Von Schill vs. Shenlong: A Malifaux Battle Report! ...also Arena Rex...

Getting ready for a fight

Hey you crazy people!

On Wednesday I headed up to the illustrious Montag's for our regular Malifaux meet up. Our Grumpy Gremlin Mike Guy was generous enough to get items at GenCon for our group, so I picked up my limited edition Wild Ones crew box as well as the Parker Barrows box. I am super pumped to try out Parker, it's like I get to play as Shenlong in a faction I actually have a decent collection for. Not only does he play around with upgrades like Shenlong, but he has twice the number of them compared to him. This means four times the confusion during my first game, both for my opponent and myself!

I decided to try something different this week's game, in more ways than one.

Firstly I decided to give Von Schill another try. Although he's not top tier he seems capable enough to handle his own in a fight, and I wanted to see if maybe I jumped to the wrong conclusion with him. 

I also decided to take as many pictures as I could while playing. This helps with descriptions and recall, but also would be a quick way to take note of any mistakes of placement I made. So, fair warning, this will be pic heavy!

I ended up getting matched up against Travis, Mutha-Fauxer extraordinaire, and his Shenlong crew.

Deployment

So it was Corner Deployment with the strategy being Guard the Stash - two 50mm objectives are placed 10" away from each other on the center line, with points scored by being within 2" of both of them with a member of your crew.

The pool had Convict Labor, A Quick Murder, Hunting Party, and two others I can't recall - of course, I don't have my notes with me because why would I.

This seemed like a good pool to test out Von Schill, as it was a guarantee that there would be models bunched up in or near the middle. I chose A Quick Murder, meaning I have to kill the most expensive model he owned within 3 turns for full points (target: Dawn Serpent), as well as Hunting Party - one that scores when a Henchman/Enforcer kills a minion/peon and scores when there aren't any left. I chose Hunting Party because it sort of coincided with AQM, as the Dawn Serpent is a Minion and he only had one other minion in his crew with one peon. He ended up choosing AQM and CL.

We both had our crews made prior to the flips for the Scheme Pool, so take note of that folks! You can make all around lists and succeed...

Here are the lists:

• Von Schill
• Engage at Will (a must have for me, it gives models within 6" the ability to use two different (0) actions!)
• Survivalist (Gives Hard to Kill, great for models who heal like VS, as well as positive flips to healing!)
• The Shirt Comes Off (gives VS a heal as a (0) once per game and forces nearby opponents to take Horror Duels, works well with Survivalist as he's getting positives and HtK)
• Hannah
• I Pay Better (Mercenaries get Focus for a discarded card, everyone in the list benefits short of VS)
• Sue
• Big Jake
• Friekorpsmann x2
• Friekorps Trapper
• Steam Trunk

• Shenlong
• Misdirection (super annoying, defensive trigger that passes the attack to someone else including enemy models)
• Wandering River Style
• Yamaziko
• Lone Swordsman
• Recalled Training (Positives to all flips for a turn - brutal)
• Dawn Serpent
• Mr Graves
• Malifaux Child
• Shadow Effigy

The first moves...

So I had the Trapper deployed close to one Stash marker but able to draw a LOS to a large amount of the field. I decided to hold him off to see where he decides to move everyone and draw a priority target based on the decision, but I should have done what I originally thought and immediately target the Malifaux Child. I didn't remember that peons count for Hunting Party and would have gotten a head start on the scheme, but I didn't have good cards in my hand and didn't feel confident in passing the Manipulative test with a severe card left in in my hand. In hindsight this would have been a much better action. Instead I chose to advance the Steam Trunk into position before anything else committed anywhere. He immediately responded by running his Malifaux Child behind the middle pillar. This meant that since the Child is out of LOS from the Trapper for pretty much the rest of the game.

He moved Yamaziko toward the top left corner, once I saw that I knew he had Convict Labor. She excels at placing markers since she has Nimble, and can easily do Convict Labor on her own. I don't do a lot of spreading out with Von Schill as he has a lot of Auras, so the markers she places will be left pretty much uncontested.

I start moving Hannah, Sue, and the Friekorpsmann toward the left Stash Marker and use Big Jake to go to the right one. I saw that he was keeping his models grouped together and inched toward the left marker so I didn't think I'd need much on the other one. Using Big Jake to defend it can be helpful, as he can push with his attacks and if he dies he comes back on turn 5. The Trapper was there as backup, but can still affect the other side of the board. He responded by moving his Shadow Effigy closer to the right side.

