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I've recently taken the dive into Malifaux and spent Memorial Day Weekend reading the rules, building the models I could (didn't have all of my glues, etc...). BUT I had some slight misfortune, in the fact that the Nicodem box the owner ordered came with the following models: 1 Nicodem model, 1 Mortimer model, and... 1 more Nicodem model... the box was missing the 3 Samurai Punk Zombies :(... So I emailed Wyrd, told them my issue, sent them pictures and received the 3 zombies in a small package with an apology saying sorry for the mix up.

So I've built the Nicodem box and currently have 2 little factions that I can play with. I feel I have a good enough grasp of the rules to play a simple game with my friend. That is where tonight comes into play. I'm going to take pictures, and see if I can't get a battle report written up for the game, so we can kinda see how everything goes.

Look forward to seeing it. Maybe I'll study your batrep to get a better feel for the game. I watched one game before but couldn't really keep up with it.

So here is my first battle report ever, I'm hoping that i managed to get enough images to construct the battle so I at least get across what its like to play Malifaux (I know I could/should have taken tons more pictures, but the game was already taking a long time).

The Encounter: 20 Soulstone Scrap with Diagonal Deployment

The Factions: The Guild's Death Marshals vs. The Resurrectionist's Undertaker's Lot
Death Marshals: 16 Soulstones
Lady Justice
The Judge
Death Marshals x3
Undertaker's Lot 19 Soulstones
Nicodem
Mortimer
Samurai Punk Zombies x3

Strategies: Claim Jump: Time to stake your claim in someone else's territory!
Place a 30mm claim marker at least 8 inches away for the center of the table and at least 12 inches from your deployment zone.
Lady Justice heads into a graveyard just on the outskirts of Malifaux. The aethervox squawks in her ear "Ma'am, our marshals report Mortimer was seen in the area. Little strange, considering our records show hes currently employed under Nicodem on the other side of the city." Lady Justice sheathed her large blade, and proceeded to sneak deeper into the graveyard, "Keep the marshals hidden until we see Nicodem, something smells like a gremlin's dirty boot with Mortimer here." she replied, "I'm going silent, get into position."

The shovel dug deeper into the earth, and grunts could be heard as piles of dirt were heaved up and over the edge of a freshly dug grave. "Why can't he 'ire some decent help to dig up these bodies?" a gruff voice spoke to the still air of the graveyard. The large man finally reached a simple wooden box marked with the symbol of the Death Marshals, "Oh ho ho! e's gonna be mighty happy 'bout dis one 'e is."
"Pleased about what?" said a quiet voice, escorted closer to the hole by the crunch of boots on the frosted grass of the graveyard.
"Just found me a pretty little death marshal." Mortimer said, throwing his shovel out of the hole with a metallic clunk. The large man struggled to pull himself out of the hole, when he looked up, a gaunt looking gentlemen stepped out of the shadows, into the smokey glow of Mortimer's Cigar. "Some fresh ones fer ya boss, couple o' marshal stiffs."
Nicodem looked down at the casket, "Lovely, let us get to work."

Schemes:
Marshals: Round Up! - Time to round up the little guys, and leave the big problems for later. - If your opponent does not have any minions in play at the end of the Encounter, you score 1 VP (I announced, so I would earn an additional +1 VP).
Undertaker's Lot: Death After Death - Your Crew only gets larger as the battle rages on. - If you have more models in play at the end of the Encounter than you did at the start of the Encounter you score 2 VP.

Because we each only chose 1 scheme, we both get a bonus of 2 soulstones, giving Nicodem's crew 3 to spend, and my crew 6 to spend

Deployment
He won the flip to deploy, and let me deploy first. My deployment strategy was to spread out, and hope to flank around Nicodem and his crew, hoping that the critical strikes (if I remembered it lol) would help me get past the thick skins of his crew (all of his models had the hard to wound 1 rule which means that I have an extra negative twist to my flips (meaning that I flip an extra card and take the lower result).
Post Deployment Picture:



He wins the initiative flip, and moves one of his samurai zombies forward, I in turn activate a Death Marshal and double walk him foward (spending 1 action point to walk foward, and then using a second one to walk forward again).
He activates Mortimer and walks him forward, and casts exhume, creating a corpse counter (We decided that the d6 would have a 1 if it was a counter and a 6 if it was a mindless zombie.

I activate another marshal and march him forward, hoping to get some in range for a few peacebringer shots into the zombies.
This move back and forth continues until the end of turn one which looked like this:


Very few cards were used, and I was looking at that corpse counter, knowing that Nicodem can turn them into zombies, and then control them (Normally mindless zombies are controlled by both players at the end of everyone's activation).

So turn two begins, and I win intiative, but I had to burn a soulstone to add a flip to my initiative flip. I knew I had a few to burn, and I really wanted the first chance to set up this turn so I could prepare for what might be a giant slug out in the middle of the board (knowing that I could take out his zombies pretty quickly).

