Fan Fiction: Business

 Like many geeks, it seems, I have a penchant for writing. I have not done anything for a while, but the background of Malifaux had definitely inspired me to create something, though I often get grandiose ideas of what I can do which never reach fruition. However, recently, I discovered, through the facebook group Wyrd Place,  a competition known as Iron Quill. I have had a quick attempt at a very short story and I would like to know what you guys thought. Here goes nothing:

Business

 Krahkov paced impatiently across the well-worn floor, seemingly unaware of the groaning worm-eaten floorboard’s fragility. Dimitri did not flinch as his master spat incoherent frustration at damp ridden walls. Dimitri had known Krahkov for a long time. He was used to his angry outbursts.

 Dimitri himself was not, however, one for anger. Though a head taller than his companion, he did not exude menace. For him life was simple, which was good because the same accusation had been made of him; the most recent accusation made when he had refused to abandon his current employer.  They called Krakhov a sinking ship. Dimitri didn’t understand, as far as he saw it if a ship was sinking better to stay on board than dive in the sea. Besides, he knew better than to look for opportunity elsewhere. In Malifaux, you do not try your luck.

“That useless Dolbo yeb. If he has been caught by that sooka excuse for …’

 Krakhov often slipped into the mother-tongue when he was stressed and angry. He was rarely one without the other and, recently, he had much cause for both. When they had first come to Malifaux their particular talents had meant they quickly had become powerful men. Protection rackets, smuggling and arms dealing; it felt like people just wanted to throw money at them… or they did after a little persuasion. However, their fortunes had turned and now they were almost destitute.

“Honest to the Maker if I get my hands on that…”

“’Onest!?!” The voice questioned from the darkness on the far side of the abandoned warehouse. A regular hard tap accompanied by the moaning of floorboards told them that the origin of the exclamation was approaching. Krakhov had paused. Dimitri had never started.

 “’Onest day’s work, ‘dey say. Dat’s where people grind down ‘dere bones work for ‘da Guild. S’not for me. ‘Onest gets ya’ dead.” The few gas lights that the brother’s had managed to get working started to illuminate the figure. The first thing seen were the shoes, shining brighter than the sun ever did in the wretched city. A well pressed grey suit followed, complete with golden cufflinks and tie. The ensemble was complimented by a single golden tooth bedecking a mirthless grin.  Everyone in the district knew this figure from whispers ushered from the bottom of dirty glasses. This was Shanks, head of the Gremlin Mafia.

“You should go back where you came from” Krakhov spat, irony lost under seething rage.

“Now dat’s not ‘da way you should start neg-osh-ee-ate-shuns.” Krakhov's blustering exploded into incoherent spit and visceral language. Dimtri couldn’t remember seeing Krakhov so mad.

“You killed my man?”

“Let’s not dwell on the past,” Shanks pulled a small knife from his pocket and started prying bits of food from between his teeth, “I am ‘ere to neg-osh-ee-ate ‘da terms for buying your bis-ee-ness in-ter-ests.” Shanks voice was nasal and he clearly struggled with words of multiple syllables, but he appeared to enjoy using them, as if they empowered him. Krahkov laughed, this was bad. Dimitri grip on his large wood-cutting axe, his trademark weapon, tightened until his knuckes were white.

“And what, exactly, do you think that will cost”

“’Dis.” In one smooth motion Shanks plucked something out of another pocket and flicked it over to the gangster. Catching it in one hand, Krakhov stared at the small object in his hand. He visibly began to shake. Dimitri relaxed.

“You think you can buy my assets with this!?! This!?! One single soulstone!” Krakhov had now closed the gap between the two ‘businessmen’. His broken nose pressed close against the Gremlin’s face and spittle leapt from bruised lips behind a big black beard. “One INACTIVE soulstone!’ He pressed the unassuming rock into the gremlins face.

 Suddenly, the stone began to glow.

 It was faint at first, barely visible in fact, but eerie green glow grew rapidly until you could see it through Krakhov’s hand. He took one step back and began staring at the power cupped in his hand. He lifted his other hand to inches before his face and studied the thick red liquid there. Drool dripped down his beard as he attempted to locate the origin of this strange phenomenon that seemed to coincide with a sharp pain in his stomach.

