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Students of Conflict - Season 2 - #3A - San Antonio July Tourney 2024: Christian (Lucius Mattheson vs Dr. Silas)
376 Plays6 months ago
We have survived hurricanes, extended power outages, and a plethora of Black Joker Flips to bring you this episode where we talk with Christian about a game in his trip to the top of the podium, how he likes to take things that other people say aren’t great in game and make them work, and how it’s important to look over the FAQ/errata from occasionally to make sure you’re playing the game right.
Hosts: Doug and Clay
Guests: Christian and Cameron
Tournament: July Malifaux Monthly Tournament - San Antonio
Tournament on Longshanks: https://www.longshanks.org/event/16939/
Encounter:
Round 2
Deployment and Strategy: Flank, Stuff the Ballots
Schemes: Let Them Bleed, Outflank, Espionage, Sweating Bullets, Protected Territory
Christian’s Schemes: Espionage, Protected Territory
Jordan’s Schemes: Sweating Bullets, ??
Final Score: 6-4
Crews:
Christian’s Lucius Mattheson (Guild)
Size: 50 - Pool: 7
Leader:
Lucius Mattheson
Totem(s):
The Scribe
Hires:
Pale Rider
Agent 46
Dr. Grimwell
Doppleganger
Gatling Gunner
Jordan’s Dr. Silas (Outcasts)
Size: 50 - Pool: 5
Leader:
Dr. Silas
Totem(s):
Hodgepodge Effigy
Effigy of Fate
Hires:
Maurice
Tuco Ortega
Angel Eyes
Nurse
Nurse 2
Dr. Grimwell
Plugs from Guest:
Ryan’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SubParNinja
Also Mentioned in the Podcast:
The Lonestar Fauxdown Malifaux GT: https://lonestarfauxdown.com/events
Thank-Yous:
HUGE thanks to Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy at the San Antonio Medical Center, for supporting this month’s tournament … especially given the extremely short notice!
Also, big thanks to Top Doug Design for all the terrain we play on here in Texas and for sponsoring this podcast, to Wyrd Miniatures for allowing us to use their artwork from the 2nd Edition Student of Conflict, and to Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy North Houston, the normal home of our Texas tournaments.
Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy - San Antonio Medical Center: https://www.dlair.net/medicalcenter/
Top Doug Design: https://www.topdougdesign.com/
Wyrd Miniatures: https://www.wyrd-games.net/malifaux
Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy - Houston North: https://www.dlair.net/houston-north/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Students of Conflict
00:00:10
Speaker
Straight out of the heart of Texas, here come the students of conflict, helping you become a better Malifaux player and reach the top of the podium, one game at a time.
Meet the Hosts: Clay and Doug
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to Students of Conflict. We are Clay and Doug. Hello. And hello. And we are very happy to have actually had a tournament and therefore a podcast this month, despite the very best efforts of hurricanes. Now we're back in the recording booth. I have electricity. Yep. and we're trying to become better Malifaux players, leveling up ourselves and hopefully helping others level up as
Format and Interview Focus
00:00:54
Speaker
well. We do this by taking an in-depth look at one game from our guests, asking about the key decisions that they made before the game, during the game, and now that they're looking back at the game, what were the things that they learned and that they could pass on to others?
00:01:07
Speaker
We interview our guests together so we can get some good cross-flow and different perspectives, but we release them as one individual podcast per guest, helping people level up one game at a time.
Meet the Winners: Christian and Cameron
00:01:16
Speaker
Today, we are speaking with Christian and Cameron. Hey, how's it going? Hello.
00:01:27
Speaker
Look out. Anyways, these guys came in first and second at the July Malifaux Monthly Tournament. It was held not in Houston, but in San Antonio this month, 14th of July 2024.
Interview with Christian: Malifaux Strategies
00:01:39
Speaker
We're gonna be releasing our discussions with these guys as season two, episodes 3A and 3B. So, all right, over to you, Doug.
00:01:48
Speaker
Okay, so looks like I am chatting up with Christian today.
Texas Road Trip Snacks Discussion
00:01:54
Speaker
How are you doing today, Christian? I'm doing all right. I came here ready to talk about probably the best list in Malefoe. Best list ever? ed Ever. Ever! Well, I'm excited for it. ah So, you've been here before.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yeah, a couple times. Yeah, my brain's like, we've had him on before, right? I don't know. My brain is still a little bit made of pudding, um melted pudding. But you know, I at least have electricity now. So that's the important thing. So anyway,
00:02:29
Speaker
ah Our icebreaker question this week, which I'm excited for because instead of doing the normal monthly tournament here in Houston, ah due to me not having electricity and there being lots of ah hurricane recovery here in Houston, we pulled an audible and the wonderful Mr. Clay hosted our monthly tournament over in San Antonio this month instead. Thank you, Clay.
00:02:57
Speaker
I was gonna say, I don't know who this wonderful Mr. Clay is, but but ah man, we definitely did have a tournament. That was a good one. No, we totally pulled an audible and this was honestly, the community really came together and like I posted like, I'm sorry guys, I just can't do it this this month, just all the stuff. And within about 10 minutes, you had something planned over in San Antonio, which was awesome.
00:03:26
Speaker
So everyone who would normally be here in Houston road tripped it over to San Antonio. And so that ah inspired our icebreaker question this month, which is, Christian, what's your favorite Texas road trip snack? Probably trail mix. And I hate 75% of trail mix, but every now and then I get an M&M.
00:03:55
Speaker
All right, so I think that's my favorite one. It's like, I don't feel so guilty about eating candy. So it's like, you know, there's stuff in there and that's good. And then I get an M&M and I'm like, it was worth it. But when they're like, you get a raise and you're like, all right, come on, man. I would just buy a bag of M&Ms instead. Yeah, I know. I gotta eat better. I gotta eat healthier. Yeah, of course then, I mean, there's always the obligatory Texas stop at Bucky's on your way to Literally anywhere.
Post-Hurricane Experiences
00:04:26
Speaker
Dude, you get to the Bucky's and you're like, why is there Walmart or anything else? And then you leave Bucky's and you're sad. Oh man. I had never, because I'm not from Texas originally and people were like, Oh, Bucky's. I'm like, what the hell? It's just a gas station. And then I went to one of the bike. What? What is this magical land? It's like the Willy Wonka of gas stations. It really is.
00:04:53
Speaker
You could spend an hour in there, no problem. You could disappear for an hour. And the their selection of beef jerky is phenomenal and fresh, fresh barbecue
Malifaux Tournament Insights: Strategy Talk
00:05:03
Speaker
brisket. Oh, fuck. And it's like five bucks a sandwich. Oh my god. Like this just heart stopping, just doughy bread.
