3/11/17 Montag's Malifaux Tournament!

So as promised I'll be catching up with updating the blog for my recent tournaments. This post will be on my Malifaux tournament here in Houston!

This first game was against Travis, Malifaux Extraordinaire. Lately I'd been successfully winning in practice games against him and have gotten a very good grasp on his crew mechanics. Turns out it didn't count when it mattered...

It was Flank Deployment, the strategy was Headhunter. The schemes were Claim Jump, Frame For Murder, Leave Your Mark, Undercover Entourage, and Search the Ruins. I chose Claim Jump and Frame for Murder, he ended up choosing Leave Your Mark and Undercover Entourage.

I ended up taking Viktorias due to being able to handle his Yasunori charge better than Leve could, I knew I'd be engaged very fast because of it and had to provide a deterrent with Blood.

My deployment, the Winged Plagues were far out on the flank

The beginning was standard fare, positioning for a prime assault for both sides. I moved the Winged Plagues on my left in anticipation of Claim Jump, but he answered by moving Asami and summoned some Yokai to counter it. I realized I should have split them up after that, too late.

He also summoned Obsidian Oni to clog up charge lanes to Asami.

My positioning at the end of turn 1

The Winged Plagues, realizing they may have made a bad move...

With the way we were set up and the experience we've had playing each other, we both said this game comes down to who wins initiative for turn 2. If I won then I'd be able to wipe out his critical models including Yasunori and his Henchman. If I did this then there'd be almost no retaliation capable of killing Blood or my other models. If he won then he'd be able to stop my crew from advancing and feed Blood one model at a time, slowly picking away at my crew while achieving his schemes and denying mine.

Guess who won? Well, of course I didn't...

It was a blood bath...

Yeah... So I lost initiative, of course, even after spending a stone.

There isn't much to say after that, things happened and I took less pictures because I was losing models left and right. Yasunori killed Hannah, the Henchman, Graves and Yokai ended up clogging my right side so I had to choose between targets and the Yasunori lived. There were corpse and Head markers absolutely everywhere. I felt bad for the Malifaux clean up crew that was responsible for clearing dead bodies afterward.

Because of this I was unable to perform any of my schemes since I was on the defensive the whole time. I ended up getting 2 VP for Frame For Murder on turn 3, and by that time I had hardly anything left. He scored his full 10 VP for the game. On the last turn I managed to pick up one Headhunter marker, ending in a loss of 10-3.

My second game was against Brian, a newer player. He declared Nicodem, a master I have only had one game against and it was brutal as it was Travis' most successful list to date with his favorite Rezzer master. He admitted to not having a large model pool for his crew, which is scary as he has a pretty good understanding of the game and will only get better once he gets the right models.

During lunch we talked before we played and I ended up explaining to him how the Viktorias worked since he'd never faced them. It made this game interesting since he knew how my crew in particular worked right before the game, with both Mike and myself explaining how you can counter it.

It was Standard deployment with Stake a Claim as the strategy. I really hate this strategy as Outcasts don't have solutions like a Necropunk to move and do 2AP interact actions. The Schemes were Claim Jump, Dig Their Graves, Accusation, Hunting Party and Mark For Death. I decided on Viks as I could stop the sheer amount of summons every turn by killing them and hopefully distract him into committing to my main crew more and letting my scheme runners run more free, and Hunting Party seemed to be an easy score for me with two henchman and easy summons to kill.

I ended up taking Hunting Party and Claim Jump. He took Claim Jump and Hunting Party as well.

On turn 1 I moved my Vik block up while keeping the Winged Plagues on opposite table edges (I learned!) with the Freikorpsman in the middle just in case. He moved his Carrion Emissary, Mortimer, Rotten Belle, Nicodem and Valedictorian (can't remember if this was summoned or not) up the middle, with the Necropunk going toward my right.

He couldn't really Lure anything since Hannah blocked LOS, and he used his Emissary's ability to block LOS and eventually summon Mindless Zombies into that charge lane. He also summoned a Punk Zombie to get into my clump.