Shank plucked the newly powered soulstone from Krakhov’s hand before the giant mobster crumpled on the floor.

“’Waste not, want not’ as me Moma used ta’ say” Dimitri took one step forward, but then stopped when he felt something press against his leg. He looked down to see another gremlin, this one with a pair of trousers pulled up to just below his arm-pits. Despite this compensation, it was clear that the bottom of the trousers had been rolled up many times to prevent tripping. This might have proved amusing if the same Gremlin did not have a .45 calibre pistol aimed directly at his groin. Dimitri did not know what unnerved him more: The size of the gun, the fact that the Gremlins arm shook with the exertion needed to lift such a mighty firearm or the barely contained excitement painted all over the little green face.

“Ape-parent-lee it is called a Still-ate-oh” Shanks was wiping the long thin blade clean on his golden hankerchief, which he then carefully folded and placed neatly back in his breast pocket. He approached the gargantuan man casually and then, with a single finger, pushed the weapon aimed at him away. The other gremlin made no attempt to hid the fact he was heartbroken.

“I ‘ere ‘dat you ‘ave ree-sent-lee found yoo’self out ‘ta work. I bee-leaf I can ‘elp you wid’ dat.”

Dimitri relaxed. You do not try your luck in Malifaux.

Kickstarter

 Yesterday some cool toys made their way through the post. Jen had backed the TT Combat Kickstarter to get hold of a bunch of laser cut terrain. It's pretty stuff, we didn't dive straight in an build the lot because we were doing other projects, but Jen stuck together a windmill to see what some of it was like. Inspired by this I thought today I would review my thoughts on Kickstarters.

Personally, I am a big fan of Kickstarter. It allows smaller gaming companies to expand their produce lines and inspires some fantastic creativity. There have been many criticisms voiced, however, by some of the people I know and these revolve around the following points. The companies don't really need the money. It's a risk. Delays.

The Companies Don't Really Need the Money:

This was first raised to me when the AVP miniature project began. Lots of people were excited, but a few people claimed that because they had to have bought the liscencing they had to have the funds to continue onto the main product. It's true that in order to establish almost any Kickstarter you will need to have made significant investment already. People will need to have commissioned sculptors, artisits etc. in order to make a product that would work on Kickstarter. That is very different to having enough money, however, to create a finished product. The response to this is would people really risk that money? The answer to this is yes, business is, to some extent, risk. However, what Kickstarter also provides is a reduction in risk. If you want to make a figure you need to make a mold. If you intend to make many models you need to make many molds. Kickstarter not only provides you funds to make a mold, but also information to extrapolate on how popular you product is likely to be and thus how many molds are worth making.
 I must admit there are some companies who likely do not need this money, Mantic is the one that springs to mind, but I don't think they are the norm, nor is it unreasonable to assume that even these companies can expand further than they originally thought with additional funding.

It's a Risk:

A Contradiction when you consider the above is the point that Kickstarters are a risk. You have no idea how the finished product is going to turn out, or whether you are going to get a finished product at all. This is true, you are effectively investing in a new project, but the point of Kickstarter is not to back someone from the point go, but allow them to overcome the last hurdle into production. Miniature Kickstarter pages often have sculpts, prototypes, artwork and background. I personally don't back something if it doesn't give me enough information about what I will get. Yes, sometimes things go wrong. Companies go bust before they can finish, for example, but that is why companies provide discounts for people who back the product. You are essentially being rewarded for your faith. If you don't want to take a risk, fair enough, but no risk, no reward as the say.

Delays

I am personally shocked that people are so concerned with this. Again, it sort of contradicts the first point made, but some people get very bothered by the fact that Kickstarters often have delays. It's not as good as buying something in a store and being able to use it straight away. If that bothers you, I believe you have a very strange way of looking at Kickstarter. For me it allows me to help create something new, it is not simply an online store. Often there are problems with production and you can wait for years past the original suggested delivery date. You don't get that in a store because they are not making something new. The counter point to that is that the companies on Kickstarter should have a better idea of production times, but for me the whole point is that they do not have the experience and funds for manafacture. Yes, they should do some more research, let people know that their stretch goals will delay production, but it doesn't make me even blink. My thoughts are that if there were no delays, they probably didn't need Kickstarter.