After that he moved Shenlong to prepare for the massacre that was about to happen. He pushed the Dawn Serpent right to the Center Line, so my Trapper decided to start working on that target for next turn. I managed to cheat in Severe damage on it taking him down to 4 wounds. I'd have to make sure to take care of him soon as he is able to heal relatively quickly.

Shenlong decides to join the party

Start of turn two, where blood will definitely be drawn

Turn Two was a doozy.

He started with the Dawn Serpent charging Hannah. She managed to get down to 4 wounds after using 3 stones for damage prevention, along with gaining 4 poison counters. She then activated and healed from the Steam Trunk back up to 7 wounds and got rid of the poison (Steam Trunk, don't leave home without it). In hindsight I should have used The Shirt Comes Off to get back up to full wounds, but I didn't think of it until just now. Hannah got rid of the Dawn Serpent and got a VP from Hunting Party and full points for A Quick Murder.

I can't quite remember who he activates, but maybe it was Yamaziko to place scheme markers down. I may be getting the order incorrect.

The Dawn Serpent gone...

Sue activates and uses Ring of Fire to burn models that end their activation within 3" and shoots the Lone Swordsman. I know he has Bulletproof +3 but I needed to start chipping away at him regardless of how much. The Lone Swordsman then swoops in, discarding his Recalled Training for positive flips, and declares that Hannah will Not See Another Sunrise, which gives him reactivate but he dies if he doesn't kill his target by the end of the turn. He gets her down to 3 wounds.

Things aren't looking good for Hannah...

I attempt to do some damage with the Freikorpsmann that's trapped with the Lone Swordsman but with only one attack and lackluster cards I didn't affect much. He then Reactivates his Lone Swordsman and misses the first attack. He connects with the second but flips the Black Joker for Damage! It was quite a lucky break for me, as since he didn't kill his intended target he now must be sacrificed at the end of the turn. I no longer had to worry about that model, who can really hit like a truck when needed.

After that I was overly confident and moved Von Shill close enough to score the strategy by being right next to the left marker. I didn't realize that Shenlong hadn't yet activated, which I should have probably played him a little differently because of that. He then moves Shenlong right in the middle of my crew and finishes off Hannah, scoring A Quick Murder. If I had used Von Schill to block the charge she could have recovered and healed quite a bit of damage, up to 6, and be right back in the game.

Mistakes were made...

I moved my other Friekorpsmann in response to try to do some damage on Shenlong. He managed to hit, but because he had Misdirection I had to discard two cards to prevent the attack from moving to one of my other models within 2" of him. After damage prevention I managed to not do anything that stuck and realized I was in a pickle, as he now has 3 different models he can use Misdirection on.

The Steam Trunk moved into position to assist the big mess on the left next turn while making sure to stay away from Shenlong. He moves Mr Graves to help score the Strategy by being next to the left marker. I tried shooting with the trapper onto the Shadow Effigy and managed to do enough damage to get him down to Hard to Kill. He then moves the Effigy within scoring distance of the right Stash marker. I responded by moving with Big Jake and attacked but missed. He managed to get in range to score the Strategy.

Help... only with Shenlong do I see one person outnumbered 3 to 1 and think I may just lose

The turn ended with me scoring 5, 3 for AQM 1 for HP and 1 for the Strategy. He ended with 4, 3 for AQM and 1 for the Strategy. I don't think I've ever seen the score that high on turn two, I've finished whole games, and often, with a score lower than this.

That was pretty eventful...

See that Red Joker!

Turn three saw Von Schill do some damage onto Shenlong, getting him down to 8 Wounds and permanently lowered his defense by one. Shenlong answered back by switching his upgrades to Fermented River Monk and force everyone nearby to perform a Wk 16 duel. VS, Sue and a Friekorpsmann all failed and received negative flips for everything for the remainder of the turn! He then did a ton of damage to Von Schill, getting him down to only four wounds left.

I disengaged with a Friekorpsmann to start working on Mr Graves and get out of Shenlong's Misdirection range, and managed to succeed. Mr Graves pounded him to death. I disengaged the other Friekorpsmann for the same thing. Yamaziko started getting closer to help out the crew now that she's done laying down markers.

Von Schill isn't liking his chances...

Von Schill is feeling the burn right now

I had saved a high Mask card just for this, as one of his triggers is making the target push 3" and he ends in base contact with him. I succeeded and pushed the Effigy out of range from scoring, while the Trapper and Big Jake both were in range to still score. I managed to kill him with the second attack, but it was good to have the Mask just in case I missed.

