Malifaux Battle Report 2 - Guild v.s Marcus Beast Pack

Marcus and his pack of mongrel have hidden a cache of Soulstones on the outskirts of civilized Malifaux. It is up to Lady Justice and her contingent of Death Marshals and Guild Guard to claim these precious gems and bring justice upon those who would seek to usurp the Guild's rightful rule of Malifaux.

This game was a real test of my ability to adapt to circumstances that ended up being wildly out of my own control. My Lady Justice Guild crew against my friend Todd's Marcus Beast crew. Keep in mind as we're still new to the game, there are bound to be some mistakes in these games. Please feel free to comment and let us know what we've done wrong.


The Crews

I was again playing my Lady Justice crew, but this time against Todd's Marcus Arcanist/Neverborn/Ressurectionist crew. Once again it was a 45 point game. The Strategy for this game was Theft, with me being the attacker, and Todd trying to defend. My schemes were Murder Protege (undeclared) and Protect Territory (undeclared), and his were Distract and Plant Explosives (undeclared).

The Guild

- Lady Justice with the Thalarian Stone upgrade - 1 SS

- The Judge with the Vengeance Bullet upgrade - 10 SS

- 3 Death Marshals - 18 SS

- Guild Austringer - 6 SS

- 2 Guild Guard - 8 SS

Total: 43 SS

Guild Crew

I decided to try out the Guild Guard this game, as I thought that being about to move around between scheme markers would be very helpful if I was going to be dropping them all over the place. I knew that his crew was going to be quite mobile (though I didn't realize just how mobile until the game actually started), so I figured that shooting would be a little less important compared to to mobility. Turns out I was very right to think this. Again I had lots of stones with which to protect my master from harm.

Marus' Pack

- Marcus with the Trail of the Gods, God's Domain, and Feral Instincts - 3 SS

- Myranda - 8 SS

- Sabertooth Cerberus with the Imbued Protection upgrade - 11 SS

- Silurid - 7 SS

- Waldgeist - 6 SS

- Night Terror - 3 SS

- Shikome - 8 SS

Total: 46 SS

Once again, my knowledge on my enemy's crew was quite lacking. I knew that they were mobile, had next to no shooting and that they'd work best using hit and run tactics. What I didn't know was just how mobile they were, and that they had some pretty tough beasties that I'd have to deal with.

The Game

We deployed using the Corner Deployment again with the same steam punk ruins in the center, a river flowing around it on my side, some forests on his side and a kind of sewer-type terrain piece directly adjacent to the ruins.

Game Board

Todd deployed first, and deployed in and behind his large forest piece. Many of his guys have unimpeded, so being in terrain hardly matters for him. He deployed nice and centrally, ready to go in either direction, depending on what I did.

Beast Deployment

I deployed Second and I think I made a big mistake here. I put my Austringer up in the little tower, and put Lady Justice and two Death Marshals on one side of it, with the Judge, both Guild Guard and the last Death Marshal on the otherside. The gem markers were more or less lined up the minimum distance from the center line and spread across the line, so my intention was to send Justice and her marshals one way, and the other group the other way so that at least one group would be able to grab a bunch of the gems and get back over the line. In retrospect I should have clustered the gems up a bit more, and just rushed in with my whole crew.

Guild Deployment

Turn 1

We flipped for initiative and Todd goes first. He activated his Silurid, who uses leap to hop out of the forest, moves, and then drops a scheme marker. I activate my Austringer, who simply uses focus with both his actions to gain to focus counters. Mostly I just want him to play his hand. He next moves up his Waldgeist and and it Germinates. I activate one of LJs Death Marshals and double move him down the flank. His Sabertooth next activates, and he too leaps forwards, then moves then schemes. Its at this point that I find out just how mobile these guys are, being able to move a total of 17" a turn. My next Death Marshal double moves up to join his buddy, hopefully he can lend him some support if things start to get violent.

Todd activates his Shikome next and just double moves her up near the edge of the forest. I Double Move Lady Justice up behind her Death Marshals. Marcus activates next and double moves before dropping a scheme counter. I double move my remaining Marshal across the bridge onto his weaker flank. He responds by moving his Night Terror twice over to support the Silurid. I double move Judge up behind the Marshal, and then he double moves Myranda next to the Shikome. Finally I double move both my Guild Guard onto the bridge.

End of Turn 1

Turn 2

Todd again wins initiative and moves Marcus Forwards, places a scheme counter and then moves him back again. My Austringer uses a focus counter and sends his Raptor out to harass the Sabertooth. We flip and I get my trigger and decide to use distract him, causing him to burn 2 of his control hand. I try to hit him again, but he cheats in a higher result, and I decide that one damage probably isn't worth cheating one of my few good cards that I got in my hand. Next he moves his Waldgeist who also drops a scheme counter. I double move one of my Death Marshals forwards towards the gem counters.

