New Henchmen and Enforcers Part 2

I have been Elite-lite for a while. Chiaki is my newest addition. I have painted her with a Hanfu feel and given her jade beads and a death mask (jade grave goods), rather than an opera mask or "faux-spirited-away-kami" mask.
For her to look really hanfu her collar and cuffs should be a darker colour.

She needs a final highlight and accent, so there is time to change the collar at least, if I want. As for Molly I will highlight the top so it looks like her upper part is lighter - the beacon of light effect, and darken her base.

Chiaki is good summoning support and some healing and also board control. Two extra wounds removed from a punk zombie is ace, as would be a re-three headed rogue Necromancy. Her upgrade potentially lets you rob 2 AP for one of yours. All this for 1 more stone than a 6-wound Doxy.

A close up pic helps highlight all the mistakes that need correcting as well as the need to drybrush the base a little (dull coat takes off some of the shine).

Gathering the Zombie Horde, Part IIX

The summoning and painting rituals are all but finished. I have only to spray on the old dull coat and two new zombies are ready. The necrotic machine has been on the Gurney in and out of the chamber for a long time. It see’s regular play for me.

The metal/punk zombie that looks like an 80’s Iron Maiden fan is also finally done. 

They had a disaster when they fell of a table and fell apart and got scuffed up, along with Mortimer!!!.

Today I will dull coat the Zombies/Horrors and put them safely in the carry case. The Machine does alot of work for me - so should have been finished ages ago.

Mortimer will have to wait. He is not an easy fix and has at least four colours that need fixing up (coat, hat, flesh and scarf).

Henchmen and Henchwomen

My last game with S&M was a reversal of the ones before; where in many cases I luckily managed to win because the game didn’t go to time. This time, Molly (and Sybelle and Sebastian and a pile of corpses were left facing 4 models with 7 or less wounds between them. Molly, calm and serene as ever, would have knocked them off of the board. But she didn’t. It was the end of the game. S&M outschemed me and won in style, he timed his all-or-nothing perfectly. Good game S&M and Ms DuBois. That’s what I call playing.

Until this game I felt I had “only had eyes for Sybelle”, and that I had been playing a Molly and Sybelle list. I felt Sybelle had become a bad habit and Molly and I really wondered who the real mistress was at times!

So this game was the first time that I took along other Henchmen.

Sebastian hid, got me soulstones and cards from recycling my weak summoned models, planted schemes and administered coup de grace to opponents. He cost 8 stones with “those are not ours”, but no “transfusion”. Recycling old summons for stones and a card seems a good deal, except that it used up corpses (a sacrifice leaves no corpse.) Transfusing  poison to that stupid mechanical bird would have instant killed it. Not taking transfusion was a mistake on my part.

Mortimer, should have done a lot more. He cost 9 stones, no upgrade. He should have ruined Colete’s and the performer's schemes with chatty – “ Boo this show is awful, get of the stage!!”. But he didn’t. He had a fight with the Duet. Which he lost. Along with two punk zombies (summoned), who were also killed by the Corphee.

Were I running score cards for the Henchwoman and Henchman they would be:

Sybelle

Cost 8 stones.

Impact on game: Shrieked (for the blast), whipped, called Belle and sped up those around her. She rightly had opponents on their knees and on their backs or face to the floor. She was well worth the money. My favourite Henchwoman. I now love her more than ever.

Sebastian

Cost 8 stones (7+1)

Impact on game: ran schemes, kept me in stones when I had drawn 4 crows in 3 hands + 4 extra draws. Finished a model. Summoned a remains. Anti synergistic with corpse effects (I did not take any this game).

Mortimer

Cost 9 Stones

Impact on game: dropped schemes, died like a high cost minion/costly good time. I didn’t place or use him well.

I’m going to keep running Molly as a “Molly, Sybelle and a two belle entourage”. Look man, I am into Sybelle. That's just how it is. Expect more Sybelle protecting Molly, more shrieking at my own models (to get blast on other models in combat and trigger black blood attacks)  more of Sybelle just taking punishment and popping corpses. Its going to be dirty and messy.