In the end, though, Blood got them all lol.

Notice a lot of models disappeared!

So I ended up winning that crucial turn 2 initiative. I charged Blood into the clump and killed pretty much everything there. The rest of my block moved forward and things were looking good.

Although I was able to gain the upper hand on the table Brian ended up doing a very good job at denying my score and catching up in VP. I found myself unable to deny his Stake a Claim with the Necropunk without sacrificing my VP for Claim Jump and Stake a Claim. He summoned models to deny my Claim Jump and Stake a Claim as well.

On the left he shifted Mortimer, who escaped the range of Whirlwind, to deny that side as well.

In the end I got the win 6-5, which was much tougher than I anticipated on turn 2.

In game 3 I played Parker, who was using Ramos. I didn't take many pictures during this game because I was pretty engaged the whole time.

It was Corner Deployment with Squatter's Rights as the strategy. Claim Jump, Frame For Murder, Leave Your Mark, Mark for Death and Tail 'Em were in the scheme pool. I ended up taking Leveticus as he tended to be a good counter to Parker's lists. I took Leave Your Mark and Claim Jump, he took Frame For Murder and Mark For Death.

He was running a very elite list and had a shocking 5 models in his list. Granted, he had a lot of summoning power between Ramos and the Mechanical Rider, and the rest had some hitting power with Joss, Howard Langston and the Arcane Emissary.

He ended up hitting me very strongly with Howard, the Emissary and the Mech Rider. I managed to live through most of the attack, as I was using a pure Outcast Leve list that was untested but seemed to work fine. The Strongarm took the brunt of the Emissary's insane attacks, and Sue lived through assaults from the others. Because Sue had his aura of burning up he ended up giving burning 3 to all of these guys, lived with Hard to Kill, and got an insane amount of free attacks due to the Return Fire upgrade - I was just throwing out low Crow cards just to get it! On top of that the Librarian and Hannah were healing these guys up slowly. The Winged Plagues were running schemes unchallenged as well.

In the end I got the win 8-5!

That's all for now, next time I'll update you on last week's tournament in Austin!

12/10/16 Malifaux Tournament! Blood Bowl WIP! Things!

That sweet Malifaux goodness!

Wow, Ryan... a whole month with no updates, what's up with that?

Sorry folks, although I had been doing lots of hobby stuff I hadn't quite gotten enough material together to warrant an update (at least in my mind!), so I had been holding off on content for a bit. I did manage to work on a post involving some thoughts on the game in terms of strategy much like my AP post, but I didn't quite finish it.

Anyway, what's been going on? Well, for starters last Saturday we had a Malifaux Tournament at the impressive Montag's Games store. We had 8 players in attendance, including a relatively newer player I had faced before in the Henchman Hardcore tournament a while back. 

Below are the table set ups for your enjoyment...

Doug's western themed board, I like the set up and he generally has the same set up every time which is good for its symmetry but not to cuttered

Doug also used his Arena Rex mat for an interesting mat, the TO arranged the terrain and made it the definition of symmetrical

Karl's board featured on a Guild Ball mat, which conveniently marks the center circle for Strategies like Reconnoiter

My board that was featured previously on the blog, although I set it up differently every time

Brandon set this one up very quickly, although I must admit it seemed very interesting to play on

I set this one up very fast, it probably had the least elements but hardly any straight lines of sight from deployment zones

Round 1

Standard, Collect the Bounty

Convict Labor, Take Prisoner, Show of Force, Set Up, A Quick Murder

Yay! I actually remembered to post the entire scheme pool!

Mike getting ready to throw some summons in my face

My first round was against Mike, one of my regular opponents who has made the switch from Gremlins to Ressers. So far he's only used Molly so it was a safe guess that she was going to make an appearance.