Having said all this, however, I do have two main problems with Kickstarter. First of all, I don't like not knowing whether there will be people keen on playing the game in the area. I also don't like the fact you are not supporting your local hobby centre.

 Although being involved in something new is exciting, you have no idea how well it's going to take with local gamers. As I have said before, I'm a gamer; if I don't play, I don't paint. You could suggest that having the forums and twitter you can keep in contact with people who are keen. you could also team together with your club to back a Kickstarter together, which also generally works better financially. This is where the problem of delays kicks in, however. Gamers are notoriously fickle and by the time something is delivered people may no longer be interested. It's not going to stop me, I guess I'm just an optimist, but it's a worry.

 The big gripe for me is not being able to support your local store. For example, The guys at my local Worhamma are really nice. They put on gaming sessions on Thursday and Sunday evenings, they are more than helpful with your orders and make a massive effort to keep the gaming community in the area exciting. The local league has now had over 100 games and that kicked off in no small part because of the support of Worhamma. (seriously, if you are in the Sunderland area come along, it's well worth it). They can only keep doing that if people buy things from them. If they can't support themselves financially they will close down and then a brilliant place to game and meet new gamers will be lost. Any money spent on Kickstarter is not spent on toys from them and that bothers me. There is a new purely gaming Kickstarter called GamingFunder that apparently can be paid for through your LGS, but honestly it's not something I have looked too much into.

At the end of all this nitpicking with this new gaming phenomenon I still find myself entranced. I guess after all I am just a big kid and I really like the idea of getting brand new toys.

Well that's it from me today. I will try and get some pictures of finished MDF stuff when it's built, but it's not mine but Jen's so I can't make promises on when that will be. Until tomorrow.

How to... Malifaux Mat

Coming up soon, a week on Saturday in fact, Worhamma is hosting 'The Good, The Bad and The Fated'. Much of my hobby time for the last while has been on making terrain to be used at this event. I have already made all of the terrain, but recently I have been messing around with making mats that are not only the right size but also have deployment zones already measured out.

This is the second mat I have been working on, I am not sure if it's quite there yet. Obviously, at the moment there is only half a board's worth, but I am not sure if I want to do thinner darker lines in the gaps between the tiles. For today, I thought I'd explain how I got to this point.

 What will I need? Wallpaper, I got some cheap stuff from Wilkinson for about £5 that was enough to do several boards; Masking tape; electrical tape, scissors, rule, mathematical compass, a large enough table to put the mat on, a pencil, a hole punch, string, sponge/foam (stuff out of box of Malifaux figures will do) relevant paint (I use wall paint for terrain and gaming tables) and paintbrushes.

First of all you need to stretch your wall paper, this is so it doesn't ripple and misform whilst you paint it. Cut out the relevant size of wall paper, you want an inch or two more than the desired size, and masking tape all of the edges down to your table whilst the paper is stretched out as tight as you can get it. At this point you might be thinking that your paper isn't big enough to do a whole board, but I do mine in two halves.

Next you want to paint your mat the right colour. I did mine a mix of pure white, with a touch of 'soft black' (or dark grey according to everyone else) and Calthan brown. If you make a mix, make sure you have enough for both halves and a way to keep it usable until you paint the next one! Once this was dry I then tore the foam until there was no straight lines, shown below:

 I then made a mix of paint with more Calthan brown in and lightly sponged this all over the wallpaper:

Once this was dry I did the same technique with pure white. Once this next layer was dry I made a watery mix of 'soft grey' and washed the whole mat with it.