00:05:13
Speaker
And they have trail mix! Mucky's trail mix. My snack is a beef jerky. A beef jerky is perfect for road trips and I'm excited because I'm gonna have to make some beef jerky next week because I'm rolling to Gen Con and you know I drive up for that which is so I gotta make a lot to be jerky.
00:05:35
Speaker
Dang, I wanna go to the gym, Colin. So i gotta I gotta ask you, Doug, so same kind of icebreaker, but back to you. so and And you can either do road trip, which might be jerky, but I don't know, or I am deeply interested in after, because you were like 10 days without power? It was not 10, if it were 10 days with without power, I still wouldn't have power. Okay, it was like for f'n ever though. ah But like five, five and a half days, I think?
00:06:01
Speaker
Which is like, which is like in dog years. That's like a long time. stand The worst part is, I mean, cause we could go and get, you know, electricity. I w we were going to like, uh, like McDonald's and Starbucks and the just, you know, setting up shop with me and my wife or setting up shop with our laptops and just, you know, doing our morning, just working out of, you know, like a Starbucks or a McDonald's. But it, what sucked was in the evenings.
00:06:29
Speaker
you know, going home to sleep and no air conditioning. oh yeah my yeah we say human mind so lot I mean, Houston is,
00:06:43
Speaker
let's be honest, it's kind of the devil's anus. It's just kind of hot. and love Yeah, so i'm I'm gonna take this back to the, gonna take this back to the Malifaux food foodie kind of podcast. that that and So you got power back, you actually have like a kitchen again, you you're you you actually have a refrigerator that has power again. um what is what what What do you make when you're like to celebrate getting power back. And okay, your wife is still like out of town, right? And so- Unrelated to the power outage, the trip was planned to be four before- Oh, okay. I thought she was like, had enough of no power. She was like, I'm out of here. No, no, no. The trip had been planned to be four the hurricane. And it's like, well, you know, we didn't have damage. We just didn't have power. So just no worries rolled out of town. What I order, and this is what I order whenever my wife goes out, my pizza with anchovies.
00:07:39
Speaker
There you go. Which you can do win the powers out, even like it's a double win. wouldn that The thing is, I should not eat an entire pizza by myself. pretty Well, no like like honestly, like i I don't want to eat a full pizza, because then I'll just feel like crap. And I don't want to, you know, get that wonderful awesome pizza and then waste half of it. So I waited until I got power back so I could, you know, then put the third of the pizza that I didn't eat in
Christian's Faction Choice: Why Guild?
00:08:08
Speaker
the fridge. And then I ate my leftovers of that tonight, which if you've got a pizza stone and you put it in the oven,
00:08:13
Speaker
350 degrees about you know uh six to eight minutes in the oven great way to reheat it and then also you're not nuking um you know fish but no i get pizza with pepperoni jalapenos green olives black olives are borderline pointless but green olives are amazing and then double anchovies double anchovies? Well, whenever I order anchovies on pizza, they they don't put enough on there. Like if I want anchovies, I fucking want anchovies. I think that if we just in America had a petition to ban anchovies, I think you could get enough Americans in on this action. i think i would be giving up Here's the thing is most pizza places don't even, you can't even get anchovies out anymore.
00:09:03
Speaker
there's a reason they're delicious so yeah i have to get them from either papa john's and let's be honest papa john's pizza is kind of meh yeah or marco's and they just built the marco's around the corner from me so that's super awesome there you go you can get your steps and work off that whole pizza okay by around the corner i still have to go drive there yeah yeah Texas around the corner. It's still like four miles are around the corner. I'm not, I'm not walking there, not in this Texas heat, but I love my anchovy pizza, but I'm not allowed to order it when my wife is around because she hates the smell of it. Oh yeah, I'm sure. It is a pungent pizza. Anyway,
00:09:53
Speaker
Uh, oh, and what, what do I eat during power outages? I just got to eat because I'm not, I'm not, I'm not fucking dealing with it. Yeah. Marcos as a celebration or Marcos as a, no, that is fantastic. So no, cool.
Underdog Strategies with Lucius
00:10:08
Speaker
Thank you. But anyway, now that we've, you know, spent a lot of time talking food, cause you know what? Hey, that's what we do here. What round are you talking about today, Christian and why?
00:10:20
Speaker
Uh, I will be talking about round two and it's because honestly, it was the highest performance of my crew, like getting stress test. I like to see what they could handle. And, uh, yeah, the, the player I went first was in San Lea. He really brought, uh, he really like brought some pain to me. And then you have to switch gears a lot of times during the game, like I'm deciding if I want to all in on the.
00:10:47
Speaker
on the aspect of like wanting to full force fight him or do I want to just leave and just just start running for points. Dude brought like this crazy list I loved, super interesting.
00:10:59
Speaker
And, uh, yep, that's why I want to talk about round two. So you're going, you were playing against to see Jordan. Okay. He was bringing a Dr. Silas list. Dr. Silas. I like that. I like the idea of that. Cause you know what? I think it's fun. They're starting to bring some more hechmen henchman henchman. Yeah. they're trying I feel like they're weirdest trying to make it more of a viable option.
00:11:23
Speaker
i yeah we I think overall, he had a very good list. I'm not gonna, I don't wanna, I'll breathe you some, basically the whole idea is that he could pass upgrades to his guys and they could pitch the upgrades to get a suit built
Specific Game Strategies from the Tournament
00:11:37
Speaker
in and a positive to the attack. And it basically like pseudo focused and then he would get focused and he'd be on double positives with the positive to damage any suit he wanted on and he had to angelize.
00:11:49
Speaker
And it was just like sweating. I was sweating when that Angelize was just like, ah he made one play that just took over the game for a whole second in my mind. Of course, you know, like so I said, I had switched gears and, you know, I ended up bringing a win out of it, but still it was a very, very sweaty match for sure. Like I was definitely, try I switched the try hard gears on very quick. So what were some of the biggest lessons and themes from this game? ah Number one lesson, if you're going to run A minion. Keep it behind something where Angel Eyes can't see it. Uh, just keep it hidden until Angel Eyes is activated. Boom! Headshot! Uh, yeah, ah before my Gatling Gunner activated, on turn one, he instant killed it. Uh, right off the fucking right off the gate. Dude, just, boom! Gone! what's What's next? I was just like, ah! Those big guys, where'd Jimmy go?
