woensdag 11 december 2013

Tournament: winter is coming (1-12-13) review

So the day started around 11o’clock and it was a 50 SS tourney fixed master , primarily wave 1 (although wave 2 was allowed for certain models). Also 3 set strats and 4 randomly chosen schemes. There was also a small achievement list and the winner from the list got a miss Terious.

I brought Ophelia and her crew. I became 7th out of 14 players, not too bad. There were a lot of prices and it was all winter themed.
First was reckoning so I brought an elite crew (Lenny, Francois, Fingers, Rami ) to the fight against Ramos. The highlight was I killed Howard turn 2 since he overcommitted.
I took breakthrough which I got 1 point for, and plant explosives which I got 3 VP from.
I won the game 6-3


Second round was against the winner of the tourney with a rasputina list. The strategy was reckoning, so I opted for a lot of bayou gremlins.

The highlight of this game was that I couldn’t move Ophelia because of those dammed ice pillars, so I got stuck behind them for 3 turns. I had to rely on jug rocket to do some damage.
I took bodyguard on Francois, but I overcommitted him and lost him in the last turn. I also took distract and that worked netting me 3 VP for the distract. For the reconnoiter I got 3 VP mainly because he took 6 ice gamin and snowstorm so he could redeploy easier. Overall a fun and enjoyable game with some bad luck on both sides. It was 6-6 draw in the end.


The last round was turf war. I opted for a varied list with some low cost and high cost models like Fingers and Francois and Lenny. My opponent was a guild McMourning player and brought 2 dreaded austringers that are the bane of my gremlin existence.

 I took protect territory which netted me 1 VP in the end and I took murder protégé, which I took on nino. The reason was that in that way he needs to hold nino back more because I announced it. He can’t go out far and shoot. He needs to stay back and thus lowering his effectiveness in the game. In the end Ophelia killed him and I got 3 VP that way.

It was close until the end with McMourning and Sebastian both pounding first on Francois and then on Ophelia which both died in the end.

After the game there was a point swing because McMourning changed some schememarkers into his schememarkers. It was a fun game, but I wished I had better cards ( the best I drew was a 10 and draw the black joker every turn).
I lost this game 6-9.



Overall it was a fun day and I took home a laserlight to determine LoS. The sponsors were Trinket and Tokens http://www.trinketsandtokens.net and Sheepgames.

Thanks Puppeteers for a great day and hope we can do it again soon.

dinsdag 26 november 2013

This is just in : Wyrd sale: very excited

Wyrd Sale update soon! But to tease you - Rules Manual, 8 unreleased crew boxes, 14 unreleased minion boxes, 4 Special Edition Crew, 6 past special editions, including the Carver for the first time, individual metal puppets, and free at certain order levels, a new special edition Perdita, and a Santana...Enjoy!! 

Maybe some gremlin love? Lets hope so.

woensdag 20 november 2013

Brewmaster crew done

Here are some pictures of my latest crew.

Only 1 model (pigapult) to do and my wave 1 gremlins are done.









woensdag 13 november 2013

Gremlin dissection: Rami Lacroix

In the next dissection of the gremlin crew we have Rami Lacroix. He’s the long range sniper wielding gremlin in the La Croix family.

The stats
He has a DF and a Wp of 4. He has 6 Wd and a Wk of 5. He has no Cg (not that you want to charge with him) and a Ht of 1. He’s an Enforcer, living and rare 1 characteristic. He is also a gremlin and a kin model.

The skills
He has the ability Reckless which gives him an additional AP at the start of the turn. This will cost him 1 wound.

He also has the defensive trigger “Squeel!”. You can get yourself out of combat if you have a mask in your hand. Although he only has 6 wounds so a hit or 2 will kill him. This can help with his survivability.

He also has the ability Aim High, which gives him the ability to target HT 2 models without penalty. So it’s great to use to shoot into combat. Add this with the great range and he can do that extra damage you need to kill off the enemy.

The actions
He only has 2 actions. A shooting attack and a tactical action.

