Henchman Hardcore Tournament May 2017

Samuel together with Card Geeks organized another Henchman Hardcore tournament for the local players. This time we managed to gather 10 players. 

I brought Rusy Alyce, Johan, Strongarm Suit and Desperate Mercenary. Ai brought Ottotto, Jorugumo, Lone Swordsman and a Clockwork Trap. We both built the lists based on how hard they could hit considering Henchman Hardcore tend to encourage face beating. 

My first opponent was Patrick. His list was one that made mine Slow. Really slow. He eventually made a gamble (which we felt he didn't have to) to try to take out Alyce. Unfortunately for him, I managed to score a Red Joker and proceeded to take his Leader down to more than half, awarding me an additional 1 point and drawing the game. 

4-4 draw. Patrick was berating himself for awhile! LOL

My crew posing near the tents

Ai's list take on Eugene's list. It was a hilarious game with them tying for 2-2

 I ended up drawing against my wife for Round 2. It was like we have practiced!

Ai managed to take down my Desperate Merc early game but in return I killed off the Swordsman. We drew 2-2

I ended drawing against XY for Round 3. He brought an Aionius list but this time with a massive beater in the form of the Nothing Beast. His plan was interesting. Throw the transparent crew forward and nullify my lines.

Unfortunately for him, I took out his Void Wretch early and then did a bit of wounds on the Nothing Beast. However, it managed to do some massive return hits and took my Strongarm Suit down.

While he failed to kill off Alyce, I fluffed by flips against Aionius who limped away with 3 wounds.

It was a draw for 3-3 

It seemed like I could not get a break. I was drawing the whole day! Every game! LOL

Just another beauty shot of my crew. 

In the Final Round I was teed up against Ed who had just gotten into the game. I have never fought against the Gremlins before this and had no idea what to expect so lined up as per normal. He had a Peon so I knew I had the model advantage for the Strategy.

In a stroke of strategic genius, Ed split one of his Wild Boars out to my flank (it has a 9" threat range) and in one activation managed to kill off my Strongarm Suit!! However, a oversight by Ed left one of his models outside the 6" reach from the token, allowing me to claim it. I also managed to bring his Leader down to half wounds, giving me another point for a 3-1 win.

Albino pigs! 

At the end, Derek won the first prize but went for the Limited Edition Sonnia card. Eugene came in second but couldn't decide what prize to pick, allowing Patrick to go for the large mystery box.

And it's Jack Daw Transparent! 

Patrick had just purchased a set like this from Samuel a couple of weeks prior to the tournament! LOL! He then offered to sell it to me for $50 and I took it. I have been considering buying this set any way and now that it's here, why not!

In all, everyone got what they wanted and unfortunately there was no Best Painted -- the one prize I always go for. Next tournament then!

It's going to be 50SS full crew in 2 months!

See you fellas around for that one! 

Malifaux Henchman Hardcore Painting

With the Henchman Hardcore tournament coming up just around the corner, I started working on the models! Here they are. 

Rusty Alyce and Strongarm Suit

Trap for Ai's list

Rusty Alyce completed

WIP for the Jorugumo

A bit of that back action

To be fair, I struggled to finish the models for Ai's list - mainly the Jorugumo as I am not sure what scheme to work the spider up to. For now, the above pic will suffice until I find something inspiring. 

Misaki Gets Reinforced and Inspiration from South Africa

The Outcast get some help

And so did Misaki! 

Ms Black Teeth, Ohaguro Bettari!

Asami comes into fray

While those minis dried by the table, I was fortunate enough to journey out to South Africa. With Malifaux fresh on my mind, I found things that were interesting for our hobby!

Our guide found the remnant of some Wildebeast on the first night we were driving about.

And while walking around the campsite, I found a very glaring Malifaux reference

I have also been struggling to find a way to make my Malifaux bases more interesting as Asia seldom have many examples of cobblestone streets, pavements etc.

Interestingly enough, there were ample examples while walking around Cape Town. Whipped out the camera and took samples home!

Such random coloration

With moss and finer detail

Here's a great way to add detail to your bases, leaves and drains

Examples of how cobblestone can meet plantlife and soil

Ended up staying at a 100+ year old mansion while I was at Stellenbosch, doesn't this just yell Malifaux?

I'm back and looking forward to putting these things I've learnt to good use on my models, especially the cobblestone!

Malifaux - Batch Highlighting

Practice game with the missus before I started working on some the primed miniatures.

Managed to get in a game with the wife to reacquaint her to Henchman Hardcore and Malifaux.

I'm a big believer of priming and then hitting the models with a zenithal highlight all together to save time and effort

Here you see them semi completed with the white primer.

I began using my newer Tamiya HG Airbrush III to get the whites on the models. This will go on to save me a huge amount of time when I actually hit them with paints.

Just a shot of my horrid work area!

Shenlong vs Parker Barrows - 35SS Malifaux Battle

Had the opportunity to play with Eugene. Flipped for Schemes and Strats and I chose the 3 in the 3rd picture. Overall it was a really good game and I am beginning to see the Shenlong crew synergy. I managed to upgrade Sensei Yu a little more this time with The Peaceful Waters, a 0SS upgrade. That brought a little more to my Low River Monks making this list quite tanky a build.