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, for real. And, uh, you know, big mistake. I wish I would have activated Gatlin Gunner and done his aura that gives everybody stealth within three of him. Um, I really, I had the, I had this tome in hand. I had the cards, but that he had just so many more models than me that I was just milking the card draw off of the delicious one pass tokens. And, uh, I was really putting the heat on his master that I just killed it immediately. I wish I would have changed that. And the second thing is round two, I wish I would have just interacted next to the point to score, you know,
00:13:13
Speaker
score, try to max out points there. But I didn't. I'm lazy. I like to kill. So I really just tunnel visioned on murder. Gotcha. So before the tournament began, um why did you end up choosing Guild? Because now when I think of Christian, honestly, most of the time,
00:13:33
Speaker
I still think of you as a Bayou player, because you know what? Bayou players always return to the Bayou, I understand that, but you've been playing Resu for a while. Well, and i um I just got to interrupt, because you totally freaked me out with that, because I had forgotten about the Banjo soundboard thing, and I don't know why I did. It should have been burned into my mind, but I was just like,
00:13:58
Speaker
what is that and so anyway you gotta be hard guy is down board you're gotta to be careful retired veteran hearing like scary noises we don't want to hear that a gun's going off definitely cause e sd go down But so I obviously was not there for the tournament. And so then when I went and looked at the long shanks, after that stuff, it's like, Oh, sweet Christian one. What guild? What in the what? Okay, so the breakdown, man, big breakdown. Why are you starting to get too good? That's the problem. They're getting too much in love, guys. They're getting way too many good things. You come out with a new master. And these new masters are just amazing. Like if you look at a guy riding a Silurid can score a million points and then you got him in a boat and all of a sudden you can't kill him. These guys are so good. Bayou has the best upgrades in the game. I'm on a boat. You don't have to agree. You don't have to agree with me, but I think that Bayou is just ridiculous. You got Brewmaster and then you got John Mosher. This dude swings home every game. He's got a really good representation for the crew. And we've got so many Bayou players that
00:15:13
Speaker
I don't want to play what everybody else is playing. I don't want to play what's good. I want to play what people keep saying is bad. I don't want to see if it's bad. And so I moved into rezzers and I was very content on I wanted. Has anybody ever said that that was bad? It wasn't. I was going to say that. There had never been bad. So I moved into rezzers because I wasn't feeling too confident. Travis had beat me a lot of times in Bayou and that was right before we got the new models and right before we got an update on ah Big Hat.
00:15:40
Speaker
So I was like, okay, well, I kind of want to be very competitive for this, uh, Texas Fodown. I really want to come in and swing it out the gate. And so I swapped to rezzers and I went for Jackdoll and then the Seamus McMorning style. Obviously y'all know how those crews work. They're amazing crews and, um, don't have to say much about that, but coming into this GG, I took a really big break and I was like, when I come back, I want to play something nobody's playing and I want to play some of the stuff that's considered weaker.
00:16:07
Speaker
and see what they're like, you know, I've got the time. I have the resources. Let me just try them out. So I spent two months looking and I was decided, I was like, I'm going to get guilt and I want to play Lucius and I really want to try Lucius out. And, uh, yeah, so I spent two months prior to this tournament, just studying Lucius and I wasn't even going to go to this tournament. I, the night before my friend was like, Hey man.
00:16:33
Speaker
I'm driving tomorrow, show up at my house at 6 AM and you can ride with me. And that's what I did. I was like, you know what? I haven't been in a tournament in like four months, let's get it. And so yeah, but we don't have a lot of guild players. So I want to be, I want to, when you look at me, I want you to be like, oh, that guy is the galed guy. I want you to be like, oh, if I'm playing guild, what do you do? You know, I want to be a representation piece. You know, you asked about 10 thunders, you know, there's a lot of people who play it and a lot of resers now, a lot of people move to resers. And so it made me like, I lose identity there. So I thought,
00:17:00
Speaker
Gil would be my new identity for this this this next year. So I'm going to be sticking to Gil probably 90% of the time. I still have a lot of Bayou stuff in the closet. So that's coming out soon too. But- They always go back to the Bayou. It happens. You know it's true. Yes. Enter the Call of the Banjos. It's hard not to, but I'm gonna i'm gonna stick i'm gonna try to stick to Gil for this year. And yeah, it works for me. I love them. Like they immediately fell in love. My first game I played them, I got stomped.
00:17:30
Speaker
horribly bad. Like I lost all my models on round one and I was hooked immediately in Guild. I realized like I was playing very badly and I realized like they have a lot of like opportunity. But yeah, to answer your question, that's really what brought me to it. Okay. So, uh, going into the trailer, were you planning on playing Lucius every round or was it kind of the, you had a few different, uh, guild masters ready to go and it's like, Oh no, this is a Lucius pool. I brought,
00:18:00
Speaker
Two masters, I brought Dashill two and Dashill one, but I had, I was planning on mostly playing. So I had Dashill, but my friend convinced me, why don't you play Lucius at the tournament? You've been talking about it for months now. I'm still talking about it. So by the way, friend, Jonathan, Jonathan was the one talking about it. And, uh, I had been raving about how Gantling Gunners are really good.
00:18:25
Speaker
And so they were saying, yeah, why don't you bring it to the tournament? So I was like, OK, I'm going to run these two masters. And when I run into Jonathan, or I run into somebody who's going to give me trouble, I'll swap to Dashul. And I just didn't tell him I had it in my bag. So they thought I only had Lucius on me. ah ah Once again, I'm sorry, Devin, if you listen back to this. you know He was prepared for Lucius, and he was surprised. But yeah. i I really didn't have any, I just planned on one shopping dashboard, but then I came in and i I saw the pools and I was like, you know what? Lucius looks amazing. Let's try him out. And I played him for a student. Honestly, I was going to play him the third one, but I just psyched myself out. um I felt like he was good in all of them. So here's the question. What what in this pool made you say, hey, you know what? This is a Lucius pool.
00:19:14
Speaker
um the amount of interacting the amount of interacting and you have subterfuge. So anything within six, if they drop a scheme marker, I can take that scheme marker and turn it into mine. They drop mine instead. So it just is disgustingly good.
00:19:32
Speaker
So if they are interacting and trying to do the one, I don't really remember all of the schemes of strats cause I don't read enough. So I've got those right here. So, um, strategy was stuffed about, uh, schemes were let them bleed at flank espionage, sweating bullets and protected territory.
Impact of Lucius' Abilities
00:19:52
Speaker
Um, okay. So I was looking at it. I was like, okay, well, odds are no one's taking, no one's going to take, let them bleed.