The shooting attack has a range of 18!!! and can be doubled using the focus action.
It has one trigger which doubles the damage, but with low wounds it’s better not to use this action a lot. It has an average damage spread so great to pick off weakened models.

The tactical action is cast that makes a healing flip. It’s pretty ok for a (1) action.

The tricks
There are not a lot of upgrades he can take that are worth while.
These are 2 I could take if I have some points to spare:
Stilts can be nice for the additional height, so you can look over small walls and fences and the like. Also the damage prevention  from 1 ML attack can be nice to buy yourself more time. Although it doesn’t work with the squeal trigger so you have to watch out.

Another one : gremlin see will give you an option to remove conditions and you can use a (0) action for it. You don’t have any other (0) actions so this might be something to consider.

The looks
I like the looks, but my preference goes out to the previous model. It’s really a question of taste really.







The playbook
This model is a defensive model in my eyes. So try to keep it back a bit more than the rest. I have the tendency to chuck it forward and do a lot of damage early, but I think he is more of a control piece that should be treated as such. Try to get a good vantage point and stay there. Also he can help out in schemes where the opponent needs to get into your deployment zone. He can be a deterrent for that as well.

Besides that he’s a bit one dimensional. Shoot and then shoot some more. He doesn’t have unimpeded or the hunter ability like he used to have so he became a lot weaker than before.


maandag 11 november 2013

WIP: bayou bases

So I'm working on my bayou bases for my brewmaster crew and I'll show you the first step in making them.

First I have bought some bayou inserts from Wyrd miniatures.

Then I used insta-mould to make some prints of the bases.

After that I used some grey stuff to fill in the moulds.

I then used some gale force nine magnetic 30mm bases and then I put the grey stuff onto the base.

The results are the bases you can see down below.





dinsdag 5 november 2013

WIP: the brewmaster

So, for this next post I'm going to make a brewmaster crew. It got the following conversions since there are no models at the moment for the brewmaster and his crew.

I am going to use an old GW model: the dark emmissary for my brewmaster.

I also have converted 3 nasty skulkers from the GW-line for my moon shinobi

For my apprentice Weslry I'm going to use a Reaper bones, goblin model that I bought.

For fingers I'm going to use the old Raphael model from Wyrd itself, but I need to buy the model first before I can start with the crew.

I'll post some more pictures once I'm doing the painting.
Sorry about the quality, it's not the best camera in the world, but you get the picture ;) Nice pun huh





woensdag 23 oktober 2013

Gremlin dissection: The young Lacroix


In the third dissection of the gremlin crew we have the young Lacroix. They are the small “up and comers “ in the family and they are the totems of Lacroix. They have a supporting role in handing out upgrades to Ophelia and getting yourself some cheap models to help you out activate your opponent.

The stats
The young have a cost of 2 and have the Peon, Living and totem (Lacroix) characteristic. They are also gremlin and they are kin, which lets you target them with the abilities that Ophelia has.
They have a Df of 5, Wp and Wd of 3. They have a Wk of 6, which is pretty fast, and no charge. They are also Ht 1.

The skills
They have 4 abilities: Gets Into Everything, Role Model, Insignificant, Small Target
The first one is Gets Into Everything. You get to make an Attack action that’s printed on Ophelia’s gun upgrades within 6’’ and you get a Sh -2 penalty. That’s pretty good especially with the threatening gun upgrades which lets you fire twice a turn. For the other guns you drop the upgrades, so you can only fire them once.

The next one ( Role Model) lets you hire 3 of these models instead of the normal 1. They are a great addition, but I might be getting 2 in the future instead of 3 to save some costs.
With the next one (Insignificant) you can’t take interact actions, so they can’t be used for objectives or schemes that requires you to take interaction actions.

The last one (Small Target)  gives the attacker a [-] to hit you with shooting attacks. This helps them to survive  a little longer, but they are still fairly easy to kill.





