Journey to Malifaux UK Nationals 2024

So times been tight the past couple of weeks for one thing or another so not much hobby time. However my wife once again volunteered some time to play some short small games to allow me to get some games in. Usually I would go over round by round and give a breakdown of what happened but as my wifes crew was exactly the same both times it has kind of blended into the same game tbh.

Here are our crews for the games we played at a reduced 40 soulstones, we got standard  deployment in Plant explosives as well as raid the vaults and deliver a message and Outflank first game and Outflank and power ritual in the second game for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorpsmen

Freikorps Librarian

Freikorps Engineer

Metallurgist

Fumigator

Lazarus

Second game the Fumigator and Lazarus were swapped out for the following;

Freikorps Scout

Hannah Lovelace

0 Soulstones

My opponents list was;

Dr Frank N Steen

Eyegor

3 x Misfit

The Bride 

The Creature

0 Soulstones

A brief note on the above crew is that it is a rotten harvest version of a Von Schtook crew which is themed around Young Frankenstein and as one of my favourite comedies I could not resist picking it up. As such I thought it would be a great opportunity to give it some table time as it may not get much opportunity otherwise.

The main aim of these games was to test out some of the keyword I hadn’t had a chance to run in my previous games, mainly the Fumigator, Metallurgist,Engineer, Librarian and Scout. So instead of going round by round I will try and focus on them a little bit at a time.

Fumigator – unfortunately I did not get much use out of him as I did aim him at someone who hands out poison, but sadly didn’t get the opportunity to heal him up as he ran into the Monster (counts as a Valedictorian) who made short work of him. So I think pushing him forward too quickly was a poor decision, but not a mistake I will make again.

Metallurgist – so from the use I got out of her she is definitely a hire I will take against certain crews like the Viks or Nekima to stop splash damage and armour piercing taking some of my bigger hires down too quickly. The concealing steam is also incredibly useful from what I found as well,  giving minuses to long ranged weapons and trying to force melee is great especially could mean taking damage doing that as well.

Engineer – another really useful miniature for a construct heavy crew and not a slouch in combat either. I didn’t take full advantage of the tools for the job ability which could have helped with getting triggers off when I really needed them, but again first time out so I need to jest keep that in my brain.

Librarian – really great models for 7 points with some movement actions, some healing and an attack that can be used at range and whilst engaged. With armour and arcane shield the 7 health doesn’t feel too punishing but keeping them at the edge of the fray is the wise move here. In both games she was among the last to go down and was great with a grenade belt or rocket boots attached.

Scout – in the words of Sam Beckett Oh Boy, did I fluff the use of this guy. Firstly I deployed him where he could not see a single target on the first turn. Then when I re-positioned him to shoot first turn I drew the black joker for the opposed duel. Shortly after he was taken down to 2 health and shoved aside by The Monster into his original position so he couldn’t see any targets in turn 2 and had a misfit hilariously come out of nowhere and not only getting a + on the flip but getting severe damage ensuring his swift and disappointing demise. He was also supposed to retreat to score my Power Ritual Scheme, but I totally forgot about that until he died.

Here are the main takeaways from the 2 games overall. First of all and most importantly I managed to not lose a game for the first time and got a 2-2 draw for plant explosives managing to blow something up and deliver a message, but wasn’t able to keep a strategy marker near Frank N Steen to score the second scheme point. Game 2 wasn’t as close at a 2-4 loss, but I botched my schemes and was only able to score twice from the Strategy and didn’t have enough models in turn 5 to score anymore from that. If I am going to take things like Outflank and Power ritual I need to take full advantage of rocket boots and maybe not push for it in turn 2 but maybe turn 4 or 5. So lots of lessons learnt and I also got to try some of those new minis out as well.

Whilst not massively key to the game as she managed to stay in the game another couple of rounds, but very funny to watch Hannah smash one of the misfits into the ground only surviving thanks to hard to kill. Then in the next round it had 2 really great flurries in melee almost killing Hannah in return. The narrative we came up with was that she smashed the Misfit with her giant robot fists, but when she lifted the giant mechanical hands up there was nothing there, because it had crawled up into her armour and was attacking her whilst crawling around inside it.

Oh yeah and this hand in game 1 was nothing short of miraculous!

The time is nigh my first Malifaux tournament looms large on the horizon. So I decided to get a practice game in before 3 games in one day. So once again I run up against my old nemesis the Viktorias, the super fast death machines.