He got a point for Convict Labor and I got a point for Guard the Stash and Hunting Party, as Big Jake is an Enforcer. So far it was 7-5 in my favor.

Both Stash markers secured for now, while a Freikorpsmann goes Child Hunting... umm... not what it sounds like...

Turn 4/5 details get kind of fuzzy, as it was a fast one and I didn't take as many pictures. I got the initiative and the Friekorpsmann killed the Malifaux Child, securing points for Hunting Party as he no longer had minions or peons. I believe we decided to call it as there wasn't a way to catch up. I secured 8VP, and even if he scored Convict Labor and Guard the Stash I'd still be ahead now that Hunting Party would be maxed out no matter what.

It was a fun game, and it's probably the first time I've legitimately beaten him at 50ss. I've only beaten him twice before, once was a story encounter that I don't rightly count, and the other was at the Henchman Hardcore, but it's not a standard game.

I learned a few things about Von Schill that I liked. Engage at Will is priceless. There's so much utility with that upgrade, individual abilities and the Steam Trunk adding more. Having Sue in the crew with that upgrade makes it where he actually gains use out of all his abilities. He doesn't have to worry about Hurt damaging him since he can heal it that same turn. He can use both his Auras if he ever needs to. Hannah can heal every turn or twice with the Shirt if needed. Hannah is a beast, but she's even beastlier with the Schill dog. Not to mention everyone in this crew has Hard to Kill or a version of it with Von Schill leading the crew. I'd say Engage at Will is his best ability, tied with his ability to give Freikorps models a version of Hard to Kill.

There were a few things I found that weren't that great. Big Jake's ability to take two damage to arrange the top two cards is still pretty useless, even with the Steam Trunk's heal, as he ends up using the cards for the heal anyway. This was a pretty hilarious moment in the game when Travis pointed it out and I was trying to avoid using it but completely forgot about it two seconds later like a goldfish. 

Another issue is placement. There's a lot of movement you have to anticipate with his crew, namely with the Steam Trunk and Von Schill himself. Von Schill's auras are relatively short, and he may have a tendency to jump around the board if needed leaving some models out of his beneficial range. The Trunk's aura is even lower, and since he hands out the (0)s during other models' activation he needs to be where he's needed before others get ther (if that makes sense). This leads to you having to commit to your direction, and a savvy player should be able to anticipate this, which can lead to bad positioning in Strats/Schemes that don't have you fighting at the center.

One more issue is Von Schill, in this game he didn't do much at all himself. I get that it was the timing of activations, as he got damaged after his activation then lost initiative and died before he could heal himself up. But the one time he did attack he couldn't afford to spend stones as I used them all up saving Hannah. This led to him attacking based on his card alone and praying something good flips if you don't have a good control hand. I got one good trigger in to lower Shenlong's defense permanently once and that was it. He's still a pretty Stone-Starved model and needs all 7 of his cache just for him.

He's still mid tier in my book, as well as the groups', but knowing how he operates makes him more viable if I'm ever looking for variety.

Look at that amazing mat. I said look at it!!!

After our game I managed to play two small games of Arena Rex with my brand spanking new mat from GenCon! We stuck to using my starter models so that everyone gets used to how their Ludus plays. 

I represented Ludus Magnus while Mike Guy used Legio XIII. The game was a breeze with only a few minor mistakes, due to the fact that we played once before. He started using his Benefits much better in this game, and managed to make me hate Ban-Luca almost instantly. Her Stall ability is amazing and annoying.

This game I remembered to get rid of Gaius first and did so easily, but as this game is designed to do it only fueled his Favor and got the win when it was down to my Infelix against Aquila.

I played another game with Clay, who bought Zephyri and wanted to try them out. They're a more difficult faction to grasp for a new player as their strength lies in movement and reactions, concepts that take a bit more experience to fully capitalize on, but he was getting the hang of it fast (this game tends to make it easy to learn). I ended up winning since I had more games under my belt as well as practice with the starter, but we both had a ton of fun. The Houston area is starting to get more and more Arena Rex players, as I know a few more in the North Side of town that got into it as well.

Anyway, that's long enough for now, hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you next time!

Malifaux Coppelius WIP and Arena Rex!

Something something something Cthulu...

Hello one and all!

Just a few updates, including this work in progress here for the Dreamer crew! He's part of a commission I've had in my hands for far too long, and I've recently decided that nothing else of mine will be painted until this is finally complete.

I was pleasantly surprised at how he started off, considering all the colors I've used so far are entirely experimental. I had the idea of how to start him in my head but wasn't sure if it would work, it looks like it should do just fine!

