the Hand on Ulix.
- Ulix used Bacon Beeline to turn one of the Piglets into a War Pig, Law of Meat with the Herd the Pack trigger to heal off the damage I’d done (and heal up my new War Pig) and get some more movement, then walked and Focused.
- Gracie used Ride With Me on Brin to bring him forward, then walked up herself and Focused.
- Penelope walked up, bringing the Swine Twirler with her, then used Herd ‘Em on Bo Peep to make her use The Race Is On again, pushing my whole crew up further.
- Brin used Pulling the Strings on the Twirler, removing the free Scheme marker from Gamble, and making the Twirler use Take by the Hand on the War Pig to push it up 3″ and make it Concentrate. He then used Sober Up to clear burning from Old Major and give him Focus, and Calculate the Possibilities to stack my deck.
By this point, the new War Pig had not yet activated and was sitting almost on the centerline with a Focus. Maeve had buried Dreamer and now unburied him, popping him out and giving the War Pig Slow with Endless Slumber and dealing some damage to him as well.
Which meant:
- The War Pig used reckless to clear the Slow, walked, charged Dreamer, Stampeded, and took a Focused swing. I hit and cheated in the Red Joker for 7 damage while healing myself for 2.
Maeve prevented some of it with a Stone, but the Dreamer was still critically low on life, and there was nothing left to activate to kill the Pig – best she could do was hit it with Disembodied Voices from a Madness. But she had only four cards removed from the game and couldn’t bury Dreamer. I used Deadly Pursuit to scoot away from him, then fought for and won initiative Turn 2, Stampeded back in, and hit Dreamer on the second swing (charge -> attack to clear Distracted -> Focus -> second attack goes through). That put the kid in the dirt and Maeve conceded, as that crew doesn’t really do anything once Dreamer is dead.
I felt a little bad about that, but Dreamer is really fragile, and pigs are really good at killing whatever they touch. I don’t think Ulix is favored in the matchup, but it’s the sort of matchup where one mistake from Dreamer can cost him the entire game.
Onward and upward!
Round 3: The Man in the Mirror
Round three was against John “MoFaux” Moser, Texas’s resident Bayou expert who had brought only Brewmaster. This was gonna be fun. How could I resist a mirror match?
The pool was Cloak and Dagger on Wedge deployment with Death Beds, In Your Face, Hold Up Their Forces, Take Prisoner and Let Them Bleed as schemes. I knew I was declaring Brewmaster1, both because he’s better in the pool and because he hard counters Brewmaster2 (original Brewmaster punishes enemies for having too much Poison on them, while the title Brewmaster wants as much Poison on himself as possible).
I hired Brewmaster, Apprentice Wesley, Fingers Leong, the Whiskey Golem, Cooper Jones, and three Moon Shinobi, two with Ghillie Suits. Moser took Brewmaster’s original form as well, but with Twelve Cups of Coffee (perhaps to sober himself up), Wesley, Fingers, a Whiskey Golem with Inferiority Complex, McTavish, Cooper Jones, and Barrelby.
I had the edge in numbers but McTavish and his upgrades gave him the edge in quality. I decided to take Death Beds (naming Strategy markers) and Hold Up Their Forces.
The game was… very odd. For the uninitiated, Brewmaster gets +twist on all effects targeting models with Poisoned, and has two very powerful effects against models with three or more Poison: he can Obey them using A Small Favor on his Last Call action, and make them Slow when they activate using Intoxication. I therefore made it my mission to never get any of my models to three poison if I could help it, unless I could be sure they were far from Brewmaster.
Moser didn’t feel the same way and came at me aggressively. I was able to Small Favor his Whiskey Golem to walk back and then charge McTavish Turn 1; he whiffed the attack, but it cost Moser a lot of setup. Meanwhile, my Whiskey Golem looped around the far side of a huge tree in the middle of the board. Turn 2 his Golem, supported by Obeys, went after a Moon Shinobi and killed it, but that left it way out on a flank. Here I duffed Death Beds; I went for it too early, telegraphing what I was trying to do and giving him ample opportunity to scoot Barrelby to safety. I should have just saved it for later in the turn. Still, I had him in my Brewmaster slow-bubble now.
Eventually my Golem rolled up Barrelby and came at his Fingers and Cooper, while I played cagey in the middle. We were both pretty pressured on cards, since neither of us dared stack too much poison on Fingers for A Toast; at one point he had six, so I just Small Favored him, cashed in all his Poison and drew three cards myself. His McTavish was taking some chip damage from the poison he had accumulated on McTavish, and I saw my chances – late in Turn 3, when Moser was out of cards to trigger McTavish’s Demise, Cooper Jones sniped him out with a Barrel Blast.
All this came at a cost, and his Whiskey Golem pounded up to mine and scrapped it, leaving me without a brawler. Still, he just didn’t have the AP to score the Strategy, while my two surviving Moon Shinobi were zipping around picking up Intel Tokens. I scored Hold Up Their Forces while he scored Death Beds. Once McTavish was dead, though, disaster struck – I was using Fingers to box in his Golem, keeping it Slow, but he managed to smack Fingers once and flipped the Red Joker on his negative flip to nearly kill him. He was able to win initiative Turn 4 and kill Fingers, giving him In Your Face and suddenly opening up the game for him. I had to scramble to keep him honest; he had to send the Whiskey Golem at my deployment zone to score the second point, so on Turn 5 I just held Brewmaster’s activation and, once the Golem had advanced, sent it into the Shadow Realm with a double Last Call + Small Favor trigger.
I completely blanked on what Schemes I had taken and therefore did not score the second half of Hold Up Their Forces even though I trivially could have. Hey, it was late in the day! I was also completely locked out of Death Beds since I simply did not have enough AP to drop all of the Scheme Markers I needed. However, I had scored three Strategy points, while holding Moser to just 1, giving me a 4-3 win. That game felt great, and very thinky; I think McTavish was a heads-up hire, knowing a Golem is probably coming on the other side, and I’d probably have been better off with Cooper Jones instead of the big guy.
A 2-0-1 result left me in fourth place, which, you know what, I’ll take. This was a warmup. Join me next time for the main event!
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