The scheme pool looked like it favored my Viktorias. Recently I had been using them a lot with a good amount of success and have actually gotten worse with Leveticus - a discussion for another time. I had recently made a big change in the list and replaced Ashes & Dust and Sue with Aionus and two Winged Plagues. I had only one game with this composition under my belt but felt it was such a good addition that I was confident it could weather the tournament. Collect the Bounty is very good for the crew, and they are now very capable of handling marker related schemes like Convict Labor. Their specialty is A Quick Murder, so I decided to go with Viks for my first game.

Molly peers beside the building at my crew in the open...

Based on the terrain I saw that there were a few bottlenecks to look out for. If I went behind the buildings I'd be forced to come out toward his crew in one, maybe two openings, and those would confine my ability to move around my own crew. He deployed first and set up his whole crew behind the closest building while keeping a lone Flesh Construct on the opposite side to hinder my schemes. I noticed that if he decided to come out between the first two buildings he'd be hindered by some scatter terrain in terms of outright coming toward me, although it's a two way street and would force me to work around the terrain to get to him. If he came out between the second and third buildings I'd manage to have a much safer approach as it would take him longer to become a threat but he'd approach safer as well. I decided to deploy behind my first building instead of in the open just in case the flow dictated that I needed to change the approach. It also benefited me to help with my scheme runners on that side.

The opening turns went as expected, with a slight twist. I assumed he would keep his crew together but the limitations of space and LOS had him split his crew in two and went through both alleys. I brought my entire crew out into the main opening while keeping a Winged Plague and Freikorpsmann on the left to place markers that would go unchallenged during the remaining game turns. My right Winged Plague went to the opposite table edge and I managed to get two markers on the center line with two more creeping behind them - Aionus is able to make all friendly markers move so they can eventually come into play mid game.

Molly then summoned two Students (Viscera and Steel) to swing at Hannah, who promptly tanked them and only took two damage. Viktoria of Blood walked toward them and killed one to ensure that I didn't have to deal with it next turn. To do this, however, compromised my usual positioning and left the Viktorias exposed if they didn't win initiative. It was a gamble I was willing to take, however, as Blood would have positives for Defense and a full hand of cards and stones.

Molly promptly throws bodies at Hannah

Turn two saw the expected blood bath. I managed to win Initiative and went to work. Viktoria of Ashes put up a buff for damage, teleported Blood, and Blood chain activated. She then discarded Oathkeeper and charged Sybelle - who happened to be A Quick Murder's target. Viktoria swiftly killed her, then walked toward the Belle and wounded her with Melee Expert. Although it's not as flashy as usual (like killing 6 models at once) it did the job and scored 3VP easily. 

Viktoria, in some deep doo doo but worth it

Mike then concentrated on killing Blood while he had the chance, but it took a ton of resources to do it. Between Blood having stones, cards and a positive flip to defense it took almost his entire crew, including Molly's new summons like another Student and a Punk Zombie, to bring Blood down to a few wounds left, and she was finished by a Necrotic Machine of all models, who flipped the Red Joker on damage just when it was looking like Blood pulled off a miracle and lived.

Because of how much it took to dispose of Blood Mike wasn't in a good position anymore. I had the freedom to place markers down for Convict Labor which gave me AP to spend on mopping up the portion of his crew that was further up the field. He was also in a bad spot since his summons were further back than he'd like now and no longer had the buffer between my crew and his master.

His lone Flesh Construct was doing his best to deny markers on the left, but I had placed three or four in the area and would be impossible for him to deny with one model. Instead of attacking him I just attempted disengage strikes and would walk away just to place yet another marker. Aionus tied up the other side while placing markers and moving them around, all the while handing out Slow to the Flesh Construct on the right.

In the end I had only lost two models, which were both of my Viktorias. I didn't kill too much in terms of significant models but I had locked down my VP while denying his - he ended up taking Convict Labor and Set Up and it ended up 8-2 in my favor. If we had went to turn 5 I may have gotten full VP, but I doubt the differential would have been any different.