Over a black base coat I sprayed Vallejo Game Air Scorpion Green fairly heavily, leaving black in the shaded areas. I then sprayed 3:1 White/Scorpion Green and highlighted, then lightly shaded areas with GW Caliban Green. I fixed up spots with a touch of Scorpion Green to reclaim the main color. I really like it, it gives a radiation-like glow. Very otherworldly.

I then repainted any black that got overspray. I used VGA Scarlet Red over the black for his coat to give a sort of maroon color. I didn't know quite how this would work over black but it seems to do the trick.

Once I spray the pants he'll be ready for the detail work, just thought I'd share my progress so far.

On Friday I finally got to play a game of Arena Rex with my buddy Mike. We used my still incomplete arena and some simple obstacles for the game. It was a 3v3 fight, with Legio XIII and Ludus Magnus.

The opening moves

Although it was a new game for both of us, the rules are simple and intuitive enough to get a grasp on immediately. Within a few activations we just steamed right through the game. My initial strategy with Ludus Magnus was simple: use Otho Mentulus as a big tarpit, only moving him through reactions, while Hermes did the grunt work and Septimus picked off stragglers to hopefully get pushed into pits.

Hermes stares down Urien

The combination of Otho's ability - which prevents Favor use and gain - with Hermes' ability to force Favor use to attack him seemed tremendous. I wanted to use Septimus as my third as he's my favorite sculpt out of the range.

Mike was getting the hang of Legio and wasn't able to capitalize on their strengths as much in this game. Their displacement ability is tricky but powerful in the right instances. He also decided to swap out Ban-Luca for Urien from the starter, which may have worked better had he kept her. Urien was quickly dispatched from Hermes as the champion's damage track is amazing for power attacks.

Septimus eventually fell followed by Aquila, but Gaius was able to defeat Otho. This left a basically unhurt Gaius against Hermes.

Last Men Standing

At first I thought I had the advantage as my damage tree is pretty spectacular, but I realized that Hermes definitely relies on his ability (which has no effect when he's the Last Man Standing) and teamwork to divert attacks from him. He has fewer damage boxes than average, and Gaius was built for attrition. With his Regrowth and the fact that you have to kill him twice he was able to withstand Hermes' attacks just enough to deliver the killing blow and win.

Arena Rex is amazing, there's a ton of depth in decisions to be had considering the brief page count for the rules. Every choice had meaning, and there wasn't more than a breath's pause between decisions for each player. Down time is not something that occurs often in this game, as there's an elegant solution for players who are getting steamrolled in the game. You may be at an advantage early on and outnumber your opponent at times, but with the resources not being used up by additional models and how Last Man Standing makes your remaining man fight ferociously to the death quickly evens out the odds.

I've read about several other peoples' experience with this game, and it's almost never a one sided affair and almost always ends with a close game - that seems to me like a good sign of balance that forces player engagement for the end game. There have been many instances in other games where you can tell who's going to win from the second turn or earlier, but in this game it means nothing until the blood is on the sand.

I'll leave you with a few pics of a play test game, using proxies for both sides.

Finding excuses to use this building in a game...

Finding excuses to use this model in a game...

Arena Rex Stuff!

Howdy ya'll!

So recently I received the majority of my Arena Rex order. I'm only waiting on the Ludus Magnus starter to be sent after it's been cast. Red Republic Games got hit for tons of orders during Adepticon, both due to their online sale as well as doing very well in their booth for sales there. I emailed one of their representatives, Chelsie, in seeing if it was possible to mail the rest of the order as it was ready and they did! Not only that, when a mistake was sent (in my favor) they were extremely helpful and gave me free expedited shipping when I reordered the miniature! For a company that is relatively small in the table top community, as well as extremely busy in recent months, they have gone above and beyond in service for just one individual customer. I am truly impressed.

Vargr's pose truly gives the impression that he's chopping you down, there's a very good flow of motion that makes it seem much more real than usual sculpts

I ordered quite a bit of stuff during their sale, including almost every single Ludus Magnus model short of Urbicus. I got the Legio XIII and the Zephyri starters as well and one miniature from each to give them four models each. Essentially I got enough for 4 players to have 4 gladiators each from their own ludi. Whether I ever get 4 players together for a game is another story, but essentially even if I never get to play I got my hands on some sweet miniatures.

Gaius Pallidus from Legio XIII

And sweet they are! Man, these casts are great. The detail is phenomenal, the poses are dynamic and it just oozes style. They are so different than the stuff I usually have, it's going to be a fun challenge to paint them all.