Next up you should add the lines. The more observant of you may have noticed that in the above pics the lines are already present, this is because I am stupid and I thought I would be able to see the lines through the paint. Anyway, after having made a couple of designs I used the following shapes on my Malifaux mat:

• Flank Deployment Zones
• Corner Deployment Zones
• Diagonal Centre Lines
• Orthoganal Centre Lines
• 6"(radius) Recconoiter Centre Circle
• 6"+15mm (radius) Turf War Centre Circle

These, I found, were either the hardest to measure out or almost all of the other lines could be extrapolated from them. If you are not fortunate to have a compass which can draw a 12" radius circle, like I am not, I suggest that you measure 12" from the origin in small intervals so that you have a dotted line to sketch from, like shown in the picture below.

After this I then filled in the spaces with tiling. I made it so that the shape of the tiles changed when they hit these critical lines. Making you rectangular tiles 1" by 1.5" should mean they fit in all the gaps made and for the circular sections I made several smaller circles (each by an inch) and then just connected the lines up, better explained in the picture below:

As you can see in the picture above, I then simply painted over my pencil drawing, here I used Mechanicum standard grey.

 At this point, so as to break up the large open white-ish spaces and further emphasize the important lines, I washed over some of the tile sections with another coloured grey, dawnstone watered down.

I then got the black electrical tape and taped around the edges of the paper, to help protect it from getting damaged, plus I also think it makes it look much better.

Finally, I used the hole punch to make some holes that I can tie strings to so that I can hang it up.

That's half of the mat done, now just rinse and repeat! When making the second I do not tape up one of the sides, but cut it down so it can go over the overlap of the other mat (paper clip the edges) and have the right size playing space.

I'll admit it's not perfect. I considered putting some laminate on it to stop it getting damaged by moisture, but I didn't want it to be shiny. If I have any problems with this in the future I will let you know. I thought it was a quick, cheap and effective way of getting a gaming space made. Hope it's useful to folk.

Mini-Campaign: Kythera

 I have mentioned before in the blog that my local club Worhamma is running an escalation league building up to the tournament: The Good, The Bad and The Fated. This is now quickly drawing to a close after, I must be honest, a fantastic turnout and some fantastic games. In order to try and keep the momentum going with this new explosion of Malifaux enthusiasm, the guys at Worhamma thought it would be a cool idea to make some mini campaigns, nothing to in depth, where people can just pull it out (the relevant terrain and rules, along with other necessary stuff) and play a couple of cool narrative games with minimal effort on their behalf. This is my first attempt at making a set of rules like this and although it could do with a little work, I didn't have a rulebook to hand when I wrote it, I thought it would be cool to get some feedback.

Mini-Campaign 1:

Kythera

Game 1: Philip’s remains

Turf War

Schemes: Take Prisoner, Cursed Object, Bodyguard, Assassinate 

Random Deployment

Graveyard

 Philip was an explorer and scholar, uncovering secrets locked in the ancient ruins of Malifaux. He unearthed an evil deep in the Bayou so malevolent that, if you were to see it, the last vestiges of your sanity would crumble into dust.

 However, for some in Malifaux, sanity is overrated.

 Already assassinated in the sanatorium for the secrets he held, his cold dead hands clutch the scrawl of the observations of a madman. In order to discover the location of this new power, you must excavate the dead. It’s what Philip did in life anyway, right? I’m sure he won’t mind.

Game 2: Rescue Mission

Rescue Mission (winner of previous is defender)

Schemes: Make Them Suffer, Entourage, Protect territory, Breakthrough

Standard Deployment

Downtown

 For one reason or another someone has been left behind. Set upon by rampaging Neverborn in the eerie forests approaching the foetid Bayou or locked up by the Guild. Sometimes, though rarely, casualties are just not expendable.

Game 3: Kythera

Summon: Place a 30mm ritual marker in the centre of the table before the game begins. The leader of all crews can take the following interact action: (3) Dark Voice: If it is turn 2 or afterwards and if you are the first player to have done whilst in base contact with the ritual marker gain 4 VP. If you are not the first player but perform this action in base contact with the ritual marker gain 2Vp, you may no longer score any VP from this strategy.

 If a crew is led by a henchman, the AP cost of the interact action is reduced to (2)

 Also, rules for Shindig are in play.