About halfway through turn 2 I realized I had not snapped a photo in a few activations, so here is the picture that I captured. I do remember what happened though .

So in this photo, I moved 1 death marshal forward and cast Finish the Job: A spell that gives him a 4 inch aura that gives you +2 damage per ram's head in the casting flip (I had 1 from the Death Marshal casting the spell, and 1 from the 10 I used to cheat fate to cast the spell (I flipped a 4 (plus the 4 CA that the DM has) = 8, so I had to cheat fate to get the spell off, but it worked well because each model with the death marshal type gained +4 damage per hit till the end of the turn... Now here is where things got crazy...

My friend activates Mortimer, and uses exhume to create a second corpse counter, and attempted to get it again (but didn't get it off, but it was okay because he forgot that he could only cast exhume once per turn). So he has a single action point left, and casts his (0) action Zombie Companion. This allowed 1 undead creature to immediately activate after him (this is a way around the you go, i go, you go game play). So he casts it on Nicodem (who is not normally undead, but can choose to make himself undead to receive the effects of talents, spells, etc..). Nicodem then moves forward and casts on one of my death marshals, dealing 3 damage to him and 3 damage to Lady Justice. Then he casts arise, summoning all of those corpse counters (total of 2 counters). Then when he ends his activation he immediately takes control and activates all mindless zombies within 12 inches. So those two zombies come closer towards me, steadily of course . I activate a death marshal and move him forward 4 inches and take a shot at the closest samurai zombie, but I was a mm or 2 out of range. Then he activates that zombie and casts Self-Mutilate to deal 3 wounds to himself and inflict 3 wounds on his target. Then I activate Lady Justice and walk her forward 5 inches and cast Last Rites, removing all corpse counters (mindless zombies are still considered corpse counters) from play. Then he activates a samurai zombie and walks him forward. I move the judge up and attack the samurai zombie, putting 3 wounds on him (stupid 6 wound monster).

The rest of the turn ends without much happening... :(
Again Alfndrate fails at taking pictures of battle reports :(

Turn 3 is where things got fun

I won initiative, as my opponent drew the black joker and basically failed automatically.
So I choose to activate Lady Justice first. I want to take out his ability to create zombies, so I go for the throat. I have her cast (0) Sword Style Onslaught (so if I hit with a Greatsword Strike and have a mask in the duel total I get a free strike (we were curious if I got the option of an infinite loop should I manage to be lucky enough). I charge Lady Justice forward (she passed through severe terrain, and paid 3 inches of her charge to do so (double movement cost for moving through it, she moved 1.5 inches so we decided 3 inches was fair (still made it into melee)). She hit with her first attack, and dealt 4 points of damage to Nicodem, attacked again and missed, and then used her Melee Expert Action Point to attack again, this time I dealt six points of damage, this time with a mask card, so I attempted another strike and failed. (We realized next turn that Nicodem would have died after this onslaught, but I forgot that her greatsword has Critical Strikes).

Side Rant:This is where we had our first major rules discussion. My friend wanted to activate Nicodem, target himself with Decay, to heal himself and hopefully catch Lady Justice in the Blast (Decay creates a 50mm blast radius if it does at least Moderate Damage. Rules state that you can't cast ranged spells in melee, so Nicodem couldn't do that. He then wanted to remove himself from Melee to cast the spell. Lady Justice has a melee range of 2 inches, so Nicodem would have to move far away to avoid her, and then she would get a change to strike him as he left melee... (if she succeeded he wouldn't be able to move). So after we determined that Nicodem also couldn't target himself as ranged spells are ranged attacks, and ranged attacks are considered ranged strikes, and you can't hit yourself with a strike... (we ended up going to Wyrd's website for this discussion).

So instead, he activates Mortimer, moves towards the melee that is happening in the middle of the board. Then he manages to cast Empty Grave. This ability lets Mortimer slow a target, but he ended up choosing to cheat fate with a card that had a Crow symbol, allowing him to paralyze Lady Justice instead (I burnt a soulstone and still couldn't beat his casting cost). So before he ended his activation, he used zombie companion on Nicodem again. Instead of moving away, he left him in Base to Base with Lady Justice, but could cast spells because Lady Justice did not have a melee range (due to being paralyzed) he stood there, cast decay on the self-mutilating zombie.

The strange thing about this game is that his zombie still has to resist the incoming decay (lol wut) but the owner of the zombie can cheat fate to make it more beneficial to himself. He managed to get a moderate hit, hitting Lady Justice, the Zombie, and Nicodem.

Lady Justice at the moment has 7 wounds on her. I move up a death marshal (remember I'm down 1 marshal atm), who takes a pot shot at the zombie, managing to 4 wounds, taking him from 1 wound to 5 wounds (again stupid six wound monster). He activates a zombie and moves it forward, taking dealing 3 wounds to Lady Justice (shes only got 2 left :( and won't be able to act until turn five).