Round 2

Flank, Interference

Convict Labor, Show of Force, Leave Your Mark, Frame For Murder, Set Up

Doug from the illustrious Guslado Games

So for Round 2 I was paired against Doug and his infamous Sandeep list. I learned a ton from our last encounter, but then so has he. I decided to use the Viktorias again even though he knew their trick, I figured having Aionus and the Winged Plagues will help me with schemes. The table was a bit of a choke point with the way the fence was, luckily Doug gave me deployment and I picked the not-so-damning corner. In hindsight I probably should have picked the opposite corner, being that the building was bigger and would hide me better while denying him a hidey-hole. I chose Convict Labor and Leave Your Mark, although in the end it would prove to be a bad choice.

It started off fairly well. I moved my Winged Plagues to the flanks to place markers, with one ending up on top of the large building in safety. The one on the right however died very fast to Cassandra and a Mage. The Freikorpsmann walked toward the north side of the board and placed a marker, and Hannah went up the middle. The Malifaux Child put up the damage buff.

Doug learned from last time and split up his forces a lot. One the fence-side was a Mage and Cassandra. The middle had Sandeep, and the far side had two Mages and Joss.

Due to the placement of his models I heavily debated if I should do a turn 1 charge with Blood. I figured I'd be able to get the two Mages and Joss in Whirlwind, but knew that once it happened Blood will be gone. Figuring I wouldn't have another chance at it I decided to go for it and slung Blood to kill them. It turned out I wasn't able to get the third Mage into range like I thought and only managed to kill Joss and one Mage - and Joss was the target for Frame For Murder. That's when it all went downhill.

Sandeep then summons the Banasuva to kill Blood, who managed to stay alive at one wound.

Ashes joined in on the fun and the two summons were killed, but Blood now had Burning on her so she was going to die.

Doug used the remaining resources to do damage onto Ashes and get her off the field. He got her down to almost dead.

Meanwhile I spent a lot of brainpower trying to figure out how to get out of this mess I put myself in. I managed to move the Malifaux Child in range, had Hannah walk up to Blood and use the Child's healing ability. But not having the cards in hand it was a gamble - I'd be relying on flipping either Moderate or Severe to heal enough to live. Of course, a Weak flipped and it wasn't enough to stem the tide. Doug's remaining resources managed to get Blood and Ashes down to one wound, which killed them once Burning took place.

Not much to say after that! It went downhill extremely fast. If Blood had managed to get that other Mage in Whirlwind range then my Winged Plague would have been free to run his schemes, but since I didn't the Winged Plague had to be exposed to try to get in range for Leave Your Mark and died. I also should have picked my schemes better, because Frame For Murder would have been a sure shot on Viktoria of Blood, which would have closed the differential much better. The reason I didn't take it was because every time I take it against another player of ours he avoids killing her at all so it left a bad taste.

Needless to say it was pretty demoralizing for me, and unfortunately I let it affect my following game.

Round 3

Corner, Stake a Claim

Convict Labor, Hunting Party, Exhaust their Forces, Neutralize the Leader, Occupy Their Turf

So for my last game I was paired against Travis, another regular opponent and Malifaux genius. We played on the Arena mat. Unfortunately with Corner deployment I realized that no matter what cornern I ended up in I was extremely bottle-necked. As I deployed my models it sunk in even further as I could already tell this was not going to be a good game for me.

With Exhaust their Forces in the pool and Stake a Claim needing models in enemy halves I decided with Leveticus, although in hindsight I probably should have stuck with Viks. I chose Convict Labor and Exhaust Their Forces, which I realized recently that Flesh Constructs are actually really good at. I need to start forgetting about Convict Labor when it comes to Corner Deployment, I'm just too far to do the normal strategy I usually do.

I hadn't taken a lot of photos during the game, mostly because it was a terribly awful game and I was already worn down from my last defeat and let it get in my head. He used Asami and was much better equipped to be walking around in forests than I was. He managed to get Neutralize the Leader on turn two, and was getting Hunting Party every turn. I only got two points from Exhaust Their Forces and nothing else. It was bad. On top of that my flips were awful, and my control hand rarely saw anything above an 8 even after spending stones. It ended 10-2 and we were done with an hour left in the round!