The attacks
They have 2  actions they can do.
The first one is a shooting attack: the Much Abused Pistol. It deals 1/3/4 damage and has the trigger Dumb Luck, which lets you double the damage and you suffer half the amount of damage a s well. The trigger isn’t that useful, because when you do moderate damage, you kill yourself as well. To do severe damage is not that likely either, since you need to have a bit of luck to get that severe off.

The next one is a tactical action “Here You Go!”. It lets you attach one of Ophelia’s gun upgrades to her. It effectively let her use upgrades without spending the additional soulstones to take them in the first place; also Ophelia can use other AP instead of wasting an AP to get the gun she needs.
They are totems, so they can’t take upgrades. What you see is what you get.

The looks
We only have one picture for the 3 models so that’s a bit disappointing. The old models look really nice and they have a nice flavor so I recommend the old models while you wait for a new release.

The playbook

Keep them out of harms way, because they are fairly easy to kill with 3 wounds. Try to use cover and other intervening models as your advantage. They already get a bonus with their tiny-ability, so every bonus will help. You’ll probably struggle with the reckoning strategy, so I tend to experiment with1 or 2 Young ones.
I tend to place them behind Ophelia, except if I want to shoot something, then I try to place them parallel to Ophelia.

Another use for the young Lacroix is, in later game turns, use them to stop other models from moving, by engaging them in close combat. In the later turns you can make sure that your opponent’s models have to deal with these small nuisances instead of focusing on completing schemes and strategies. In that way they serve another purpose instead of handing out upgrades to Ophelia. And if you use defensive stance on them they can tie models up for multiple turns (if you’re lucky that is)

dinsdag 15 oktober 2013

Gremlin dissection: Francois Lacroix

In the second dissection of the gremlin crew we have Francois Lacroix. He’s the only henchmen in the La Croix family so he’s the second on my list.

The stats
He is a cost of 7 and has a cache of 6. Which means that when he leads a crew in smaller games he gets 6 soulstones from the start. He has the living, rare 1 and henchman characteristic. He also is a gremlin and he’s kin, which ties in with Ophelia’s  abilities.

He has a DF of 4, which is average for a gremlin. He has WP 7 and that’s a very good stat. He has 10Wd which is also good. A Wk of 5 and a CG of 6. He’s also HT 1. Overall he’s pretty decent statwise. He is not too high costing and he can use soulstones, which gives him some more survivability and he can use his tricks a little bit better.

The skills

He has companion, which lets you activate after a friendly model ended it’s activation within 6’’. It’s handy to have especially when you need to do some extra damage to a model before it activates.

He also has the ability Reckless, which gives him an additional AP at the cost of one extra WD. It gives him the ability to do some additional shooting or perform an interact or something else. You have to plan it out though, because you can only do this at the start of this model’s  activation.

The last ability he has is Squeal, which is a defensive trigger and needs a mask. You can push away 4’’from a Ml Attack after you received damage. You can potentially stop a second attack on a charger or stop a Flurry action. You can cheat in the mask with the use soulstone ability.

The actions

He has 2 Attack actions. He has the Dueling Sword and the “Rough rider” Attack.
The Dueling Sword is a ML of 6 and a ram. It has a Rg of 2. It does 2/3/5 damag and can be doubled with the Dumb luck trigger, which is already build in. The downside to the trigger is that you receive half the damage you do when you declare the trigger. The use soulstone ability can help you to prevent some of the damage you do. All in all this is a great attack and can be intimidating with the potentional to do 10 damage in one swing.

The “Rough rider”   shooting attack is a 5 and a mask and has a range of 10. It does 2/3/4 damage and has two triggers. On a ram you do the Dumb luck trigger, same like the Dueling Sword.
 The other trigger is on a crow( Loose Trigger) which let you make the same Attack action again. You have to damage your enemy and it will cost you one wound. Again, you can cheat in the crow with the use soulstone ability.

He also has a casting action (Gremlin Menace) with a Rg of 6. You can push 5’’ toward a model. Your targets a condition which gives him [-] to attack actions when targeting Francois.

He also has a (0) action (Showdown)  which is also a ca of 5. You need a TN 10and a tome. When it succeeds you can discard cards to gain a [+] for that duel.