I will definitely use Sebastian again, perhaps in a sustained quality summon list (aka punk zombie spam, blender, horror, black blood spray – e.g. summon punk zombies and have them slice and dice your own horrors to trigger black blood - but only 1" range and not 3").

Mortimer I’m going to try again. I can see that his chatty is an auto-include for head hunter, or other situations where you can guess where the interact will be going on. But he clearly isn’t good for ultra-violence. Nor is he needed in a Molly-Horror/Forgotten Life list to find corpses. There are plenty of those.

I can see potential, but he certainly isn’t my Sybelle.

From now on its BJ with Molly and Sybelle. There’s no shame in it.

Gathering the Zombie Horde, Part VII

The necrotic machine does alot of work for me - blocking LOS, dealing two damage (with poison) and engaging models. Its a cheap summon and has a 10" range.  The low wounds don't matter. All Molly's summons have low wound counts.
I loved this model and am finally finsihing it off. I'm also working on a 2nd punk zombie. this one looks more metal fan then punk.

New Henchmen and Enforcers Part 1

I'm trying to improve my Elites. At the moment I am painting up mortimer. I have flat colours and am now mid way through highlights and details (his woolly jumper collar and cigar tip).

Gathering the Zombie Horde, Part VI

The long painting ritiuals continue as I try to assemble the zombie horde,
Drowned are awsome summons - favoured for-Melee tarpittng and spamming schemes on death.
The big boy is my favourite - although I cocked up sticking the model and am now trying to plug gaps in his neck with foundation paint.

Probably another coat is needed.

My basing ritual differs from that used by S&M and GO. I light the candles in the hand, then use compression and a mould to shape my greenstuff on bases.
You will need to dig up the following items (probably wait for dark before heading out with your shovel):

• Compression Mould (push pad)
• Something to push hard against (the floor works for me) (not the same as something hard to push against).
• A shaping tool (in this case a knife with a flat surface)
• Greenstuff
• A model base

My mould came from Basius in their first KS. You can get one here I guess.

Step 1
Put greenstuff on the Malifaux 32 mm base. You don't really need to cover the slotta-hole, but you can if you want.
The trick is not use too much. You add more and push again if it goes wrong and/or you added too little. Less trouble then cleaning up your base if you splurged too much.

Sprinkle water on the part of the base you will use.
If you don't the mould gets gunked up, and the greenstuff will adhere to the mould and not the base.


Step 2
Push the base with the green stuff on it against the push pad/mould.

Leave it for about 90 seconds then lift it off vertically.

Take care not to touch any green stuff and to lift it off vertically.


Step 3
I blow the water off at this point, then look at what I have. If it looks crap, do it again. If its passable I will finish it by hand using the knife.

Overhang on the base's rim is cut off.

Some of the flagstones will be artificially flattened further with the flat of the knife, and the boundaries between paving stones made sharper so that they wash well with ink.

The mud and overgrowth is also finished by hand using the sharp point or end of the knife to make little V's or poke holes.

Parts I am not sure about are flattened into flagstones or dimpled into overgrowth or soil.


Ritual complete I wave the raven's feather over the base and the job is nearly done. There is normally some work to finish these bases off. Its not onerous, but it does need to be done with care. You can see the result of tidying up to the right.

Compression moulding bases is clearly a little slower than just slotting in an insert or using a solid resin base, but nearly of the same order of magnitude of time (e.g. 4-5 mins a compression mould base vs 1 min of cleaning a resin based with soap and water); in my experience both metal inserts and resin bases need cleaning, and tidying up. But its defiantly cheaper and if you need a lot, you don't need to worry about lines going out of production, ordering 20 bases when you need only 11 etc.

I wouldn't use the method for speed - but the results look good to alright, each base is different and they paint up ok. They would also be easy to fit around models needing funny or odd attachment. I suspect the results you get are highly dependent on the push mould that you choose. Moulds that yield casts that could not be easily tidied up with a knife would rapidly become a chore if you based 100's of models. But 4 or 5 at a time, that can easily be finished by hand is fine - I think.