Here are our crews for the games we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got corner deployment in stuff the ballets and power ritual and ensnare for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Drachen trooper

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Hans

3 soulstones

My opponents list was;

The Viktorias 

Taelor

Student of Conflict 

Vanessa Chambers 

3 Ronin

Ella Mae Chesterfield 

3 Soulstones

Turn 1 was a major reminder of how aggressive the Viks play. I had one of the twins on my Scout in turn and he was down to two health at the end of the turn. Also Taelor pulled my Drachen trooper to the centre and allowed everyone to get hits on him as well, killing him in turn 1. Everything else was moving up towards the Strat markers

Turn 2 and I lost my scout before he had a chance to activate. Luckily or unluckily unbeknownst to me I managed to kill a Viktoria however I was unaware that this boosted the remaining Twin up, small victories I guess. I managed to get a bit of damage to the central group of miniatures which was great. This did mean that I felt in a decent position going into turn 3.

I had a solid plan going into turn 3, to remove Vanessa so that the centre models couldn’t heal up. However that plan was short lived as Von Schill was gone in the blink of an eye and I was down again. Then I failed a crucial flip to move Arik up and I had burnt all my good cards trying to keep Von Schill alive. My entire right flank was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. I had also lost my ability to score one of my schemes entirely. Then I lost Hannah as well with some poor flips and no hand to speak of even stones couldn’t save her from the onslaught. My opponent scored one point for the strategy and revealed information overload as his scheme, scoring for that as well.

Turn 4 would be the last as I had one possible turnaround that could save my game. Kill Vanessa! Arik did not comply, again I had one good card compared with my opponent’s hand. He was able to cheat way above what I could in the first attempt and the second attempt fell a fowl of the dreaded black joker. I tried to get the trunk to Hnas but it was gunned down on its way.

In conclusion I lost 5-0 I had 2 of my crew left, one who was limping and one at full health. But crucially I killed a twin which I have never done before so I will take that, because it’s all I had. I also wanted to try out a couple of the models I had painted up in time for the tournament in Hans, the Freikorps scout and the Drachen Trooper. Unfortunately for me they did not survive long enough for me to test them out fully, but lesson learned about not allowing the enemy to get into them at all because they will not survive. I really need to be thinking much more about the schemes my crew can achieve and focusing on that rather than trying to kill things off because that is where my points to tip a game could come from. Strategies are fairly similar with mild variation: get to a marker and hold on to it. I know I can acheive this, but it’s holding them where I fall down most of the time. I have some thoughts and we’ll see how they play out at the tournament over the weekend.

Driving down to the tournament I had a little anxiety about the day ahead. I hadn’t been in a tournament for such a competitive game in a long time and my previous experience was a little negative. Which was mostly on me as I had underestimated how competitive it was going to be and was woefully underprepared. Was this the same? Was I way out of my depth? Had I made a huge mistake signing up for nationals? Well before I knew it we were there and game 1 was just around the corner and I managed to talk myself down from the high anxiety to just a little bit of panic.

So rather than do the usual round by round breakdown I will sum up the crews, Strats and schemes then just do an overall summary of the game and how I felt it went.

Also a quick note I wanted to take photos of all the tables but didn’t get a chance but were some gorgeous ones around so here are a couple of them

Here are the crews for the game 1, we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got wedge deployment in raid the vaults and death beds and outflank for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

2 x Freikorpsmann

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Tunnel Rats

2 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Marcus Alpha 

Jackalope

Myranda

The Scorpious 

Sightless Snow

Soulstone Miner

Order Initiate

4 Soulstones

Okay this will be as brief as the game was, as I suddenly realised I was probably going to be playing a lot of crews and even factions I had never faced before. In a blind panic I picked a crew that wasn’t very coherent or useful at all for the strat, but I rolled with it as best as I could and picked a couple of schemes I thought I had a chance of doing. The game moved along at a brisk pace and I felt okay up to turn 3. I had lost a couple of models and so had my opponent. However things went south fast in turn 3 model after model was eradicated and in turn 5 my opponent gave me a hint that I had a chance of the possibility of scoring a single point. I managed to figure out the route and my opponent kindly helped me with the finer details and I managed to score a single point. At this point I was neither disappointed as losing was what I was expecting, but also it didn’t feel great to lose 8-1. However at this point I was chatting to some of the other players and discovered that the person I had drawn at my first tournament in my first round was ranked No.5 in the UK and was more than likely winning the tournament as well (which he did). Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad as I managed to score a point against him, admittedly with some help, with a panic built crew. Also he was incredibly kind, patient and helpful both during and after the game, Giving me some hints and thoughts on crew building and model use for the rest of the day which I took on board and he also gifted me some game aids as well. With this welcoming attitude and generally great vibe I looked forward to my next two games.

