Into The ToMB - Month 1 Post 1, or Building A Fire

OK, so Month 1 of ToMB kicked off on 17th February. The Malifaux blogosphere is now full of people talking about their new Masters, from Tara to Collodi to Hamelin and back again.

I chose Sonnia. Really I picked her because I loved the box art. Because I wanted one of the new plastic crews, I was limited to Wave 1 Masters anyway, and the artwork on her box spoke to me more than the others.

Playstyle never really entered the equation, and having never played before, I only had the model stats from the M2e rulebook to go from anyway. In essence, it would appear that her crew sets things on fire so that Sonnia can blast them to bits in a fiery conflagration.

In Sonnia's The Torch and the Blade box, you get Sonnia, her henchman Samael Hopkins, her totem Purifying Flame and three Witchling Stalker minions, along with the appropriate M2e stat and upgrade cards and 30mm bases.

One thing to note if you're used to assembling Games Workshop's plastic kits: Malifaux plastics are really fiddly. And I mean really fiddly! Sonnia's face is a separate piece from her head and Samael has several incredibly small pieces, some of which are really difficult to see how to attach, even following Wyrd's online instructions. 

And Purifying Flame is so fragile, any impact is going to snap his arms off, resulting in seriously difficult and messy repairs.

The other thing I'm not used to is 30mm round lipped bases. With GW models, you can assemble them on their flat 25mm bases and texture and decorate the bases afterwards. With Malifaux bases (and I assume Warmachine/Hordes) that's a no go; you need to build the base first so you can put the model on top.

This led to me trying something I'd never done before: sculpting base detailing out of Green Stuff! All I did was to mix up a small amount of GW Green Stuff and press it into the recess of the base. After some clean up with a sculpting tool, this left a neat green circle in the recess. Then, using plenty of water, I used a hobby knife to sculpt some rectangular cobblestone shapes. I think they look pretty good:

I then had to decide on a colour scheme. For simplicity's sake, and because the box art was the main reason I picked the crew, I decided to paint them as close to the artwork as possible. I use GW paints for all my painting (I don't really understand the hate some people have for them, but then I've never used anything else) so when I'm done I'll list the paints I used.

Here's a parting shot with what I've done so far:

Next time I should have more painting done, and I'll talk about getting the crew on the table and blowing stuff up!

See you through the Breach!

The Scribe

Into The ToMB: Month Zero, or Where To Start?

OK, so if you have no idea what ToMB is, check out my intro post here.

Quick recap:

• Choose a new Malifaux Master,
• Buy things with a monthly budget ($60 this month, $25 each month after),
• Assemble and paint said Master & Crew,
• Play games,
• Document the whole shebang.

I'm new to Malifaux, so whoever I decided on would be my first Master. Of all time. EVAH.

I will go into more depth about the process I went through in deciding on who to buy in a 'Malifaux: A Beginner's Tale' post at some point soon, but I ended up (because you can't choose just one, can you?) getting three Crew Boxes.

I got:

• Seamus (Shadows of Redchapel - Plastic) - BIG discount online.
• Sonnia (The Torch And The Blade - Plastic) - Because the new Samael Hopkins model is badass.
• Lady Justice (Death Marshals - Metal) - I prefer the classic sculpt; had to snap her metal box up before it disappears for good.

Got to choose one to start with. And the winner is...

The mistress of blasty goodness herself - Ms. Sonnia Criid! 

There's a couple of reasons for choosing Cherufe's plaything over the Mad Hatter and Lady J. For one, I got my hands on her box before Seamus turned up. Second, I didn't have the Guild Wave 1 Arsenal Box, so had no M2e cards for Lady J's box. 

Plus burning stuff and blasting fire at the enemy is cool, right? And yes, I realise blowing up the opposition is not always productive in Malifaux, but hey, it's fun!

Month 0 Spending

Starting Budget: $60

Bought: The Torch And The Blade -$40

Total Spent: $40

Carry forward to Month 1: $20

Month 1 Plan

This gives me the following to use in Month 1:

• Sonnia (3SS cache)
• Samael Hopkins (9SS/4SS cache)
• Purifying Flame (3SS)
• 3 Witchling Stalkers (5SS each)

This means I can play some small games (20SS or so) with Sam leading the Crew e.g.

• Sam (Witch Hunt, Lead Lined Coat) 
• 3 Witchling Stalkers
• Total: 19SS (5SS cache)

or I can (by loading up on Upgrades) reasonably play up to 35SS games once I have the hang of things.

I've got a little bit of an idea of how the Crew might play from watching this video battle report by Games Wot I Played:

And looking at the cards, it's obvious that I'll need to use the Witchlings as objective runners and to put as much Burning on enemy models as possible so that Sonnia and Sam can blast away from behind cover using their Visions of Flame ability to ignore Cover and Line of Sight.

Seems like the Crew might play slow (all the models except Purifying Flame have a Wk of 4) given their lack of movement shenanigans, but can definitely dish out plenty of hurt. Definitely possible to deny areas of the board to enemy models with Sam and Sonnia.

Only getting the models on the table will tell for sure though!

After Month 1

Unless I really can't help myself, I'm planning to roll the $20 I haven't spent over into Month 2 to give me $40 to expand that month. That way I can add in the Death Marshals ($22 in metal, $24 in plastic) and Judge (~$10 based on other single figures on Wyrd's site, since he's technically not available separately) from my Lady J box.

Other thoughts would be an Austringer or two ($12 apiece) for a bit more maneuverability/interaction out of activation through Deliver Orders, or perhaps a Freikorps Specialist ($9.50) for even more Burning! 

And then there's that box of Guild Riflemen ($21) sitting on my LGS's shelves right now...

Too much choice!

See you Through The Breach...

The Scribe

Into The ToMB - Joining the Tale of Malifaux Bloggers

I have already said on here that I intended to write about approaching Malifaux as a total beginner. Well, guess what? Other people seem to have had a similar idea.

Chris King (@Lemonconstruct) of the Chasing Bacon podcast and Dave Chandler (@iamsssk) of Play It Like Beatdown had noticed the lack of 'beginner friendly' info about Malifaux floating around. They've decided to gather some bloggers together to remedy this. Thus A Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (#ToMB) was born.

The idea is that each player chooses a new Master to build a crew for. Like the old Tale of Four Gamers articles in White Dwarf, we'll each start with a few models - say one of the plastic boxes - build them, paint them and play games with them.

Then, each blogger will sum up their experiences with their new crew over the course of a month, all starting from the 17th February. Mostly this will focus on learning how the crew plays, but will also include painting progress amongst other things.

After Month 1, each player will be able to add something new to their crew and see how that addition affects their gaming experiences. This will carry on for six months. In theory, this is all intended to show what it is like to start playing Malifaux and how you might go about building a crew for a particular Master.

Now, I'm actually a new player, so I will be learning not only a new Master, but the game itself! My hope is that this will provide an even more realistic look at starting a crew from scratch, because I will have less familiarity with ALL the models than the experienced guys.

I'm also planning to keep my original idea of a more general 'Beginner's Guide' to Malifaux as well, so expect plenty of posts as well as the monthly ToMB ones. I'll be looking at fluff, rules, painting, playing and more, so stay tuned!

I'll have another post about ToMB soon, talking about which Master (or Masters...) I've chosen. In the meantime, check out this post by Dave for more detail about the rules and regulations.

See you through the Breach!

The Scribe