Schemes: Power ritual, Distract, Protect Territory, Spring the Trap

Close deployment

Swamp

 You have finally discovered it, the breach to yet another world. Think of the power it might possess? The Knowledge waiting to be unlocked? The Opportunity to stab your captor in the back? Immortality is yours for the taking.

Heartfaux Report

Saturday May 10th I visited York for the second time ever. York Garrison was running a Malifaux tournament for charity, for British Heart Foundation, aptly named Heartfaux. It was a fantastic day. Big thanks to Sam and Chris who ran the event, it was great. The round times were absolutely fine, food was great, the venue was spacious even with 24 players, there was lots of terrain and I couldn't say a bad word about the whole day. Seriously congrats to the guys, showing everyone how tournaments should be run. Let's see if  we can get #goodbadfated at Worhamma to be as good! It's a challenge, but I'm sure we can do it.

The first board I played on

 The first two games were henchmen led and the second two Master led, so that there was enough time to get 4 games in. Thus my First game was Francois vs Sebastion 30ss Recconnoiter against a really nice guy called Steven Revis. It was flank deployment but unfortunately my opponent picked a corner with loads of forests and got himself bottle-necked. He then lured gracie into the mix and couldn't get to a position to kill her, despite repeatedly paralysing the big pig (she just kept flipping too high/ proving too big a mouthful for the flesh construct). This got him further stuck. Meanwhile my Bayou Gremlins lapped around the flanks and picked strategy points and deployed breakthrough markers (in a different quarter to his deployment zone!). I scored 2 for turf war, 3 for breakthrough and 3 for plant explosives. My opponent scored 1 for turf war, 3 for plant explosives and 0 for breakthrough. Final score of 8-4 to me.

my crew for the first game

 Game 2 saw me on table 3. I was not looking forward to this mission. Due to not having many models I had to take Bayou Gremlins in Reckoning. It was 35 stones and I took Francois again against Jimmy Balderstone with Sidr Archibal. He also took Lone Marshal and the Pale Rider. I took murder protege, but didn't announce it because I couldn't afford for Jimmy to be cautious with the pale rider. I reactivated Gracie to deliver Francois into charge range first turn. Next turn I won the initiative and triggered dumb luck and flipped the red joker. Both Francois and the Pale Rider died. Gracie and Burt took loads of damage but not enough to die that turn, so Jimmy pulled back. Gracie reactivated again to try and bring down the austringer, which I fluked out and did grabbing me the only reckoning point of the game. Next turn Gracie killed the guild guard and reactivated, and at that point Jimmy was forced to back off and try and score his bodyguard and protect territory. It forced me to abandon reckoning and go hell for leather for the lone marshall. Fortunately Gracie with Burt Jebson were really quick and really lucky. Burt Jebson, in two attacks which both were on double negative, flipped two moderates. I got 1 for reckoning, 2 for murder protege and 3 for bodyguard. Jimmy got 1 for bodyguard, because he gambled on getting another turn with Sidr and moved to put his second scheme marker down. Final score 6-1 to me.

My favourite crew of the day, I'm not afraid to admit I voted for them for best painted

 I now sat on top table, I was thoroughly shocked that I had done so well, and faced another member of the North East team that went: Darren. We moved up to Master level games this round and saw Somer face Tara in Stake a Claim. We both announced Deliver a message, which we both scored turn one. I delivered Burt with Gracie and Darren buried a necropunk to make it fast and threw it at Somer. Tara buried Gracie and Burt was killed, Somer got stuck in a fight with a rogue necromancy. It was looking bad. Fortunately Fancois was able to stab through a Necropunk and Drowned. Tara unburied Gracie and charge Somer with her, only for him loudest Squeel and shoot seven bells out of Tara. Rogue Necromancy killed Gracie. The flank was now clear for Francois and a Bayou Gremlin, I was able to gain advantage in Stake a Claim. Managed to take down Tara with a charging slop hauler to get Assassinate, but only in turn 4. I couldn't kill the Rogue Necromancy so he could guarantee himself protect territory. Final score: I got 3 stake a claim, 2 Assassinate, 3 deliver a message. Darren got: 1 Stake a Claim, 3 Deliver a Message and 3 Protect Territory. Final Score 8-7 to me.