Here are the crews for the game 2, we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got standard deployment in plant explosives and hold up their forces and information overload for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Fumigator 

Freikorpsmann

Drachen Trooper

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Lazarus

Tunnel Rats

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Captain Zipp Dread Pirate 

Earl Burns

The First Mate

2 x Iron Skeeter 

Beau Fishbocker

Swashbuckler

Gracie

4 Soulstones

Going into game 2 I was a little more composed and all anxiety had gone. I didn’t know the crew at all, but I know that Gremlins are squishy and there tends to be a few of them. So I built a crew that would have a good damage output and some blast to hit the groups if there were any. This was easily my favourite game of the day as it was very back and forth and I never felt like I was going to get to an unassailable loss. I had a solid plan and with some minor drawbacks it mostly went as planned. The crew I faced was not what I had expected. There were far fewer models than I had anticipated and some were quite tough to deal with. It ended at a 7-5 loss because of time I don’t think winning was an option. I may have been able to eke out a draw at best with good card draws, still a great game and again my opponent was gracious, patient and helpful throughout.

Here are the crews for the game 3, we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got Flank deployment in Stuff the ballots and death beds and sweating bullets for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Drachen trooper

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Freikorps Engineer

Lazarus

2 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Anya, Rail Magnate

Sovereign

Corvis Rook

Winston Finnigan 

Yannic Waller

Surveyor

Catalan Rifleman

Operative

6 Soulstones

Weirdly game 3 was the toughest game I had as the crew I faced were nothing like anything I had come up against so far. I wasn’t even that familiar with Anya at all. It was a lot of condition handouts, messing with my hand and generally making it tricky for me to get anything else done. I also did not help myself as in the end phase of turn 1 I thought I had picked deliver a message for my scheme, but had in fact picked death beds. So I had been gearing up for one thing and ended up having to switch plans in turn 2 to something else. It was a really tricky game and I am not sure what I could have done differently at this point to negate the conditions or hand shenanigans. My initial thought was rather than hires focused on getting in close I should have picked a far more ranged crew. We didn’t manage to turn 5 so with 15 minutes left we talked out the way we thought things would go. I once again failed to think about the strategy and only focused on my schemes so at the end of the game we agreed on a 7-2 loss.

So final thoughts on the day. All in all although I finished dead last, that is exactly what I expected. The crucial thing is I got to play someone way above my level and pick their brain a little, have a great game, face 3 crews and factions I had never faced and I learnt a ton of things. So what are the big things I learnt, I need to keep Von Schill out of melee and not rely on him for handing out equipment quite so much. I need to think more about the strategy at hand and then pick my schemes based on what I have not the other way round. I gave out focus so many times and barely ever used it which was not smart as when I did remember it really helped me get rid of some models. Lastly and most importantly I had some fun, even in the direst game I still managed to have a bit of fun doing silly things. Also the community was more than welcoming and just so friendly and helpful in general I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the tournament scene. I will also talk a little about the venue. It was a great store in Milton Keynes, a little more focused towards board and TCGs than wargaming, but still a fantastic venue called Wargames Workshop so if you are in the area it’s well worth stopping by. So what next? Well I have a main goal in mind for my next game whether or not I will achieve it we will see but that is a tale for another entry dear reader.

I organised the next Malifaux Midlands meetup this past weekend and we had 7 players attend with varying different crews all having some friendly games. My intention was to get a game in with Iron Heart Von Schill as I hadn’t gotten a chance to use him yet. I played the person who gave me the original demo of the game a few years ago so it was nice to play him again at a proper level.

Here are the crews for the game we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got standard deployment in Cloak and dagger with sweating bullets and let them bleed for my schemes;

Von Schill – Iron Heart

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Freikorps Engineer

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik Schottemer

Lazarus

3 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Lucius Mattheson 

The Scribe

Alan Reid

Klaus Norwood 

Cavitica

White eyes

Guild Lawyer

2 False witnesses 

7 Soulstones

Turn 1 was the standard positioning for scoring in Turn 2. The only real notable thing I found that the keyword I was playing had a lot of card and hand manipulation abilities making it a little harder to pull off the things I really wanted to do.

Turn 2 I had gotten in a good position to score the strategy and make a start on scoring the schemes I had picked. I threw Iron-Heart into the mix with reckless abandonment foolishly as all the hand manipulation quickly drained my cards. However in an unknowing good pick, Lazarus’s Grenade launcher avoided a lot of this because it is a shockwave weapon and doesn’t target models, but instead targets a spot on the board. Unfortunately my opponent had a wealth of cards to pass the tests needed to avoid damage. We traded blows here and there doing a little damage to each other’s crews. I lost my Scout to white eyes who made a Beeline for him from the very beginning of the game. 