I felt bad that I didn't give Travis a good game but in the end it bumped him up to second place so he probably wasn't complaining! Doug ended up winning (again, damn you!) and Karl took third.

Lesson's learned, really. I need to re-rack my brain on scheme selection and really approach every scheme as valid rather than sticking to the same ones repeatedly - not that I'm saying that there aren't any staples, just that I need to reevaluate how I approach them.

In the end it was fun but brutal on the psyche. Luckily the end of the year is approaching and the new Gaining Grounds packet should be out - it should be enough to revitalize my game and is definitely exciting. 

After the game we had Indian food for dinner and went back to Mike's for Board Game Night. We ended up playing Camel Up, which is a surprisingly fun game about gambling! We also played King of Tokyo which was cool too, and ended the night with Cash and Guns, a fun party game.

Blood Bowl WIP

So a few weeks back Guy, the owner of Montag's, commissioned me to paint a copy of Blood Bowl in exchange for a copy for myself (I may have done some coercing...). From the moment I saw the new Orks I knew I had to get my hands on a copy, and they looked like an absolute blast to paint. It took me a good four hours to assemble and cover up the bases - they have a slot to insert the ball, but it's not something Guy (or I) wanted. I finally was able to set aside some time on Sunday to start the painting process. I had to do an assembly line in order to get them done in a timely fashion, even though I hate assembly line painting.

The first foundation of Red is placed...

Guy wanted them to have the same paint scheme as they do on the box but gave me the freedom to paint in how I'd like within that range - a good thing, as my particular style doesn't match that of GW which is a rather cool one. I'd been brainstorming on how I wanted to approach the work and decided on using a technique I'd used in the past for red with a slight twist.

Over a black primer coat I sprayed Vallejo Gray highlights and color blocking. Because this "undercoating" process is used under a coat of red I had to go more overboard than usual to ensure that the red is readable in the end. Once the gray was done I used Vallejo Red Ink and sprayed several light coats over the gray. It starts off as a light pink at first but over time and several layers the red starts to show, and it is really rich. Unfortunately it looks a lot different under the light than it does in normal lighting conditions and is actually a lot darker than I'd like.

New! Now with Orange! (Also, it looks a lot more orange than it really is in this light)

I decided to add another layer of highlights with Vallejo Fiery Orange. I was worried about this step as I hadn't used orange to layer over red in quite a while on this scale and was afraid it wouldn't look good. Luckily it worked out, and it creates a really cool sheen on the armor while still reading as red. Had I took the more realistic route it would turn out much more of a pink tone, maybe less so with a Flesh Tone undercoat. I plan on knocking down the gloss finish with matte varnish tonight to see if I need to work more on it.

Up Close...

I really like the way they turned out, but I'm afraid that they are too dark and subtle to pop. I'm debating on pushing the contrast further, by shading with Burnt Umber and adding in another layer of Gray/Orange. I'm also debating on the skin tone, as I initially thought I wanted them to be more of a olive green rather than the yellow green that they traditionally are painted as. We'll see, but in the mean time I will continue to update my progress and get it done as soon as possible!

Montag's Grand Opening and Malifaux Terrain!

I've got a massive update lined up for you folks!

So it was a pretty big weekend for gaming in the Houston area! One of our local (and frankly, my favorite) gaming stores, Montag's, was having a grand opening event for their new location. The new location not only offered a much bigger space it also segregated the areas for gaming and retail, which is a great idea so that we aren't piling on top of one another.

The Malifaux group was designated to have a 4x6 table reserved for demos, meaning we'd have space for two tables running. Our resident Gremlin player (now turned Resser) volunteered to host demo games throughout the day, and I volunteered to provide the terrain which is why I'd been working hard to paint up the pieces I showcased earlier on the blog.

So first up is the Garden of Morr!