00:20:00
Speaker
No one's really going to take sweating bullets in my mind. I never see people take those. So I was like, oh, if we've got espionage, I have protected territory and I have out plank. They're all scheme markers. Lucius is very good with those and worst case scenario, I got to run him up there and just make it where they can't do anything with one corner of the board or one side of the line there. There is just, I pitch a card. You can't do it. No matter what ah you, it's really hard to stop Lucius from ah completely controlling that.
00:20:30
Speaker
So when I sold it, I was like, okay, I can definitely take them here. But um when I also saw like stuff, the ballots, I was like, ah I my guys, I can get a lot of extra actions out of Lucius. So I'll get into position at Lucius end of, end of round activates, scores me some points. Dopplegangers got the ability to interact while she's engaged. So, you know, you kind of little gotchas at the end of each, each one of those. So that's really what I was looking at was like, okay, I can get a lot of extra AP.
00:20:59
Speaker
out of this, so this will be pretty good. Cool. And now why did you go with Lucius 1 as opposed to Lucius 2? Because I know it's kind of just become the thing that everyone's like, oh, this is one's garbage. Nothing but Lucius 2. And that's what I've been seeing on the table. Because Lucius 2, who I've been playing somewhat regularly recently,
00:21:20
Speaker
ever since I ran into Nathan with Lucious 2 with Kevin gone and just saw the insane hand manipulation and then shows us like, okay, who's my bitch? Boom, teleport and test them up. I've kind of been on the Lucious 2 train. I haven't revisited Lucious 1 in a while. So why 1 over 2? So the primary fact of 1 over 2 is the fact that everyone says he's bad. And I wanted to see if it was true.
00:21:49
Speaker
That was really it. I know Lucious1 is what they say bad, but he's not. He has a lot of sauce. He has things that just you do not expect to be good. A lot of the stigma is that you take a master's AP and you give it to your crew. So he's not a good master and he has 10 HP and all this stuff. But the thing is, is that he has just little things that work so well in this GG. Past tokens are massive.
00:22:17
Speaker
You just get free cards all the time. Who doesn't love cards? When you always replenish your, so like you're replenishing nonstop. And when we dive into the crew, I'll explain some more things that kind of like why it's a lot better, but really it's like Lucius too is amazing, but I don't, I don't care. I don't want to play what's amazing. I want to play what they don't, you know, what everybody thinks is bad. And I want to turn it around. I want to make people actually like that, you know?
00:22:44
Speaker
Uh, you know, I want to see people's faces to be shocked and then lose to it. And just that shock factor is what I care about. So, um, speaking of cruise, Ed, what did you bring in your crew? Um, so my crew, um, is Lucius, obviously Lucius one, you take the scribe, you got the pale writer, you run agent 46, dr. Brimwell doppelganger and a Gatlin gunner with seven stones in the cash.
00:23:13
Speaker
So that is the that is the crew I have. i it's It's a really, really, really tight crew. But the point is to make sure you have less car less models in your opponent so you can draw cards. You can gain initiative advantage in the early. You want to make it where your opponent always activates first. Even if you lose the initiative, you want to make sure that you are, if you can cheat for the initiative, you do it. Doesn't matter. Lose the 13, lose the 12, doesn't matter. Even if if you're not killing,
00:23:43
Speaker
because you want to get as many of your opponent's models forward on the board so that you can gain early game advantage and use your pass tokens to eat up your opponent's time. You don't want to give any your all your guys are important, so if the more people you walk forward, the worse it is for you because if they get caught and you don't get your you're you know your whirlwind of round one attacks, you're going to suffer. Not lose, but suffer.
00:24:08
Speaker
Okay. And so with this crew build, because obviously, uh, you've got agent 46, you got doppelganger, they're planning on using mimic on something. Yes. Going into this, what was your plan? So round one, the guild has one special minion. You can ask anybody in the Houston market. I've been just nonstop talking about Gatling Gunners. Probably my favorite minion and probably the best minion in guild.
00:24:37
Speaker
As a minion goes, I think it is number one. You can't tell me otherwise. It's a model, activates, draw a card, and it has positives on its gun. I don't care if it's stat four. If there's Consume it, I'm shooting through it for free. I don't have to spend resources. I don't have to focus. I don't have to do nothing. It's got a 2-4-6 attack. Who cares? It doesn't have amazing triggers, but it gives Staggered, and it's a 12-inch gun range.
00:25:01
Speaker
So in the game, Dougboards, that's what we love to call them. Dougboards, there's not a lot of sight lines to shoot through. You're always either going to cover a concealment. So when you're flipping, who cares? If you don't got to expend a resource, then it's great. So here is the big thing about the crew. The, I want to always be copying round one, Gatlin guns. If you haven't engaged my crew yet, then I want to copy the Gatlin guns round two. If you engage my crew, then I steal get Dr. Grandma's attack.
00:25:30
Speaker
That is the core premise. Turn one, when you have three models with a stat four, a stat seven, and a stat six, the positive is built in on a gun. That's a two, four, six. You are eventually going to hit either moderate or severe. And if you hit it one time, your opponent is in a bad spot and they have the stagger trigger. So these are these two tools that combo with Dr. Grimwell's attack, where you'd get the crows built in.
00:26:00
Speaker
If you, you're making your opponent discard cards means that you're not expending resources from your hand. You're on positives. If they're not behind concealment, they just really, they messed up that it's going to hurt. And that's what happened to my opponent in round two. He had, we were in a gun town where there's two building, building to the right, building to the left, building to the right, building to the left, a tree stump in the middle of the board. No concealment anywhere.
00:26:25
Speaker
You are in the wrong, you're in the wrong battle. Candice to the right of them, Candice to the left of them, Volleyden Thunder. Yeah, it's all you hear is just the spray of Vietnam. These guys, it was just- Maybe when I was talking, I was quoting some poetry there. I do. Oh, I don't know. Guard to the Light Brigade, my friend. Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't know what that one. That's okay, we'll forgive you. We'll forgive you. That's like an education problem, you know, or whatever.
00:26:54
Speaker
That's not your problem. That's the school. But that's a separate podcast. We are we are we are food and malifo. We are not an education reform. Something important that we we were chatting about this before the game, and ah you brought up um something in in the Arata and FAQ.
Technical Aspects and FAQs of Malifaux
00:27:13
Speaker
Yes. That is very important with this. Amazing.