The tricks

Out of all the upgrades I would choose dirty cheater. It gives him some more survivability and combine that with the damage prevention from the use soulstone ability and you can potentially let him hang around the board a little bit longer.

The upgrade team work is an ability that lets you place this model into contact and then push another model out of harms way.

If Francois is your leader and you are playing against something like Pandora, you can use liquid bravery to give yourself and models around you a boost to their WP. This combined with the high WP makes him a good candidate to take this upgrade.

The looks

He has the same feel and abilities from 1.5. he looks the same as well with the cigarette in mouth. I like this look and maybe get him when the new box comes out.

If you need a good support piece for the Ophellia crew or another gremlin master, I think Francois is the gremlin you need. He has a lot of damage potential and some movement tricks as well (via upgrades that is).

The playbook

I use him primarily as a potential threat and damage dealer. With his loose trigger skill he can dish out a lot of damage if you have some high cards in hand and some soulstones to burn. You can get around the board fairly quickly and has some nice synergies with other models in this Ophelia crew.

With the current schemes you can use him as a Scheme marker – dropper. Or, when you have the scheme frame for murder,  start the game aggressively and then kill a model. You can bait your opponent in killing your model and because he’s a henchmen you’ll get  3 VP.


So I’ll play him aggressively and in that way your opponent has to divide his attention between Ophelia and him. Two great shooters are better than one.

dinsdag 1 oktober 2013

Gremlin dissection: Ophelia Lacroix



So this will be a small segment where I’ll discuss all the different models in the (current Malifaux 1) crew. Once the “new” box will be out, I’ll revisit this segment and talk about the new set as a whole.
For now, let us get our dissection equipment out and dive into the gremlin master: Ophelia Lacroix


The stats
If we have a look at the stats you can see she has a few interesting stats. She has a DF of 6 / WP 6 which are practically the same for all 3 pure gremlin masters. The rest of the stats are average, but the only thing she has is a WK of 6, which is fairly quick. She can zip around the board quickly enough and with some movement shenanigans she can do some board control as well.

She is Ht 1which is handy with her crew. They don’t have to target her or other HT 1 models within 3’’ of her. Some other models have the same ability as well which can come in handy.
The last thing is a cache of 3 which is OK.  You need a bit more stones I think since she can be easy to hit and you need those to get in suits for her offensive and defensive triggers. I normally play with a cache of 6 – 7.



The skills
She has 4 abilities on her card. Most of them I like and one of them is ok, but I don’t see myself using that one a lot.

The first one is companion. This one is like the previous kin-ability where you could activate more than 2 models each time to kill models in one swoop. Now you have the ability to activate one model and herself. It specifically states a friendly model and not a kin model so any model in her crew can trigger this ability which gives you a bit more versatility in model selection.

The Plink! ability lets you reduce the damage by one. This is before damage prevention, so it can give you a bit more durability, but you need the upgrades to make this gremlin work. I’ll not be using this one a lot. It’s a nice bonus for me, nothing more.

The next one is a defensive trigger which needs a mask. It’s Second Loudest Squeel. When you suffer damage, you can push up to 4’’. This one is nice since you can move out of combat this way or when you get hit by ranged attacks or casting, you can potentially push further behind a wall so that you’re safe for the other attacks. It also states up to 4, so you don’t have to go the entire 4’’. It can come in handy when you need to push away, but not that far so you don’t push into another melee, hazardous terrain, ect.
The last one is an ability she had in 1st ed and that I used quite a lot. It’s “Shoot High, Boys” and it lets you fire into combat without targeting your own gremlin HT 1 models. I’ve used this one more than I can count. It’s effectively a 6’’ bubble in which your gremlins only target the enemy (HT 2 or greater) models. Combine this with her speed and other movement tricks and you have a very good shooting enhancing master.


The actions
She has 2 (1) actions and 2 (0) actions on the card.
The first one is “Rough riders”. It has a basic shooting attack which she can use in ML as well. It has a decent value of 6. It does 2/3/4 damage and gives [+] to all attacks (basically paired from previous edition).It has a trigger on a ram which does double damage and she gets one wound in return. It’s the same as her 1st edition card.