His Sabertooth then Leaps away towards the other flank, moves, and then places a scheme marker. My Death Marshal on the other flank moves forwards and takes aim at the Slurid. Unfortunately, his shot goes wide. His Shikome then double moves over towards the Silurid, and gets close enough to chain activate his Silurid, who leaps behind the largest building, moves to get into a better spot, and places a scheme marker. My last Death Marshal then double moves forwards, hoping to get some of those gem counters next turn. Miranda then moves over towards the Silurid and Night Terror and chain activates the Night Terror who just shuffles around a bit. With him all tapped out, I double move Lady Justice, the Judge, and both the Guild guard forwards some more.

End of Turn 2

From the Other Side

Turn 3

Marcus activates first and runs over and charges the Judge, luckily I manage to resist both Duals, so Judge takes no damage. He next chain activates his Shikome who attempts to Shriek at Judge, but he resists. She then charges, and manages to do 3 wounds. The Silurid then chain activates as well and loops around and hits Judge for 1 more wound. I then activate Judge and hit the Shikome and do a total of 3 damage. Unfortunately I don't get any of my triggers or anything. The Sabertooth then charges Judge and does another 2 wounds to him, leaving him with 2 left. I move my Death Marshal over to the gem counter on the far  right flank and pick it up. Myranda then activates, moves around a bit, and re-activates the Sabertooth Cerberus who attacks, misses his first one, but then mauls the second, and gets another maul and kills the Judge.

The Night Terror then chain activates and moves in on my Death Marshal and deals 4 damage as well as blinding him. My Death Marshal activates and tries to pine box the Night Terror, but fails twice. Great. The Waldgeist then moves forwards and plants some trees in the middle of the ruins, just in front of the third gem marker. I respond by moving a Guardsman and dropping a scheme marker. I then get to activate my next Guild Guard and investigate the scheme laid by his fellow, then double move through the Waldgeist's forest.

I next activate my Austringer who gives the second Guild Guard an Order, and so the Guardsman moves into contact with the third Gem marker and picks it up. I activate my last Death Marshal, and he moves over near the ruins still in the river and places a scheme marker. Finaly, Ladry Justice moves, grabs herself a gem, and moves back. At this point, Todd's explosives go off, and net him 3 VPs. Unfortunate, but there's not too much I could have done about that. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture at the end of turn 3, and turn 4 was to be the last turn due to time constraints. I also was unable to get an end picture. Hopefully next time!

Turn 4

I win initiative for the second time in 8 turns, and double move my Guild Guard with the gem across the center line, effectively earning me 4 VPs for the scheme. He activates his Shikome who moves across the center line and places a counterfeit marker before trying to shriek at the Death Marshal, who resists her even in his blinded state. Lady Justice moves herself back over the line, places a schem marker and move on a little bit more, still within range of the marker though for the point. The Waldgeist gives chase to the Guild Guard and distracts him. My wounded Death Marshal disengages from the Night Terror and moves towards the counterfeit marker and drops a scheme. He activates his Night Terror, moves over to the Marshal, destroys his scheme marker and distracts him.

My Death Marshal with the gem double moves back over the center line. Marcus moves, drops a counterfeit marker, buffs the Silurid, and tries to turn the Death Marshal into a beast. He chain activates the Silurid, who moves over and kills my Death Marshal, who thanks to finish the job, drops a scheme marker. I activate my other Guild Guard, investigate the scheme marker dropped by the Death Marshal, then move and destroy the counterfeit marker dropped by Marcus. He activates Miranda, who moves over and distracts the other Guild Guard, and I activate my Austringer who Orders my Guardsman to move away and drop a scheme marker. His Sabertooth leaps over the line and drops another counterfeit marker, and then my remaining Death Marshal fires ineffectively at the Waldgeist.

As the dust settles we count up the points. I get 4 VPs for having 3 of the 4 gems in my posession, while he gets 2 for having 2 counterfeit markers on my table half. He gets 3 More VPs for his cunning placement of the explosives, and I get 3 for holding some much needed territory. I failed to kill the Sabercat, so I get nothing from that, and he had 2 distracted models at the end of the last turn giving him another 1 VP.

Total VPs

Guild - 7

Marcus - 6

Post Game Thoughts

Wow, that was a tough game! The mobility of Todd's crew really caught me of guard, and put me at a disadvantage for most of the game. I truly felt like things were out of my hands until the very last turn, and it was only thanks to the lowly Guild Guard that I won at all. Their investigate ability was a huge deal in the end turn of the game. In addition, if the game had gone on to another Turn, Todd would undoubtedly have won, as he would have been able to just drop a bunch of counterfeit counters and there would have been nothing I could have done about it.

I will say that the cards were in Todd's favour. Getting two maul triggers on his Sabertooth was really nasty, and while I managed to get a good control hand on turn 3 which allowed me to cheat alot of damage that would have been done, I still flipped quite low for most of my duals.

I really think I botched both my crew's deployment and the deployment of the gem markers. I should have clustered the gems up as much as possible, and done the same with my crew. This would have forced him to either concede the main Strategy to me, or come and fight me in a straight up fight, where with Lady Justice and the Judge, I quite liked my odds.

The more I play this game, the more I see the differences between it and 40k. We're all still learning, but I think with every game, I'm understanding the game more and more. As always leave comments and let me know what we could be doing better. Thanks for reading!