00:27:17
Speaker
So go go ahead and mention that because this is something that I know I have definitely done wrong at some points, where you're talking about the getling gunner's positive. So in the FAQ and in doppelganger, I'm going to read word for word very quickly, brief summary. Select one of the target's non-actions that does not attach an upgrade or list this model by name, non-master only. Until in phase, this model may treat the selected action hyphens and it's triggers as though it were printed on this card. The stat for this action is considered to be equal to the stat for this action. So mimic, this is a stat seven. is In the community, it is an unsaid thing where a lot of people think that that means that it replaces what is on the card. So if I have Sue who's got a stat five positive and a gun, they're like, no, it's stat seven, lose the RAM, lose the, you know, you'd lose the positive. No, in the f FAQ it states,
00:28:15
Speaker
those aren't tied to the stat. They actually go with it. So you get the triggers, you get those built in. So the important point, so it is under the RADA and FAQ, it's under section two, actions. This is number six, where it says, does the stat of an action include any fake modifiers or suits printed next to the numerical value?
00:28:36
Speaker
says, no, the stat of an action only ever refers to the numerical value listed in the stat section. If a model takes an action and has a specific stat for that action, it will instill include any modifiers or suits added to that actions duel provided by that action. I've been doing this wrong. Which breaks the crew. Breaks the crew, okay? Because now you look at Lucius, he has a command for a stat It cost a five, bro. I got a bunch of weeks in hand. I'm turning them into stat sevens with positives. I know I got gas in my deck. So I am always shooting on positive. So the stat seven and a stat six that can get staggered out and you just turned your master into a cannon. And then that we haven't even dove into like all the like little nooks and crannies of the cool stuff that you can do with the crew. We're just talking about turn one, I can walk, shoot you with a stat four with a positive built in.
00:29:34
Speaker
You know, second act, it this is after you've activated three models and they're out in the open. and They're just, they're just scalps waiting to be collected on a two, four, six gun. It is beautiful. And it draws you cards when you command your own guys. And I was playing the crew run. You can also command the Gatlin gunner because it says minion as well. I didn't even know that. So you could have been, you could do a lot with it. Uh, anyway, that's, that's the prime ones you want to steal. Uh, the, the Gatlin gun and Dr. Grimos.
00:30:03
Speaker
attack skull saw. This is just delightful and nasty. And yeah, and so agent 46 got following her. Okay. And doppelganger also is following orders. Yeah. So more card draw. Yeah. So in a crew in the game where you've got summoners who give you past tokens, this passive effect just stacks up so much value for Lucius where you wouldn't really gain value because you don't gain value at a passing in the mid game because a lot of times you have stacking on these things.
00:30:33
Speaker
You're sitting on them and they give you initiative, but it's like, who cares? If you're already losing, you're not utilizing these past tokens to get some sort of value. And there's a lot of times where you could just pass in a game or your opponent doesn't actually have that much of an advantage, but because you're not utilizing these gaps, you're not getting as much out of them. It's kind of like, I'm just sitting on them and you know, I didn't kill a model. I didn't do it. It doesn't matter. You draw a card. So if you use agent 46, he blows his entire hand. You blow your entire hand.
00:31:01
Speaker
You can pass multiple times and use stones to keep Agent 46 alive, and just draw your cards back, restock the hand. You've got these Gatling Gunner, draw us your cards. Well, I know that, well, sorry, words words are hard, so.
00:31:18
Speaker
I know that card advantage and activation control have been two of the major lessons that we've learned over past several episodes. I know that when we had landed on talking about the Fodown and he was talking, he'd ran Yuko 2.
00:31:35
Speaker
and The discussion there was, hey, do you use your pass tokens to get the positive flips and do the, ah with your, uh, King. I'm just like, no, he was mostly just passing. Uh, so then he'd have all of these back to back to back to back activations at the end. Well, suddenly, Oh, they're trying to pass a whole bunch. Cool. They're feeding you hand, that hand. Which is, that's pretty solid.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yeah, you just get this massive recovery. And I had, I started on the first, okay, round two and round one, same thing happened. I had nothing higher than a six. I had a two sixes, two fives. I had a one, a two and a three, uh, and my hand and it was just, and then like, ah I think another four or something. Cause you have seven cards. I had nothing in hand. Like this hand was just gross. I was like, uh,
00:32:32
Speaker
You don't have to worry. You don't got to sweat. You don't care. You're going to draw all your cards. You got potential to draw. And insane amount of cards in every single stat you have is positives built in. yeah You're flipping severe after severe after severe. And you can you can ask ah my round two opponent whenever he played. i was I was just flipping over him the entire time. I drew red joker, black joker, a 13, a 12, and a 11 just off the top of my deck off of just passing and commanding right off the r
Key Highlights from the Tournament
00:33:00
Speaker
rip.
00:33:00
Speaker
And the rest of the game was history at that point. It was just like, I was drawing fire and then pitching just straight, you know, all my weeks. So I never was really fighting weeks. And in it's it's very good. It's just a ridiculous amount of reload. And like, ah you wouldn't believe it's like, yeah, I'm converting master AP, but who cares? It's stat seven with positive built in, end of story. You just, your master's a stat seven at the price of a five. So here's a question then, during the game,
00:33:29
Speaker
What were some interesting lines of plays and a key decision points that really the the game pivoted around? um I would say the build up to me executing his master on turn two, ah middle of turn two. um I would say that the the key thing was the fact that one, I got to play, so I had i got to be the attacker, so I picked the sides we deployed on.
00:33:57
Speaker
So obviously I picked the shooter town that gave me the best lines of value where he wouldn't get any cover. um He started off round one using Tuco, grenading his whole crew up. And I knew he was looking to rocket his guys forward. He was up six inches with every person in his crew and the Silas crew. And this dude was just moving. He was hauling. So my goal was to stagger his master and hopefully so hopefully stagger maybe one other person.
00:34:26
Speaker
so that I could stop him from moving forward, so that I could launch Dr. g Grimwell in with double crows hitting him with a ah with like ah eight damage, like right off the rip, one shot in his master. Because if you read on the front of his card, he gets crows built in if your opponent has stagger. So I have soul stones. That's a henchman. I'll just buy another. you Your opponent has to either pitch cards or take a fat damage, like a big hit.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it is very oppressive. Or you just instantly make them discard cards in their hand. And I was already planning to set the Execute up. See, Jordan, he ran... Actually, I'm gonna look here. He had, like, no Soul Stones. He started the game with five Soul Stones. In this GG, you want a lot of models, and that's what he was trying to do, but it ends up not paying out. The second thing was, I saw that he Dr. Silas' ability, when you kill other guys,
00:35:19
Speaker
They summon guys off of that, so I was not going to kill anything until I knocked the master out. every time meek Every time I kill something with this awesome, amazing crew that I have, they'll just get something back. It's not worth it. So I saw that he was moving super fast, and he planned on rocketing Dr. Silas at my crew and then penciling me in with Dr. Griml, doing the same thing to me. I shot his guy.