Thus ends turn 3, where we haven't managed to do anything. I killed 2 zombies, but without killing any of his starting models I haven't managed to deny him his Death After Death scheme (though with 3 of his minions are still on the board, so I haven't managed to get my Round Up! schem either :( );

Turn 4 begins with us both drawing the following cards for Initiative:

The third card had him winning, but I burnt another soulstone to win. I NEEDED to get Nicodem and as many models away as I could down this turn. The first thing I did was activate the Judge, and move him through the nearest Zombie's melee range (making sure I stayed within an inch, to prevent a disengaging strike). I unloaded the Judge's Blades and Bullets ability into Nicodem. I managed to strike the last 5 points of damage (I won combat, but had 2 negative twists of fate, meaning I flipped 3 cards and took the lowest results. I flipped 2 elevens (severe damage) and a seven (moderate damage). The judge's moderate damage does 4 points of damage, and adding in the +1 damage from Critical Strikes, meant we had 1 dead Nicodem...

There was a tall gaunt man there .

He advances a zombie forward and strikes at Lady Justice, I spend my last soulstone (I had burnt them elswhere :( ) to prevent damage, but its still not enough to beat the combat duel, meaning Lady Justice dies :(.
At this point, we decide to call it a draw because we needed dinner (we started setting up at 6:45, started playing closer to 8 and quit around 10:15 so we could grab dinner from somewhere and hit up the bar (the main reason why we were playing lol).
Here was the ending shot of the game.

Good batrep man, glad to see there are more people playing Malifaux. I hope it grows at your LGS as much as it has at mine. Quick question about part of the batrep:

So turn two begins, and I win intiative, but I had to burn a soulstone to cheat fate.

I wasn't sure if I was reading it right, but just in case I am, you flip another card from the top of the deck rather than playing from your hand when replacing the initiative flip.

Yes, I screwed up the terminology... I got through writing turn one and my entire browser crashed, so I loaded it back up, and Chrome said, "Hey! I didn't close right, want me to bring up the pages I just shut down?" So I brought up the post I was creating, and it happened to have everything I already wrote, so I was trying to write as quickly as I could (It still took like 3 hours to write this lol). I did the soulstone correctly, I just used the term cheating fate incorrectly :( I'll edit it.

Nice post, but for the record I hate your table!

Is it a jealous hate, or a type of hate saying "Hey Alf, get a new table" There are plenty of things wrong with my table 1)This is not our usual table, those are sitting in storage for the summer/going to be rebuilt 2)We don't have a lot of terrain, 3)The table we played on was in the lounge in my summer housing (I'm living on campus this summer), so I understand the glare from the lights shining down :(.

I'm hoping to build a proper 6x4 table I can use for Malifaux, Warmahordes, and 40k.

Thanks for the battle report! I'm pretty new to Malifaux and this really helped me get a better understanding of the flow of the game. It sounds very fluid! It also sounds like you guys had some real fun. I too have Lady Justice's box, but after reading this, I may pick up Nicodem's as well... Love me some zombies!

I'm loving Lady Justice and her Marshals, I've just got to figure out some more combos (and remember than Critical Strike gives me +1 dmg )

Alfndrate wrote:I'm loving Lady Justice and her Marshals, I've just got to figure out some more combos (and remember than Critical Strike gives me +1 dmg )

I'm loving on her and her gang as well! I plan on adding The Executioner and Nino Ortega to round my group out. Giving me more of a bigger melee hit and some suppressive fire power to help when closing gaps. Do you have any tips for a newbie still learning the rules?

We set up a laptop with the pdf of the rules, the faq, errata, and a browser so we could search for rules questions if we had them. I had the 15 dollar rulebook. Get the basics down, make sure you know how to do a standard stat duel, a strike duel (basic combat), and a casting duel (including the potential resist duel). make note of anything that may have slowed down the game or made it seemed over powered (We both forgot that you could mitigate damage by burning soulstones)... Play, play, play thats all I can say

Alfndrate wrote:We set up a laptop with the pdf of the rules, the faq, errata, and a browser so we could search for rules questions if we had them. I had the 15 dollar rulebook. Get the basics down, make sure you know how to do a standard stat duel, a strike duel (basic combat), and a casting duel (including the potential resist duel). make note of anything that may have slowed down the game or made it seemed over powered (We both forgot that you could mitigate damage by burning soulstones)... Play, play, play thats all I can say

Thanks for those tips Rather straightforward to learning any game But I do know that I need to spend a lot more time with the rulebook.

Any plans for future battle reports?

Absolutely! My buddy is probably going to be picking up his own box and rulebook, so we might see some different armies... I've also got to find time to paint these guys up

I saw this game when i went to a ard boys practice tournament last sunday and it piqued my curiosity do you know about any of the other forces or just the ones you have?

I've got 2... Um... Wyrd's website would be the place to go... they can give you a better idea than I can... As well as the Aehtervox podcast has some decent ideas.