I started building up Focus and Fire early on with Shenlong and Sensei Yu using Mighty Gust powered my Lone Swordsman up by giving him Fast. Considering I had Recall Training on the Swordsman, I gambled throwing him into Eugene's crew to severely weaken his Master, Parker Barrows. 

Just before I made the decision to charge the Swordsman in Turn 1

Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off and I lost the Swordsman as a result. Keeping him back would have made a better play considering he is Bulletproof making him the hardest target to kill. Lesson learnt!

Rules conundrum

At the end of Turn 2, we had a conundrum. I had the 3 Schemes and Strats below. And if you look at the picture above, you will see that I have in total enough Scheme Markers to accomplish both Claim Jump and Set Up.

Although we ruled it in Eugene's favour where I cannot score both Schemes, our Henchman actually showed up with evidence that would have allowed me to score.

"There is a description of how to score multiple schemes at the end of the game (page 74). While it doesn't explicitly cover end of turn scheme I would treat them the same way, i.e. the scoring player selects one scheme and resolves it fully (including removing any markers) before moving to the next one."

Edit: page 93 in the Rules Manual

From the forum

An act of desperation! 

Eventually the loss of the Swordsman and the rest of my horrible playing led to Eugene coming out winning by 9-6. Better luck next time! 

Hobby Craft: Cheap Paint Agitators

So just sharing a hobby tip today.

Cheap Paint Stirrers/ Agitators

so basically I bought these off ebay as I wanted to make ork 'spannerz boyz', great idea, except that when the spanners arrived they were too hard to cut and fit into my ork boy hands.

so fast forward, I was annoyed with stirring paint in my jars, ball bearings and any uniformly shaped objects DONT work well because of laminar flow around the ball. Then I remembered that I had these in the house and also because of the silver plating, these wont rust nor will they be coated in oil, like how ball bearings are.

So I started dropping 1 wrench into my GW pots and Vallejo bottles.

Now 6 months later, I've almost finished my entire packet of mini spanners. and looking back, using a paint stirrer has helped my painting TREMENDOUSLY.

Try it. wont regret.

http://www.ebay.com/…/14876-80PCS-Silver-Vinta…/311432997619?

(note: I still washed in soapy water all the wrenches first before using, to remove any oils etc, I'm kiasu that way)

Malifaux: Gaming with the You Kai

Managed to finally catch the elusive You Kai (Cai) for a game! He goes around this place by the nickname CrazyRat. We arranged for a game at my place and he brought along his models. 

Managed to put some primer on the drunken masters

It was a 35SS boxed game but YC brought along a few models outside of his box. I stuck to mine to keep it simple and learn the basics of Shenlong.

These were our Schemes and Strategies. I picked Claim Jump and Leave your Mark

Shenlong and crew visiting the Graves

The plan was to use the triple attacks of the High River Monks while keeping the Peasants dropping markers

To prevent YC from claiming a marker, I moved my Peasant way up to not only move one of my own but also to interfere with his 

The Monk stood little chance against the Flesh Golem

It was a Master showdown

At the end of the game, we tied for 3-3! YC could have won by charging his Death Rider into my High River Monk but chose to hang back. This allowed me to move it up and stay within 2" of the marker.

I will very likely switch out the High River Monks. I just couldn't make them work...

Other than that, I seem to be learning the passing of upgrades from Shenlong to Sensei Yu. 

More Ten Thunders Reinforcements and Shenlong

In light of her success with the Fermented Monk in the Henchman Hardcore we played, I broke out the box and started putting them together. Gotta say I like the Jackie Chan vibe Wyrd got going there. 

Drunken kungfu! HIC

Put some touches on my existing models too.

 Headed out to Card Geeks to pick up some loot!

New Master is always cool. Got it on my painting desk now

Have been painting ShenLong's crew for awhile now and I have been wanting a game with him. As I am still very unfamiliar with the Master, I decided to play a 35SS game instead. Eugene was kind enough to tutor me in the ways of the Temple.

I was planning to using my Mighty Gust and Airburst to push all my High River Monks up into the centre early game

Which I did but left them a little out of position

Only to be beaten and mostly denied! 

I think I lost by a wide margin at the end of the game and we played till Turn 5. It was a sad day for the Temple.

But great learning opportunities! I do need more games with the crew to get a better sense of his abiliities. Switching between the upgrades seem to be the most critical part to get right. 

Reinforcements for Ten Thunders

Having read the books, Ai came back with a stronger list. However, it would require me to break open this smallish box called Jorogumo. I wonder what they do.

I do love the Malifaux art

But putting these together were a nightmare as the legs all had slots but needed specific coordination

Man they look creepy

After 2 spiders I had about enough of them so stopped here.

Wife and I discussed a number of combinations for her crew only to learn that you can't use a totem in HH

Which led to the creation of this list which promptly killed me! 

So it paid off. Her list was much more versatile now than before. We will be playing a few more practice games before the tourney and I will report them!