00:35:40
Speaker
got the stagger trigger, or i bought I think I bought the stagger trigger on my ah my Agent 46 after mimicking Gatling Gun. Staggered his master immediately. None of these guys could push him forward anymore. So then he was forced to use the the Asylum nurses to like get rid of it. I burned all five of his stones on first round on his master because I shot him like six consecutive times with Gatling Guns.
00:36:04
Speaker
ah It's just fire. Other than my other than losing, like I lost the main Gatling gun guy right off the rip. But yeah, it was I shot him with the rider right off the bat. i Oh, that's what it was. Shot him with the rider right off the bat. I did ride with me to get Grimwell up. Rider hit him. I used my one fate token to get the ram and the injured on his master. His and his master was now staggered and he took two damage, ah which I believe he stoned, so he took nothing or he took one.
00:36:33
Speaker
Then I followed up with stealing with Agent 46, walking forward, and then shooting him with the stat six positive built in. I luck flipped a moderate off the top. he took He stoned it, he took two, because a two, four, six is crazy. So he luck flipped, he just slapped four damage on his master. But yeah, that little first turn of just me shooting him out, it just completely sparked five of the stones down. And that was what set me up for the next round.
00:37:01
Speaker
So the most pivotal thing about the next round was the fact that I knew that he was the first round he burned so many cards out of his hand, he was being super loose with his hand. When there's a model in the game with Execute, never do that. There's number one, if you don't prepare for it, Agent 46's main attack, if you don't mimic, you can execute them. But his secondary bonus states you can't cheat in duels with him. Yep, yep, the in-human physiology. He stopped me from executing Dr. Gromo And Dr. Silas both at full HP because he luck flipped red joker on the first act on the first i I bought the execute. I was like, as long as there's no red joker, this is game in the bag right off the rim. Round two. um He did activate him. He on your heels got Silas in on round two and he hit him. I hit my guy, but it was pretty much just like waiting for his hand to burn out. I was cheating moderates so that he would cheat severes over me to force him to use cards.
00:37:58
Speaker
It was like I would just barely stone. I waited till I had two stones left, I was stoning damage. So like he wouldn't think that I was going for that play. um I was just wasting time passing, drawing cards back, reloading my hand to get the highest cards I can. And yeah, as soon as that happened, I was like, I'm going to execute. He red jokers it. I was like, nothing I could do about it. I said, I'll buy the execute again, hit him again, one shot his master. And pretty much from that point, he lost all, so like the main thing about his crew.
00:38:27
Speaker
where all his guys are gonna die, like, die and come back with, like, as bloodwretches. Bloodwretches, yeah. He lost that immediately. And that was, like, a really bad play for him to to deal with. Not saying that he did bad, it's just he was very loose with his hands, so it kind of let him, he kind of slipped on that. The second play that I would say was most pivotal was that Pale Rider went backwards around my deployment back into his crew and did over, like, I think I did 14 points of damage to his entire crew with Breville in conflict, too irreducible and burning on his whole crew. He was just assisting it off and healing his guys. like Dude was really recovering like really well. And then I got Dr. g Grimwell to lock Angelize into combat like right off the rip. I launched my Dr. Grimwell into his entire like six model crew. it was like I was looking grim for him, but I didn't care because I knew that I had backup coming. I knew I could get him out of combat with doctor's orders. I knew I had card advantage. He didn't have card draw.
00:39:26
Speaker
So it was just like, and the doppelganger, I didn't even keep her in the combat. She ran all the way to the right, scoring me points. She was like, nobody was there. I tied his whole crew into one big bubble of just death. It was a really, it's, it started becoming a really one-sided game at a certain point. Round three, I had, I, I think I killed Dr. Grimwell. I killed both nurses because I hit him again with revel in conflict again on round four.
Resource Management and Winning Strategies
00:39:55
Speaker
I did the same thing. So I did another like 12 points of damage. It just was like leveling the field. There was just like two models alone was just leveling my a big thing. I didn't talk about which I'm sorry. I'm kind of jumping the totem. You can't cheat unless you discard a card.
00:40:15
Speaker
Oh God, that that I always forget about that a bit. I need to remember that. When you combat your entire opponent's crew and they're all locked into combat and you walk him up into the center of his crew, all his guys are around. That's what sets up that execute. They don't rethink about it. They're like, Oh, I need to do this. I make my targets juicy. I make it where you're about to kill my guy, but you're not quite going to get them because I have enough resources to stop it. I make it juicy to where you blow everything you have.
00:40:43
Speaker
And then it is just two knives and ready for dinner. You've got nothing to follow up. I'm just going to burn you down because I want you to think you can kill it. I want you to hit my rider. I'm saving all i'm I'm making it where you want to try to stop me from using those, but really I'm saving to execute your master, execute your henchmen. I'm just sitting here waiting. I want you to come at me because all I do is fight. That is my whole game plan. And you don't want to fight with guilt. They hit hard. They don't back down to fights.
00:41:13
Speaker
Like it's very rare. You're going to find a master that is going to stop them, like, and stop them in their tracks. They have, and then on top of that, the aura heals your guys. I'm engaged with you. I heal everybody to HP. That's engaging. So I'm healing my guys. You're taking damage. What, what is this? and This is going to be the pale writer. When you look at the pale writers, uh, their bonus on, uh, hang on, I'll read it to you. Oh, okay. does The, the Revlon conflict. readily ah Okay. Okay.
00:41:42
Speaker
So devastation on four Rams. I had the Ram in hand. I had just, I cycled so many cards out that they couldn't stop it. And it was just like resource galore. You don't, you, you use the devastation and then you heal your guys. So he was bringing my agent 46 down two to three damage. And I was like, okay, that's fine. I'll, like um I'll cheat to moderates, make him have to cheat, severe discard a card to cheat.
00:42:09
Speaker
I take two damage because you're you know you're you're hitting on a you know a negative. I don't care. Unless you red joker me or even if you moderate me, it's like they're not even the most pivotal guys. The most pivotal guy is going to be the the writer on the left or you know my doppelganger score me points on the other side of the board. Everybody else I don't care about. I only care about my two so guys that are going to score me points. And then I'm just bringing them back up to HP. Now all your guys take two damage and burning. Now you got to deal with that.
00:42:36
Speaker
And it's just whittling them down, not to mention the font of font of card draw is crazy. And then another thing is, is that I would say but another really critical thing is nobody's taking the time to think about, Hey, when can I pass? Like I, even though I was going to execute his master, whatever, I wasn't confident I was going to get it because he had four cards in hand or whatever. It's okay. I passed. I let him have the first activation with his master. I let him have that.