Into Turn 3 a slight misjudgement of placement meant that Hannah was not as in the mix as I wanted, but Arik managed to move in and smoosh poor Klaus into paste with an 8 damage punch. Iron-Heart was completely tangled in a web of Boring conversation and Flexible Morality meaning getting anything off was tricky. I had a plan for Turn 4 but we’ll get to that shortly. I didn’t manage to score my strat this round as I said I was just to far out of position and Lazarus had not managed to do any significant damage again. My opponent scored a scheme and a strategy putting the score at 3-1.

Turn 4 I had a plan to hopefully get Iron-Heart into a better position with Bulldoze remove some markers do some damage and get him to where I wanted. he managed to pull it off at the cost of a few cards and chipped some damage to a couple of characters and setting up the fall of the guild lawyer among them. Sadly Lazarus fell to multiple attackers that I just couldn’t fend off. Iron-Heart was now in deep trouble surrounded by enemies on all sides and only an engineer in support. We both scored the strategy my opponent scored the another scheme but with a little help I also scored one of my schemes as well the score now sat at 5-3 in my opponents favour.

Turn 5 myself and my opponent talked it out and did a couple of key activations to see if I could score my last 2 Schemes and the same for him. Iron-heart managed to do the amount of damage needed the people around him to score both of my schemes for end game and he would also do the same and he would easily score the Strategy and the game ended at 6-8.

So in conclusion I am begining to remember to use focus, the best people to put certain upgrades on and my abilities and triggers that help me win games. I am getting there and the past few games I have played have seen me so close to victory or at least a draw. Whilst I feel the wooden spoon is most likely what I will walk away with at the nationals I can at least say I will have progressed from where I began. I am happy with my level of knowledge for the most part, but most importantly I am enjoying the game more and more. 

I organised a game after my last pretty quickly after my last one which was good as I hadn’t played a game in a couple of weeks before that. I decided I was just going to run Iron Heart again as he was pretty interesting to use. 

Here are the crews for the game we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, we got flank deployment in Raid the Vaults with Deliver a message and Outflank for my schemes;

Von Schill – Iron Heart

Steam Trunk

Freikorps scout 

Drachen Trooper

Freikorpsmen

Hannah Lovelace 

Lazarus

Tunnel rats

Fumigator

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Shenlong

2 x Aspiring Student

Four winds Golem

Sensei Yu

Charm Warder

Wandering River monk

Low River Monk

Desper LaRaux

6 Soulstones

Turn 1 as always was positioning to score turn 2. I was again unfamiliar with the master I was playing against which wasn’t helpful, but I thought I would go for a crew that removes markers as I vaguely remembered something about Chi. Unfortunately it was a damage output crew not a marker placement crew and Chi was a status that was built up not a token that was placed down. I went with it though and try to play to my strengths.

In turn 2 I was mostly in what I had felt like was a decent position for Outflank having the tunnel rats at one corner and Hannah near the other. Sadly it was very quickly gone. I had stretched out too thin too fast and before I knew it my Tunnel Rats were toast and The Four Winds Golem was tying up Hannah who had managed to avoid a good chunk of damage thanks to the black Joker. I moved a few people up into scoring positions and held them there for scoring. I managed to get some blips of health off some characters, but it was either healed or stoned away by the end of the turn.

Turn 3 was when things got a little heated in the centre, but again not a lot happened Lazarus and The fumigator took a beating but were still standing. Importantly I was still holding enough markers to score the Strategy but so was my opponent. He was also blocking the Fumigator who is the character I had chosen to deliver the message to Shenlong. Hannah was being held up on all sides but again managed to avoid a huge amount of damage and death thanks to the black Joker. My opponent managed to Score a point for protected territory and we both scored a point for the strategy.

Turn 4 saw both disaster and triumph. Firstly I had managed to get a bit of health back onto Lazarus and the fumigator pushing them up a little. Then using Rocket boots I repositioned Lazarus into a great position and with a single rocket launcher shot I killed both aspiring students in one go. In retaliation he finished off Lazarus with ease using Shenglong and the Fumigator with Sensei Yu. Hannah felt the wrath of the four wind Golem as well, managing to cling to a bit of health until shoved back into the steam trunk and Drachen Trooper, killing her and damaging the other 2 as well. Crucially the trunk was blocking the Charm Warder who was low on health already and damaging her further allowing the Drachen trooper to finish her off and deal a little damage to Desper as well. I was also delivered a message from the Low River Monk. I was now low on models in the centre and I could not score for the Strategy, but my opponent did the score was now 4-2 to my opponent

Turn 5 we only did a couple of activations to see what I could be achieved I managed to push Von Schill way out to score the Strat for the final turn. I attempted to move my opponent off the objectives, but it was pretty clear it was not going to happen when we talked it over so we decided to call the game there at 7-3 to my opponent.

