Malifaux Battle Report – Guild vs Resurrectionists (25SS)

It was a good Malifaux session at the Cross Gaming Club last night.

My main objective was to check out their new venue in a gamer-friendly pub near London Bridge. Sadly, just as I’ve decided to go there regularly, they’ve been forced to move from the former location in Charing Cross – which was a just few minutes walk from my flat. It’s still not too big a trauma to get there though and most people are of the opinion that the new spot has better facilities. Plus the landlord is a roleplayer himself so that can’t hurt.

My Malifaux Resurrectionists are in an unfit state at the moment as I’ve snipped off their base slots and they’ve got brass rods sticking out of their feet, so Ish kindly lent me a crew to go head to head in my first ever game.

I was playing a Guild crew led by Perdita Ortega accompanied by some Ortega family gunslingers (Papa Loco, Nino, Santiago) and a Convict Gunslinger for added fire. Ish was running a Resurrectionist crew led by Seamus along with Sybelle, a Grave Spirit, a Rotten Belle, and a couple of punk zombies with samurai swords.

We flipped (cards) for setup and objectives. Both players will usually have different objectives which I think is a pretty cool system, meaning you have to balance your own plans for victory against thwarting theirs. Seamus and his undead ladies were after retrieving an object from some ruins in the centre of the table, while Perdita and the Orega family were on a recon mission, aiming to have a minion in all four corners of the table at game end.

Each player also gets to add some additional strategies for further victory points – keeping them secret, or declaring them for double the reward. This is another cool mechanic as a canny player will look out for probable strategies to thwart while trying to secretly achieve their own.

After setting up our crews we set about things with the Resurrectionists using some tricky abilities to rapidly advance on the central ruins. Meanwhile my Guild crew also hotfooted into spread out positions in order to cover the central ruins with corridors of fire.

Crazy dynamite-toting Papa Loco made a beeline for the ruins. Seamus took his eyes off him and this turned out to be extremely pivotal in the game. So focused was he on the objective that he grouped his ladies close and didn’t notice the crazy old coot ducking into cover nearby – cackling as he lit the fuse on the first of his TNT sticks.

Sybelle confidently grabbed the object the Resurrectionists had come for. Protected by a grave spirit, she brazenly started marching homeward with her prize. However Loco came charging out from around the corner, lobbing dynamite and without care for his own safety and detonating more up close.

Seamus was caught by surprise and, calling on the fates, burned through most of his stockpile of soulstones in one turn as the rest of the Ortegas opened up with both barrels.

The Rotten Belle and protective Grave Spirit went down in the hail of fire as Seamus ducked back into cover. His attempts to reanimate the Belle were unsuccessful and, unfortunately for the Mad Hatter, Santiago Ortega had taken position the other side of the ruin, covering his retreat and further wounding him as he backed away.

Striding forward, Perdita let loose with her paired peacebringer pistols and there was nothing Seamus could do to withstand her fury. His opportunities to heal himself with the departing spririts of nearby fallen had been neglected and he fell.

Santiago and the Convict Gunslinger then took out one of the zombie punks which had been steadily advancing up the right flank and at this point, with time running out, we called it a game.

It turned out to be a very one-sided fight, with the only damage to my crew being self-inflicted. Admittedly I had some pretty lucky card flips (such as a draw-four-take-lowest damage flip still inflicting moderate damage), but unfortunately my opponent made a number of mistakes in forgetting key abilities and leaving his crew in vulnerable positions. Luck also wasn’t with him and some of the Resurrectionist combos failed to materialise.

It was an enjoyable game. Probably more so for me than for my opponent. The card flipping mechanic is really very cool. Way more satisfying than rolling dice. And the game has a nice cinematic feel to it – with each character being unique and with their own flavoured abilities. All these abilities do mean that you have to be mindful of what each and every model can do and, as the Resurrectionists showed, it is all too easy to forget key actions and spells when you need them.

I don’t think it’s a serious complaint though as after a few plays you’ll know exactly what each model is capable of and how you’ll get to set up combos and the like.

Those Ortega gunslingers sure can lay down some heavy ranged fire. I’m going to have to be on the lookout for them if I ever have to face them.

And if you hear the hissing of a dynamite fuse…. RUN!!!

~ by Max Von Deadlock on May 5, 2010.