Her other one action is Reload which let her attach an upgrade which has her name on it. Currently there are 3 upgrades. The action is also a tactical upgrade.

The 2 (o) actions are With My Eyes Closed and Ooo, A Girl. The first one gives your SH attacks a [+]. However your opponent can choose which enemy model you have to hit. It has to be in LoS and range. It’s for the rest of Ophelia’s activation.

The second one (Ooo, A Girl) lets you push a friendly gremlin within 8’’ into base contact with you. It’s great to get models out of combat or reposition your models so they can shoot better or attack faster, drop scheme markers, ect..


 The tricks
She has 3 personal upgrades. All 3 are guns she can use. They all have a secondary ability as well.
The first one is My treatenin’ gun. It hands out horror duels (TN 13) and dishes out 4/5/6 damage. The trigger on a ram lets you pulse the horrorduel for all models . You have the ram build in so you can always choose to let the gun do the pulse or not. The additional (0) action lets a gremlin within 8’’ do a (1)action which gives a [-] to that duel. You can use it to drop a scheme marker as well so it’s a sort of obey you can do with this action. Also you don’t drop the gun when you used it so that’s nice as well.

The Jug rocket ignores LoS and you discard this upgrade afterwards. The additional (0) lets you replace a gremlin within 2’’ to somewhere within  8’’  of this model. So this is a nice movement trick as well.

The Hooch igniter ignores cover, hands out blast and on the ram trigger it gives burning +2. You discard it when you use this gun. The additional (1) action takes away Slow and Paralyzed conditions within 10’’ and gives them burning +1 instead.

From these upgrades I would always take the treatenin’ gun. It gives you the option to hand out paralyze and the (0) action is nice as well. The other 2 upgrades are a bit situational. The Hooch igniter is nice against a crew like Rasputina which thrive on slow and paralyze. The other one is nice if you have a lot of blocking terrain. You don’t ignore the cover, but you can still shoot something, which you couldn’t do before.


Out of the other upgrades I would choose dirty cheater, which heals your model when you cheat. It gives some more durability to the model.
Some maybe upgrades are gremlin see (shrug off a condition)( but it competes with the other (0) actions you have as well), liquid bravery (which gives you stubborn and also another (0) action, giving +2WP) and quality mash liquor (giving you or a model within 2’’ a 1/2/3 heal for a (1) action).
These 3 upgrades give you some variety, but they compete with better (0) and (1) actions which do better things in my opinion than these 3 upgrades.


The looks
I love the models in this crew and I love the new artwork. I can see me buying a new box set when it comes out even though I have the old models. The overall feel of the crew and specifically this model  is the sort of thing I like in the “new Malifaux”. It a bit darker, more gritty and they look more dynamic as well.

Overall I can say that if you are looking for a master that can shoot well, move fast and do some crazy movement tricks as well, then this master is the gremlin you are looking for.




maandag 23 september 2013

Counter review

I’ve want to do a new product review, since I haven’t got the time to do a thorough review of Malifaux-models.
I’ve recently bought some tokens to make the scheme markers easier to place and recognize.  So I came around this site and thought I have a look around. It’s a small Swedish company that makes tokens and other items (hence the name).

The materials you can choose from are: aluminum, acrylic and wood. I’ve chosen for aluminum since it looks great and the counters stick out on the gaming table.

So on to the counters itself. I’ve bought a set and then some additional evidence / objective counters. The nice thing about these counters is that they are double-sided. You can choose which side you need for a particular crew.



You  have scrap / eyeball counters, a lit / unlit dynamite counter , a corpse / bloodcounter and evidence / objective markers. In the set you got 5 each, which should be enough for most battles you play. I’ve bought 5 more objective markers, since these will be my scheme markers, but I have to say, that I’ve never had more than 5 on the board.



Overall I'm pleased with the counters I received. The only downside is that the products might have to be updated to the new M2E.