00:43:04
Speaker
because I knew my guy wasn't going to die. I knew I was safe. I had six stones sitting. They were not killing my henchmen. They were not killing those guys. I have condition removal. He kept staggering and slowing my guys. I would let him waste his AP on Dr. Silas, do that, and then I would activate my totem, remove all the conditions for a six, remove the conditioning, and then walk around, or walk around, or I got your back, pull them out of combat. Now my guy's ready to go around you. You're stuck over here with me. I'm going to go around you and kill your crew.
00:43:32
Speaker
So, like, I baited them into this tar pit of, like, he's in control, pseudo, and then it's just, no, it's all me. It's a full wave. He got my, um, he killed my Gatlin Gunner on turn one, and I don't think he killed anything else the rest of the game. Yeah. It was just straight, like, I wiped, I was wiping two models to three models in the first second, or sorry, second, third, and fourth round. I i wiped his whole crew.
00:43:59
Speaker
Um, it was just, uh, we talked the game out after that because it was just a matter of like, he doesn't have anything left to activate. Uh, there's nothing he can really do. He was using the hodgepodge to push three, uh, weary road, or I forget, I think it's rear road and drop a ski marker. Let's just discard a card. That's my ski marker now. And then I scored points off of it. You're not going to stop it. Uh, it was just a matter of like whittling his actions down and forcing resources. So.
00:44:30
Speaker
Which of your models would you say then was your MVP model? And why? um I've already talked about the Execute on Agent 46, but I would definitely say MVP would have to be ah the writer. it Sounds like that's the play of the game. Play of the game. But who is the MVP? Yeah.
00:44:53
Speaker
pale writer doing over like 20-something points of irreducible damage and burning all his stuff, setting it on fire. You're healing up? Yeah, healing up. it just like they It was just every time. It was just a resource trap for him. He couldn't stop it. It was just like, oh, uncontested damage is just... Sometimes I feel should be removed. It's so good. It's so good. It's ah it's not it's a shockwave that just... He's size three. All his guys are size two.
00:45:22
Speaker
I have like four models, five models trapped in melee with Dr. Grimwell and Agent 46. You're not stopping it. So yeah, in the the and MVP model was definitely the pale rider. If you could kill it, kill it, end of story. that No questions
Advice for Players: Improving with Lucius
00:45:38
Speaker
asked. That's 11 stones off the board. He wasn't able to. I got your back. I baited him to charge it. I got your back, did out of combat and then ran around the bend. So he didn't see that coming.
00:45:49
Speaker
and I had the the totem aura behind him just waiting so he couldn' he was cheating and burning so many resources that I was gonna always be able to cheat over him. So it was like like I said, I had set up this tar pit. I was hoping he would get try to kill my totem instead of my gatling gunner to be real, but he didn't, he killed the gatling gunner and it it allowed me to get out of a bad situation early. All right, so after the game,
00:46:19
Speaker
What advice would you give to a bottom third player, you know, someone who is facing your crew for the first time and what would you, you know, what advice would you give to them? Concede. do webkin i would I would probably say if you want to be able to like beat my crew, you absolutely can with practicing your own crew. My crew falls apart.
00:46:49
Speaker
by it has too many, it relies too hard on other models out of keyword. So like I had to steal really good attacks to make my like keyword work really good. My master, his AP is mostly their AP. So if you want to be able to deal with my crew, just have a solid a solid list, meaning like you have less moving parts, you know, you don't have to utilize I have to wait, I need, unfortunately I do need cards and there's like, there's a lot of points where I'm thinking in my head like, okay, if this guy, if this guy is going over here to interact or doing this or whatever, I'm just gonna have to, I'm gonna have to just hope he does that in past. There's a lot of points where I require a lot of resources and I have less models, so I need to kill your stuff. So, you know, save your, get, bring a little bit more stones, bring a little more sturdy models, put those guys in battle.
00:47:47
Speaker
so Run your amazing 10-point model to the corner of the map and let me battle your weak guys. Bring some like bring three or four guys that aren't going to die, put them in front of me, and I promise you I will lose the game. Because the crew relies heavy on this meta of summoners and squishier models. I need to break your activation control ah very early. I have to break the battlefield. If you wait one round and you go slower,
00:48:15
Speaker
I'm gritting my teeth because i've I built up this hand. Yeah, sure. It's their next round, but it's going to be a lot harder. I don't score easy. Like I, if you look at my list at the pale rider and I have doppelganger, but they're slow and they're not, they're, they're not amazing. And then I'm wasting AP with Lucius to make them interact. There's just too many moving parts. So if you've got a solid list and you've got like two or three guys that can just eat hits, you will take control. So just make sure you bring a well-rounded crew and it'll take this guy out.
00:48:45
Speaker
Okay, so now what advice would you give to a middle third player? You know, experienced player are realistically looking to give you a challenging game. What advice would you give to them if they're, you know, hoping to win this game, if they keep the game tight? Uh, tech picking, tech picking is very important. You see a master, you know what they're running guys. If you know one, two, three, yeah whatever, if they're running Hoffman tech picks,
00:49:11
Speaker
Tech pick, you got armor piercing. you can You can get it. If you can take it, tech pick it. it is This is what's going to bring you to top three. i My final match was all strictly tech picking. like I knew what I was going to probably go first, so I swapped my master out to win my third round because I knew that he was not going to have an easy time against it. And that's that comes down to not changing your whole list, but changing one core model that could change the entire game.
00:49:40
Speaker
Grover's High ah Armor. You got Joss, man. You got Joss. Joss in Arcanist. You got Dr. McMorning. you You have like these models in Guild. You have the new medical guy that has like medical tools. Ignores armor. I've heard of Moon and Art to kill on a 2-3-5. You know, you've got some tools that could pivot, change the game, could completely change the game from being like, oh, this is a tight game to like, oh, no, I can't win this. like Now, here here's a question. What are tech picks that work well against Lucius?
00:50:15
Speaker
Oh, okay. It doesn't have to be the specific model, but what like what kind of models, what sorts of abilities, actions, et cetera, make for a good tech pick against Lucius? So crowd control, the aura on the intrepid emissary, or brutal emissary, no models can take activations outside of their turn, shuts him down immediately, and you can't ban it. It's not banable.
