Pied Piper

This past Saturday was the Pied Piper Tournament over at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn, VA. This tournament featured a host of newbies or experienced players, depending on skill level. If you were an experienced player, you showed up with nothing but your fate deck, soul stone counters, and your tape measure. Maybe a few other odds and ends, but no models. You drew your crew from a hat at the start of the tournament and that was your list for the day. If you were a newbie, you showed up with your list and played that. As previously discussed, and because I am skill less (also previously discussed) I showed up with a list and had at it. My list for the tournament was as follows:
Guild Crew - 25 - Scrap
Lady Justice -- 7 Pool
Nino Ortega [7ss]
Watcher [3ss]
Witchling Stalker [4ss]
Witchling Stalker [4ss]
Witchling Stalker [4ss]

I believe there were 12 players for a total of 3 games each.

Game 1: Shared Slaughter
In this one, I had the unfortunate draw of going against Dreamer with 3 Stitched Together. It was a good game where the Dreamer player spent the whole time slingshotting the Lord Chompy into my face and eating a model. After turn one, he had downed my Watcher. I got a luck draw for turn 2 and had 3 masks and a high card in my hand so I figured my best shot was to put Lady J out there and hope I could absorb the blow. Well, he cast some spell that caused me to have negative flips to my Df, Ca and Wp. He flipped really well and then added another high stone. I threw down my high card and needed a 7+ to resist and flipped a 3 or something. It was downhill from there as everything I seemed to flip was low. Even then, I was able to turn it around on Chompy once for 6 damage. If I managed to get a second shot in, I am pretty sure I could have downed him. Needless to say I lost Game 1, 5-3

Game 2: Shared Turf War
I played against eChris in this one and it was an interesting match up. Chris was playing a resser list with like 6 or 7 dogs, Sebastian and a nurse. He basically carved up the dogs for other more powerful models. I think I had to kill the Rogue Necromancy 3 times and another Flesh Construct another time. This game went fairly well for me and I felt in control the whole time. Most of this was due to Chris being completely new to the list and having no real idea of how it works. I think if we played again, the game would be much closer. I ended up winning 8-0.

Game 3: Shared Claim Jump
I was fortunate enough to be matched up on Table 2 and playing for 2nd place. My opponent from Game 1 was on Table 1 along with another Neverborn players (I know broken right!?!). My match up was against a Gremlin player who took Ophelia and Sommer. The game was pretty interesting as I figured we were going to have a battle royal over the center area. Turn 1 was the typical positioning and moving in. Turn 2 rolled around and I had a SICK hand. I think I had 2 9's, 10, 11, 13, and RJ. My eyes nearly popped out of my head thinking that I was going to be able to hold onto this for a while. Well, his first activation, he sent a mosquito over to me and knocked all those cards out of my hand. Talk about a bummer! I threw away so many high cards! From there Nino stepped out and started mowing down Gremlins and I was able to set up a nice little kill box. His guys had a bit longer range so he was able to stay out of it. Fortunately for me, he got bogged down trying to keep Nino alive. I was throwing all my high cards for his defense since none of my other stuff was engaged. We ended up reaching Turn 5 before we knew it and I was positioned to grab the center point. I made a dash for it and had 3 people positioned for it on Turn 6. I moved in and my Witchling Stalkers were all piled up on top of the thing. Turns out, Sommer came over and blasted the crap out of them. Fortunately for me, they did not die in an orgy of self-destruction and two managed to live through the turn. Lady Justice had 2 left I think. All in all a very close call and a bad move on my part putting all those guys there when I only needed one. Fortunately for me, I pulled out a victory 7-3.

At the end of the day, I managed to end up in second place. I was pretty thrilled with my showing and happy that I could pull out a second place finish. I definitely had some lucky moments on my side, but that's the way it goes in Malifaux I guess.

Newbie or Experienced? That is the question...

Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous peer pressure,
Or to take Arms as an experience player
against a Sea of newbies
And by opposing them: to win, to lose

...

The Pied Piper tournament is coming up at Huzzah in Ashburn on Feb 18th. The wrinkle to this tourney is that you can enter as either a newbie and come with a fully fleshed out 25 SS list or show up as an experienced player and be randomly assigned a pre-determined list. When I say random, I really mean drawing it out of a hat and playing that list. The Tourney Organizer, Bill, is going to provide all of the experienced players models and lists for the tournament. All in all it is a pretty cool concept and should be a fun tournament.

That leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. I am basically a 'tweener. I don't know which side to pick. At this point, I know Guild pretty well and if I show up with them, I stand a decent chance of doing well in the tournament. If I choose the experienced player route, there is a very good chance I won't be able to do anything at all since there are a number of lists and models I have never played against before.

So with the start of the New Year I decided to keep track of my Malifaux games to get some idea of how I am doing in the game overall. Also, with the data I can get some idea of what I am good at and what I need to work at. That being said, I might be able to use this data to help me make my decision.

I decided to go all out with the tracking in this spreadsheet and I am tracking the following:

• My Faction, Master, Avatar
• My Opponents Faction, Master & Avatar
• My Strategies & Schemes (and how I got points)
  
• Opponents Strategies & Schemes (and how they got points)

From there I can add (its Excel, I might as well get the software to do something for me) up the VPs and figure out who won (Not me). It has taken some getting used to and on Tuesday nights when I play 2-3 games I can get confused and miss something. As such, I have taken to writing these things down so I can enter them when I get home. Takes about 10 seconds to enter each game into the worksheet.

At that point, I can use 1st Gen Awesome Mike's awesome excel skills to do things like pivot tables, graphs and the like. At some point I will get him to show me how to do it. In the mean time, I am just going to read it and cry...

So in preparation for the tourney, let's look at the data. So far this year I am 5-7-1. While that seems okay, most of those wins are against guys who are pretty new to the game. While most of my losses come against experienced players. Against new players I am 3-1, while against experienced players I am 2-6-1. So it really comes down to me beating up on people that don't know better. I am a big bully.

I now need to decide if I want to enter the tournament as a new player and be a bully or lose 3+ games to experienced players. The trouble is that I am not sure I am going to have fun if I spend 4-6 hours losing at Malifaux in a tournament. I think at the end of the day, I am going to register as a newbie and just accept the ridicule from my peers and beat them down (hopefully). This way, I can have fun during the tournament and not be upset and a chore to play against because I am petulant and losing.

.....

With this regard my decision turns awry
And lose the name of newbie? Soft you say,
The fair Ophelia? Gremlin!?! in my GUILD!
Be all my noob-ness be remembered.