Some of Darren's models, obviously not the crew he used against me

 So, at the finally, I sat on 3 wins and still on the top table. I couldn't believe it. Final Game was against Graham Bursnell who was using Marcus whilst I continued on with Somer. It was Turf War. We both announced Power Ritual. First turn Somer summoned a whole bunch of Bayou Gremlins and the Marcus crew advanced. Graham was completely thrown by the fact Gracie wasn't a beast and alpha'd Joss into Burt to try and take her down, damaging both models. To a large extent it came down to the next initiative step, which I won, despite Soulstones. This led to Francois taking down Joss. It became a very messy mix in the middle with Marcus, a rattler, Myranda and a Sabertooth homing in. One by one Gracie went down, Francois and Burt, but before they went they manage to take down Marcus, scoring me assassinate. My remaining Gremlins were able to overpower what was left, by that I really mean Somer squealed away and shot to pieces the things that mattered. A very brave move by Graham threw his rattler into a corner to try and get power ritual if there was a 6th turn, at the sacrifice of turf war points, paid off. I got 3 for Assassinate, 3 for Power Ritual and 4 for Turf War. Graham got 3 for Turf War and 3 for power ritual. I won 10-6.

My camera ran out of battery during the day, but James Doxey won second place in best painted with these models

So in the finale I was left the only player on 4 wins and the overall winner of the day. I got a cool looking trophy to boot! In addition, because of the kind sponsorship of many everyone walked home with a prize from the raffle and I picked up Wong for my new green brothers! You can find more information about the results here.

 So in conclusion, an absolutely fantastic day. I can thank everyone enough, players organizers and sponsor for making the day truly terrific. I just hope everyone else had as much fun as I did.

Response to the Fools

 So it appears I have woken up at silly O'clock this morning, much earlier than necessary to make my way to heartfaux, so I thought I'd chuck out a blog post as I am likely going to be too tired to manage it tonight when I get back.

Yesterday I listened to the Fools Daily episode '40K Grumble' and I thought I'd pitch my two cents into the debate. The topic of the conversation was the rumored new 'take whatever you feel like' rules for Warhammer 40 000. I am not going to go into the fact that apocalypse pretty much allows this anyway, but focus more on the arguments that 'the older gamers' in the form of everyone but Ben on the podcast made.

I am not an old gamer, but I have always been found of the little FAQ's found at the back of the specialist games books by Jervis saying that, basically, he just wanted to inspire cool scenarios and battles and not necessarily want games always to have even sides. I love the idea of doing inspiring scenarios with integral stories and climatic confrontations, where the little man has no chance but slugs away anyway. It feels like this is the sort of spirit that the rulebook is trying to bring to the fore.

 I am however, completely with Ben though, I don't need a rulebook to tell me to ignore the rules.

 In order for the grand encounters, previously mentioned, to work you have to have a specific attitude. You can't get to attached to a specific side and want them to win, you have to not really care about the result, you have to put the effort in to work a suitable scenario. People who will do this have enough initiative not to need a rulebook to do it. Anyone who just follows a rulebook telling them they can take whatever they feel like without a second thought is not going to get the same experience.

 It also leads to the background getting further twisted out of shaped, as strange and stupid alliances are made as people just throw whatever figures they have on the table. As previously stated in another blog post, I love creating a narrative in my game and there is no better way to ruin a good story than saying, 'these guys are mates 'cos I had them in my box.'

 The 'Oldies' had the retort that, back in the day, they didn't have all this competitive malarky and all this official nonsense and people muddled through. That's splendid, but by your own admission, it's not like that today. People have been spoiled and mindsets have changed. If I could trust my local gaming group, and don't get me wrong many of the guys at Worhamma are a fine bunch of lads, to play with spirit and for fun then it would be great, but I'm afraid the muddle through mentality has gone and some people will play to the limit of the rules. You must make a rules set to match players, not players to match rules.