He does custom work as well so feel free to send him an email or visit his site:


I give these counters






vrijdag 13 september 2013

First impressions for M2e – Ophellia Lacroix




The first time I saw the Ophellia box in Malifaux 1.5 I was sold on the image and the models itself. I loved the theme of them and they were a nice crew to play.
Now with M2E and the cards in my hands I’m going to take a look at the renewed master, Ophelia and his crew the gremlin kin.

Ok, so up to the basics. Ophelia and his crew.  This group is just like a guild crew, the Ortega’s, which they just copied and made (improved) clones of. The Ortega’s and the Lacroix employ the same strategy, but use different methods to accomplish this. The strategy they use is shoot first and then ask questions later. They hit really hard from a range and are fast to boot. It’s really a nice crew to start with.

Disclaimer !!! This part is all a bit of guessing since the gremlin stuff wasn’t out and won’t be for some time.

Ophellia Lacroix (master)

Francois Lacroix (henchmen)

Pere Ravage (enforcer)

Raphael Lacroix (enforcer)

Rami Lacroix (enforcer)

3 young Lacroix (Totem: Ophellia)

This box would contain all the current kin models (that’s the models that she has the most synergy with) and her totems, which they seem to include into their regular box (thankfully). If it’s not together, these should be your first models  you should buy since this crew has a lot of synergy build into it.

So how does this box translate into a working crew?

If you look at the stats they all are gremlins (duh) and kin (family-trait). This is important because all kin-related abilities work on the other parts of the crew. The examples are the Ophelia-upgrades. They are all kin-specific. It gives your models a little edge if you have some area of effect-spells. They are also living models and all have the height of 1. The last part is important, because there are 2 models that ignore your ht 1 models when you shoot  into close combat.

So all these things give you nice crew which has a lot of synergy together. Every model has his own role and that’s what I like about this crew. In the next couple of weeks I’ll go into every model individual and give my thoughts about their role they play in the crew.


I hope you liked this small piece about the Lacroix. You can add comments or recommendations if you want.

woensdag 4 september 2013

M2E review – gremlin cards


This is my review of the arsenal box (wave 1) from the gremlins made by Wyrd miniatures. I’m only going to talk about the quality. The rest (content on the cards) will be discussed later.
I got my First part of my small order from Gencon through a friend of mine. The order came through very quickly and I am impressed with the deck itself. The content of this box is as follows: 29 stat cards and 26 upgrade cards. The stat cards also include multiple cards form some of the minion cards. I don’t know if the other decks contain more cards.


I have a size comparison with a regular fate deck. It’s about the same width and length. The print on the outside of the box is great. I really love the whisky-golem and it seems to be scaled to fit the box.
Now for the inside



The cards are an improvement with the old cards. The lay-out is ok and the details on the cards are professionally made. I like the fact that everything is streamlined and all characteristics are in the same place, so you don’t have to search on the cards where what info is at.
The material of the card is also an improvement. The plastic looks like you can use it straight out of the box. I am thinking of laminating them though. Just to be on the safe side.
The font on the cards is good, the size could have been a bit bigger. There isn’t a lot of text on the cards, so you could use this to make the size bigger. That’s just a small side note though. 
The art is nice, and I like it. Nothing more to say on this subject really.
Overall I like this product. I can’t wait for the second wave to come out. I think that for the price you pay, you really get bang for your buck. I am really tempted to buy all the other decks as well. But that’s something for later I guess.

This is my grade for the product:


I like the overall style and price vs quality is excellent. 
The font could have been bigger, so that's why I didn't give it an A+


Next post probably will be about my favorite gremlin master so far. Ophellia Lacroix.

zondag 1 september 2013

First post

This will be a blog dedicated to the tabletop skirmish miniature game Malifaux.

I'll try to add at least one entry every week which will range from model review to just some rambling.

I hope you all enjoy your stay and remember: we're just playing with plastic toy soldiers here.

Here is a link to some art that's used: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27500765@N06/sets/72157634677575879/