Whilst not a strong game for me it was still a good game with lots of fun moments. Again I failed to score Outflank and I think I get why now. I am revealing my intentions too early and making it far too predictable what I am planning. For deliver a message it was just bad luck and my opponent’s smart planning and resource management that kept my messenger tied up this time, otherwise I would have scored at least a single point from it. Whilst i wouldn’t have won me the game that extra 2 points minimum would have made the game a little closer. Still I am learning all the time and it’s another master I now know. I think from here I am going to attempt to build some standardised lists that will do specific things well and start using and refining those before the nationals.

So here we are on the eve of nationals, 7 months and 15 games between now and then. I am going to summarise the last two games I had because I needed to focus on painting so wasn’t able to do a full post for game 14. I thankfully was able to get the entire keyword for Freikorps done and some versatile models as well.

Here are the crews for the games we played at a standard 50 soulstones game,

So here we are on the eve of nationals, 7 months and 15 games between now and then. I am going to summarise the last two games I had because I needed to focus on painting so wasn’t able to do a full post for game 14. I thankfully was able to get the entire keyword for Freikorps and some versatile models as well.

Here are the crews for the games we played at a standard 50 soulstones game, 

Game 14

We got standard deployment in plant explosives with Deliver a message and protected territories for my schemes;

Von Schill – Iron Heart

Steam Trunk

Freikorps Engineer

Freikorps librarian

Metallurgist

Hannah Lovelace 

Arik

Tunnel rats

Fumigator

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Youko Hamasaki

Chiyo Hamasaki

Fuhatsu

Hinamatsu

Charm Warder

Kunoichi

Bill Algren

5 Soulstones

This was another game where it was a bit of a brawl in the centre pretty quick and some of my plans just fell apart super quickly. I was able to deliver a message and plant an explosive, but otherwise I was unable to do much else because things just died in droves. I really felt the lack of focused ability in my crew this time. Having a second Engineer or even a librarian would have kept some of my heavy hitters in the fight a bit longer. It was a great throwdown between Bill and Arik constantly trading blows and just missing out on the final blow multiple times. The game ended at a 7-3 loss which had I known the other crew a little better I wouldn’t have selected what I did and maybe would have traded for a more ranged approach.

Game 15

We got wedge deployment in Raid the Vaults with power ritual and espionage for my schemes;

Von Schill

Steam Trunk

3 x Freikorpsmann

3 x Freikorps scout 

Midnight stalker 

Tunnel rats

Malifaux Child

0 soulstones

My opponents list was;

Lihn Ly – storyteller

Jade Rabbit

2 x Bookkeeper 

Story of Thanh Giong

Story of Sun Wukong

Story of Raijin

Desper LaRaux

4 Soulstones

I threw this list together last minute because I wanted to give the midnight stalker and Malifaux Child a run out before the nationals to see what was possible with them. This game was much more tense and I was much closer to getting a good score here. Again though it was not a great match up of crews and I hadn’t realised that the midnight stalker had lost his eternal ability. So whilst he seemed good initially, performed badly because I didn’t pay attention to the card. Another 7-3 loss, I was so close to potentially getting to 7-5 which whilst obviously still a loss would have been marginally better than last game. Also that Jade rabbit is a real pain for just being a totem but now I know. It’s all information and learning which is what these games are about.

In conclusion I have struggled to push past that 3 points level in my past couple of games. Why? I think my brain is kinda of stuck in a “kill all the things!” mode which scores me nothing. I also forget to set up my end game schemes or when I do they’re shut down pretty quickly. So what now, well my next seven games will be at the UK nationals, so my journey is coming to a close. What do I hope for at nationals? It’s simple really, I want to play some fun games and maybe get a game where I don’t lose. I’ve come so close a couple of times, so a draw or even a win would be great, but I don’t expect to walk away with anything but the wooden spoon at this point if I’m honest and that’s okay.

Thought I would take the time to post a couple of photos of the venue whilst I had the time.

I will do all the games in a single post once the Nationals are over and I have the brain power to commit to it. But as a brief overview I have come very close to a draw twice now. I am sat comfortably at the bottom of the table but have had some great games so far.