 Finally, and this is something I pointed out on a Facebook group I'm in, it subtracts from one of the main benefits of Games Workshop wargaming in my opinion. One of the reasons I played Games Workshop before was because I confident that I could go to almost any gaming club across the country, and internationally to, with my armies and get a game. A universal rules set played by everyone is a major advantage when I actually want to use my figures. When each club has a set of house rules as long as your arm, my armies may no longer match their exacting demands. That last thing that made Games Workshop rules sets interesting to me then crumbles away.

So apparently I needed a grumble to, but I thought I'd help out the outnumbered Ben in his argument. Tomorrow's post is likely going to be a report on Heartfaux, which I am really excited about. Catch you tomorrow.

Gremlins is Awesome: pt 2: Pigs is Awesome too

 I'm a very happy Connor today because yesterday I was able to pick up my order of Somer Teeth Jones from the post office and was then able to play a game with him in the evening. Thursday evenings are Worhamma's, my local clubs, gaming evening. For those in the North East I thoroughly recommend coming down. It runs 6-10 on Thursdays and 5-9 Sundays at South Hylton Community Centre. We regularly run tournaments, have enough space for about at most 30 gamers and are currently running a Malifaux Escalation League with about a dozen regular participants. If you are new to Malifaux and not sure, don't sweat it, the league was designed for helping people out and there are a few of us more experienced folk around to help you out and show you the ropes.

This fine Thursday evening I played against Vince; our resident Ressurectionist, scholar and cad. It was 35 Soulstones this session and we flipped Squatter's rights with: Assassinate, Distract, Outflank and Murder Protege. I plucked for my plucky new Somer and he fielded the mighty McMorning.

I won't go into detail, mainly because I can't, but on one flank I had Gracie and Francoix, with piles of Bayou Gremlins and Somer on t'other. I announced murder protege (sebastian) and outflank. Opponent took line in the sand (announced) and assassinate. The critical turning points were two fold. McMorning, being brave, attempted to unleash a tirade of poison onto Somer by diving from cover, for it all to fail. Slop Hauler then reduced McMorning's defence and continuous barrage from numerous Bayou Gremlins and Somer toppled the fellow. Sebastian was attempting to bring down Gracie with mass poison but only got to the point where she would go down to her hard to kill. In desperation summoned a hound, who accompliced to charge (because Gracie had poison it only took 1Ap) and didn't damage her and simply provided a tasty looking treat to heal with. I won 9-2.

What I have learned now with Gremlins then? 2 things: Gracie is amazing, Bayou 2 card is amazing.

 Almost all of my games thus far have included the big pig Gracie, mainly because I don't have enough models not to take her. She is developing a hideous reputation at the club, with good reason. Killing a model to heal all lost wounds is mad, especially when combined with hard to kill, and armour 2 is again brutal. She can be a bit of a card drain, because I can't afford for her to hit on a crow with her melee, but she is well worth the investment. She is not invincible, far from it, but she causes my opponent enough of a headache to absorb AP. I never leave home with saddle on her, though, it's one of the main reasons I take her. Moving out of activation has so many uses in this game that it would simply be rude not to.
 All this being said, I think I need to stop using her, mainly because she will become a crutch. I want to learn more about other Gremlin play styles and to do that I need to play with other models.

Bayou two-card is my favourite thing about the Gremlins at the moment, it's awesome. It makes Gremlins sneakily good. I don't really have much else to say about that, it's just awesome.

 A couple of things I have been thinking about though, for changing tactics, and excuse me if I get this wrong because I am learning, but I don't think I always want to dish out Rams with Somer's 'do it like 'dis'. I mainly do it because I look at his gun and go Wowza! But I think it could also prove useful defensively. If I give masks out it means everyone can squeel, which is an amazing defensive trigger, I might add, and one I too frequently forget. I guess that's what all this learning business is about.

So, in summation, Gremlin's are great because of Gracie and because they cheat whilst cheating. I am looking forward to more Gremlin games tomorrow when I take them to Heartfaux! On that note, I need to finish painting Somer's hat. Chat soon.