I absolutely love this kit from GW

I've had this set for a while now, and have always loved the way it looks. I made sure to get my hands on it before it went out of print, since they went the direction of Age of Sigmar I worried I wouldn't get another chance - I've already missed out on their previous awesome sets and didn't want to miss this. I even painted the statue a long time ago and featured it on the blog.

Getting down to crunch time I had only primed the unpainted pieces by Friday, with the next day being the opening. So I had to figure out a way to crank these guys out to a presentable standard for the demo. I got them all lined up and quickly zenithal sprayed them with VMA Light Grey over the black primer. I then haphazardly sprayed the roofs and fencing. I mean, really haphazardly. I sprayed VGA Fire Orange trying to lay down a base for rust color, but it turned out more yellow than I had anticipated. I added patches of VMA Burnt Umber to vary the colors, but because I was rushing to get them done it was spotty. Really, though, it's just a foundation for me to use pigments later to do the rust, so it works out fine enough for the deadline.

I had left the building footprint pieces alone as they didn't add anything to the playability of the pieces and would make them harder to transport when they're glued on. I think the stone work looks well enough as it is, the only other things I'd need to do is use black pigments in certain areas that lost its shading as well as drybrush grey and white for highlights.

You can really tell the difference between my usual painting and this quick work from how much brighter the statue is from the buildings. In the statue I also sprayed white for a final highlight, although I may not do that at all for the rest of the buildings as I don't think it's necessary.

Overall though I'm glad I got the motivation to at least start this terrain, now I can use it for games and demos and they're really a very versatile set for Malifaux.

On Friday night I got a text from Mike to confirm that I had the two tables ready to go. TWO?! It was a funny moment of miscommunication, but with what I have in the hobby department works out perfectly for terrain in a pinch.

I decided that I could fill up a table quickly enough using the Battle Systems kickstarter I recently received. I'd have to be careful not to go overboard with the modern and sci-fi elements. I purchased the Suburban house specifically for its usefulness in Malifaux, so once I got my Garden of Morr painted up I started working on this.

I already had started working on a two story house that could fit into Malifaux, I just added a yard to the mix.

In the back you can see an Art Deco building I quickly cobbled together, I imagined it to be a central station for the Guild or something with the Sheriff's house right next to it.

I had made the other large building with a run down apartment complex in mind. The walkway seemed like a cool idea to add on as well. The last tiny little building was made to be a shack, I just needed some more big elements to block line of sight. Add in some trees and crates for soft cover, and fencing and dumpsters for flavor, and you've got yourself a quick table! By the time I was done it was super late and I had to get some rest for the big day.

The calm before the storm

We arrived prior to the opening to get everything set up. I had set up the Battle Systems board pretty much the same as I had at home, and Mike added some needed extra soft cover to fill the board. The painted board needed more thought as I hadn't set it up for a game before, but I think it turned out rather well. Mike had taken out his Gremlins for potential players and I brought out my Von Schill, both at 35ss. I figured that crew is straightforward enough for players to grasp, as well as Hannah being an attention grabber for the game.

Travis and I went to get lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant and came back to the store, and our tables, being in full swing.

Mike during a demo

Clay joined in and was teaching the game as well

Hannah creeping up on the Gremlins

Everyone seemed to get how Ophelia worked well enough

Clay's demo on the other table

There were plenty of other games going on as well. Warhammer 40k had a table with some cool armies to use.

The Chimera brought back some nostalgia, nothing like the good ol' Chim Chim

I really like how the Tau army was painted, well done!

The classic Dark Angels, I still have my Ravenwing army

Of course the cool Grey Knights made an appearance

It wouldn't be 40k without some Chaos!

The 40k table

Right next to the Malifaux tables was a demo table for Bolt Action. I actually took part of a demo game for it as I've always been curious as to how it plays. He had a cheat sheet printed up and I took control of ze Germans while he operated the elite British Paratroopers. We had a simple goal in mind, which was to capture a model near the center right of the board. The demo ran pretty smoothly and I understood the mechanics at play. It made me seriously consider getting into this game, if only at a small entry point. I'd definitely play 'Murrica.