Sven, my favorite sculpt, from Zephyri

There are plenty of unboxings and reviews of the miniatures on the web so I won't go into great detail there. I did run into issues of taking models of the sprue, particularly with Viatrix. She has one eety beety teeny contact point on her feet that is supposed to be glued to the base. Due to the way she's cast there is almost no chance you're going to get her off the sprue intact. My very careful attempt still left her without any toes. It's fine, as I can bury it in sand, but it's a shame as she was one of my most anticipated models and she doesn't have toes now. This also led to having a slightly angled flat space to attach to the base, making her lean a lot more than intended.

Viatrix doesn't like it when you stare at her feet

Overall, though, the models weren't tough to deal with. You have to be extra careful when working with them, as they're resin and certain pieces will be brittle. Otho Mentulus' head had a crack from the stress placed on him while removing it from the sprue, but it's not noticeable at all. Frigge has an insanely tiny ponytail with a feather that goes on her head. When I cut it from the sprue it flew away and I didn't find it for a while, but if I didn't find it that would have been extremely tragic.

Hermes from Ludus Magnus. He reminds me of Crixus, but he was a Murmillo rather than Thraex as Hermes is

Only one model needed a soap bath to get rid of the layer of film usually associated with Resin miniatures. A few of the weapons need to be bent back into shape using heat, but not all of them did - surprisingly Iason's spear came out perfectly straight. All the other spears came out bent or extremely bent or hot damn, and Otho's sword was like a cartoon sword from Roger Rabbit. Hermes' sword was bent as well, but I just bent it back without any heat and it stayed straight. These are all things that anyone who's worked with resin should be familiar with, though.

Iason from Ludus Magnus, he uses the awesome Hoplomachus style of fighting

Otho Mentulus of Ludus Magnus, he is huge. I didn't put his tower shield on yet. Notice his sword pointing to the sky.

Having received and built most of my models I had to build a suitable environment for them to spill blood on. This has been something I've pondered for a very long time, since I last mentioned Arena Rex here.

There are a few things to think about, namely its size. The game was designed with a 30" diameter arena in mind, but they deliberately did not put an official size in the game so players could experiment with different arenas and sizes. This was a great move on their part honestly, and this way you have a ton of freedom to explore whatever you want to build.

There are hardly any mats you could buy for the arena. Most games use a square or rectangle play area, and the gladiator games that do use arenas use hexagons for their games. I found a few but none that satisfied me, and the official mat was only available to Kickstarters.

Of course my original plans were very grand, but after a ton of thought I scaled it back to something I knew I could knock out while being passable for demos. I also had to think of transportation, as being the only player I'd definitely have to provide the terrain myself. I knew worst case, though, you could use a 2x2 mat for the play surface and do fine.

In the end I scoured the forums to get inspiration and found this. It was simple and effective, something that can be easily done in a few hours without going insane. It didn't have the desert arena look I wanted but that's easy to do, the stones are what motivated me to follow its footsteps.

I got a 2x2 square sheet of pink insulation foam as the base. I already had it lying around, and it was a good way to give a solid foundation while keeping it light for transport. The only thing I have to worry about is chipping/damage, but it's not something I'll lose sleep over if damaged. I then got some foam bricks for cheap to build the arena walls.

Kristy helped me lay down a circle using a pen and some string. Then we used Tacky Glue and put each brick down one by one. It wasn't hard or time consuming at all, I'd say in an hour it was all done, tops.

Here it is with 3 rows of bricks

Once I got it as high as I liked I made some individual column out of the foam bricks. These things are pretty nifty, you can roll them to create rounded shapes, or you can cut them to fit what you need. I haven't tried pinching them to make shapes like trapezoids but it seems fairly easy to do.

I put columns on the walls in 8 places. This improved the look but it also functions as a deployment reference. For two players you obviously use the North/South orientation, add East/West for 4 players, and for 3 players you can use North for one and the middle of East/Southeast for player two, and middle of West/Southwest pillars for player three.

With the columns, miniature for scale

Up close

So it was extremely easy to build, and super cheap. The bricks were maybe $10, and I didn't use a whole box of them, and the insulation foam was less than $5. 

I plan on painting it up soon, and also using the Vallejo Desert Sand Gel paint to add the desert texture. It's playable for now though, and it's super light. It's not perfect, the bricks aren't uniform in size and resulted in a few bumpy parts, but it does the trick. 

Of course I had to put some minis down for a battle scene.

Hopefully soon I can get this all painted up to show off and demo! Give it a try, the rules are free at arenarex.com and the miniatures are simply stunning.