I would definitely use a mould like this to make bases again, but I would make sure the design was one that could easily be smartened up, and simple to cast (e.g. can remove base from mould easily/no undercuts and design that can easily be tidied up).

Battle Report: Preditta (GO) sprays Lead and Molly (BJ) puts out Zombies

Game at the club with GO.

BJ with Molly, Bettie, Slapper Zombies, Sybelle, Autopsy and Remains.

GO with Predita, her family, Papa Loco, Ostriders, death Marshall and Nephlim

  

This was an unusual game, rather than a give and take it seemed to consist of BJ putting out zombies and the Governor’s Orifice spraying a lot of lead.

  

It was not the kind of game that lends itself to action and reaction or move and counter move narrative. Instead a lot of stuff happened. I mean a lot happened and kept happening. GO definitely won, but we think this was about 6:5. It was very confusing. We ran out of corpse and head markers, as well as scheme markers. The picture was taken end of turn 1 or first bit of turn 2 at the latest.

The game went 4 turns, during which Molly summoned Zombies, and autopsies and remains spammed schemes and the Ortega’s shot stuff. By end of turn 4 BJ was down to Molly and an Autopsy, and had lost all semblance of board control. GO was able to move models, break through and deny convict labour and ultimately clean up. BJ didn’t collect enough heads because he didn’t kill enough. GO could not collect any more heads.

GO described it as a zombie survival horror movie or zombie shoot ‘em up, which is more or less what happened. The battle for  Imjin also comes to mind where one side sent in their soldiers until their enemies ran out of ammo and their guns overheated. Guns don’t overheat in Malifaux. But you can run out of zombies.

GO was very patient as I more or less summoned four or more models a turn, and looked the same rules up again and again like the noob that I am. This was the highest number of zombies I have ever summoned, but it was also the greatest number of turns I have yet played – so I guess I am getting faster.

GO felt he screwed up chain activation, but I think he is being too harsh on himself. I thought the recent ABZ-champion played well, slowly winning the war of attrition and chain activating to make sure he finished-off key zombie-minions before they activated. He also felt he misplaced Frank because Francisco was too far from Predita to pass on Wp and Df bonuses. But Bettie and many, many belles, went down because of Frankie boy. Frank was a busy man doing men’s work, albeit getting embroiled in sleazy murder case when BJ cheated in an Ace to make sure Frank was framed for Murder. (Frankie thought the doxie was in drag).

BJ felt he never really got his Belle slapper line set up, so never really got to lure and kill stuff. GO felt that BJ also made poor summon choices. This was true to a point, but you can only summon what there’s the cards for. But there were certainly some poor choices – a Drowned at the end would have got BJ convict labour for example, equally reactivating a punk zombie or giving it an extra attack would have helped deal with the woman herself (Predita). Instead BJ tried to swamp Predita with autopsies and mindless zombies. Which did not work – a Mwwwhaha was probably needed by that point. In general, BJ upping his kill count would have got him heads for VP and cards via “Ours is the Night”. BJ’s outing of Bettie was also very questionable; she is actually a very fragile soul – especially when Ostriders are eating the hand. There were times when BJ should have left her buried in her comfy closet. Ostriders were another thing GO felt BJ should have dealt with – again the zombie slapping line could have done this.

Despite loosing it was a very fun game. I loved what was happening on both sides of the table as the ressers tried to franticly summon and keep at bay those gun-toting murdering, guild psychopaths. But sadly the zombie way of life was not to prevail on this occasion. Still we pick ourselves up – piece by piece – put the bits back in roughly the right order and shamble on. It is what zombies do best.

 I really enjoyed setting up 20+ zombie strumpets, sailors and cowboys, so I hope Governor’s Orifice and Predita enjoyed them going down.

If we truly read the schemes from the corpses and heads correctly: GO 6 vs BJ 5.

 Good job GO & GG!