There were other demos going on for Warmachine, X Wing and Infinity too. Being that I've played all of them I didn't feel like trying to take up someone's time when a prospective new player could have had a spot. I did however catch this model on one of the Infinity tables and it is stunning!

Whoever painted this, I hate you...

It is a gorgeous representation of Infinity, and follows very closely to Angel Giraldez's technique and style. It's just so clean! I'm jealous.

Due to the crowd Travis and I were left to our own devices, so I busted out a new game called BattleCON: Fate of Indines for us to play. It's a small card game that is inspired by fighting games like Street Fighter and it's pretty good.

Once it died down a bit and the second table was available Travis and I played a pick up game. Lately I had been really into Viktorias, but since I was loaning out Hannah for demos I decided to play Leve again, this time including Mad Dog Brackett instead of the Mechanical Rider to see his viability. Travis brought his Asami crew.

Opening moves, with Ashes towing Leve around

So we're officially in Q4 of Gaining Grounds 2016 (this year has flown by!). The deployment was standard and the strategy was Collect the Bounty. The scheme pool: Convict Labor, Inspection, Show of Force, Exhaust their Forces and something else. I chose Inspection to see if it could work with Leve and Convict Labor, he ended up choosing Show of Force and Convict Labor.

The well painted Asami crew take a stroll

It was certainly a pretty battle! As simple as I kept the terrain it still looked excellent, and his crew is fully painted and looks pretty cool on the table. 

The Flesh Constructs help hold the side for Inspection, their bases protect Mad Dog from engagements

The game started out fine enough, although I had to deploy a little differently than usual. Because I chose Inspection I knew that I would have no poker face, I had Leve and Ashes deploy to one side and the rest of the crew to the other so it was pretty obvious as to what I chose. I figured that if there is a chance he chose Show of Force it could actually work in my favor, as I can shoot toward the middle and had a lot of models who could stick around so any attempt to deny my VP would require a lot of commitment.

Lately I've started to have Leveticus utilize his other (0) action to teleport to Ashes and Dust. Ever since the Leve Nerf (make channel great again) I've explored his other options as now his AP is even more precious than it was before. Although it can be very risky his ability to teleport is pretty powerful. Having Leve use his Teleport has the positives of saving his AP for shooting rather than movement, and it can help Leve get out of engagements. It also adds in activations as long as you use it after Ashes has already gone, since you'll be getting the Core and Storm in there as well. The risks are that Leve can be vulnerable for next turn, as anything that can kill him will prevent him from summoning another Waif and may stop him from doing anything that turn. The other risk is making Ashes vulnerable before he becomes resummoned. The trick is to make sure you mitigate these risks by taking out the big threats on the same side before they activate, or not using it if you don't believe you can properly take the risks out before they attack Leve. Activation advantage and initiative are a huge factor in using this ability. However the pair can take on a whole flank themselves and Leve can pop up on the other side if he needs to.

Asami hunts down my scheme runner

The game was going really well for me and terribly for Travis. My deck was hitting on all cylinders and his deck seemed like it added in 5 black jokers when he wasn't looking. We ended up calling it on turn 3 as it seemed like he wouldn't be able to deny any of my VP while I whittled away his crew model by model.

What was once Ama No Zako is now an Abomination taunting the Oni

It was still a fun game though and I've been discovering new ways to utilize Leve in a tournament environment. I'm still working on my replacement for the Mechanical Rider, and haven't decided if Mad Dog is useful enough for the crew or if I should go with my gut instinct and replace him with the Strongarm suit. It all will depend on the table coverage as Mad Dog's ability to ignore cover will be powerful, but if I continue the trend of following Ashes around it may not be utilized by Leve at all and the Strongarm would be a better model to dish out damage while the Constructs anchor the waifs safely.

That was my hobby weekend! I'll update more once I figure out my next project, I've gotta knock out some priority paintjobs soon!