00:50:45
Speaker
It's a versatile, it's not a keyword. um It is very brutal, you've got that. A second thing would be, um I wouldn't say heart high armor, I would say, what's a very good one, stun. Stun is very, very, very good against Lucius. You stun him, they it's like like, I have condition removal,
00:51:12
Speaker
But I mean, there's a lot of times that like I wish I don't want to activate my totem to and you know get rid of a condition. And I don't want to use command on my master at a certain time to get to use the tone trigger to get rid of a condition. There's a lot of times where I'm just like, ugh. Stagger is another one. Staggering my crew out, they're slow already. you know They're stuck on that side of the board. um Yeah.
00:51:38
Speaker
that that's So, you know, things like heroic intervention, you stop me from staggering you from being able to get in sooner, or you can just go, it just says push until you get into base contact six inches, ignores it, stuff like that. Like mo like really good either or mobility dampeners or really good mobility. Those two things stop me. That would be really good ones. And of course, brutal. Brutal is just, it would shut down the whole crew.
00:52:02
Speaker
Well, there i was like I was just doing a quick search in the app scene. Okay, what models have crowd control? So brutal emissary, riot breakers apparently have that. Yes, riot breakers. I suppose if, I mean, obviously both of those are guild models. So you have to either be running guild or running Hoffman and Arcanist, in which case you can bring a riot breaker. But that seems like a very much eight.
00:52:28
Speaker
anti-lucious tech, or as a solid tech pick against anyone who loves to do out of activation. Oh, I wonder who's I wonder who this would be good against. Oh, let's just shut down this whole new crew that came out with the motherfucking grenade launcher. ah You shut down that crew, you shut down Zoraida's, you know, you've got ah the The commanding on constructs is like there's a lot of crews that have these cheeky really good abilities that can change the title of game ah What is it where you the trigger that allows another person to take a free swing with your own guy? I forgot what it's called but you know what I mean like Just a bunch of stuff like that where it's there's a lot of times where it's just like that that could be really good It's not just it's a really good tech pick
00:53:17
Speaker
And I don't see it often. um I'm looking into taking, actually I'm looking into bringing the brutal because, you know, there's a lot of people, like I said, I've ran into it so many times where it's actually really useful.
00:53:29
Speaker
But yeah, that's what I'd do. Yeah, just ah other kind of a thing to search for. a Terrifying Gaze is a similar deal. ah Strange Ladies got it one of the new models, but also Kara out of, ah I think just the 10th Understarter box. Yeah. but The cat out of the 10th Understarter has Terrifying Gaze, which is basically declare an action outside your own activation. You can discard a card to have it immediately fail.
00:53:57
Speaker
So it's card pressure, it's hand pressure. Molly doesn't care about it with strange lady, but 10 thunders may, cause you're coming up against that extra cute trigger. Like, but it's, it's maybe an option. Yeah. Just maybe an option for players. You can also take Seamus two who has alone in the dark trigger.
00:54:16
Speaker
All my guys suffer negatives to targeting my own guys within range. ah People who have a hostile work environment their work environment, it shuts me out completely. It's a very good tech pick. And it's like, oh, I paid nine points to go ahead and kill 30 stones from him. Like, I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I can't, I can't target my guys by mimicking. I can't mimic. I can't, I can't do anything. So it's like, once they're in there, it's, it hurts. Got Anna Lovelace.
00:54:46
Speaker
What advice would you give to a top third player? And, you know, what also do you wish you'd done differently in this game and big lessons you learned? I'll start with the, I'll start with the first one being like, um, uh, I don't like to interact. I don't like anything that's not murder. I wish I would have interacted some more. I could have got a bigger differential. Like sometimes I made a lot of like, I was very fatty on some of my choices because I had a lot of choices, but it was like,
00:55:16
Speaker
yeah I could have been a lot tighter and cleaner in my game. I could have just embarked instead of Lucious swinging one last time. He could just be like, I'm going to interact with this thing and score my guy's point. you know I could have done that. I could have voted. And I had the rider right there. He could have done. He didn't have to hit the last time. I could have used somebody else and killed this guy that I killed. I could have just rode with me and you know scored over here. But because I did that, I shut myself down an extra point.
00:55:38
Speaker
Um, which then didn't, I'm still winning, but you know, in a big game where you're like, I need to have a lot of points to get to top three or even first place, it's important that one point changes the differential by a lot. I, uh, when I went three and O in a tournament in one time with, um, Ma Taka two. And I just could not, like, I didn't get first because I didn't have good enough differentials. And that's the difference between first place and second place and third place.
00:56:05
Speaker
It doesn't matter if you win three, if you can't get good differentials that changed it. Now the advice I would give is don't play me. That'd be the advice. You can you can make it to the top if I'm not there. No, I'm just kidding. I like the the the big advice is eye on the prize. If you're a control player, like if you're a player who's really good at finessing, so like Andre Vanelli, man is amazing at finesse cruise dudes. He's just an amazing player. Travis, when when he plays Asami or Masaki,
00:56:34
Speaker
They're tech players. They're just super good. They know what to do at almost every situation. They're going to make the right play 99% of the times. Don't pretend your opponent's stupid because then you take them for granted and you lose the game. Stick to your game plan. do Make every decision. Be concise, be fast, and take just take your time. on the If you've got to take an extra minute, yes, say you're behind on time.
00:56:58
Speaker
Take an extra minute to think about it because your play matters. If you don't make the right play in the right time, that's the difference between one point and a one differential in first place in the tournament. And that's the advice I would give.
Time Management in Tournament Play
00:57:12
Speaker
So what is the single biggest lesson you've learned while piloting this new keyword?
00:57:19
Speaker
um Hidden sniper. It could be used way more. The biggest lesson also, no, um like i that that ability is broken. I think it should be nerfed. I should have used it way more. I i really took it for granted and I didn't use it as many times. There was times where I could have like sniped Loon out, like when I was first the ah Indiana Jones crew. ah I played McCabe too, versus them. I could have took a Loon off the board and instantly started winning the game right off the rip. I had my toe, everything's lined up.
00:57:53
Speaker
Around two, i kind of I didn't pressure hard enough with the Hidden Sniper. I didn't ever have to bring Lucius in. um like I should have used that way more. That ability is very strong. And yeah, that would be that would be my pick.
00:58:08
Speaker
One of the lessons that we talked about before the before we started recording was just that the the use of, because we do play on clocks here in Texas, which I think we all love. I think that anyone who's ever love it played, yeah, people tend to be resistant to clocks until they try them and then they love them. ah Tends to be the trend. Not everybody, but that but that's certainly the big trend. But that you talked about using time pressure against people.
00:58:34
Speaker
Um, and I think that that's just good advice. It's good advice for me as kind of representing the bottom third, but, uh, I think it's, uh, I think it's a good lesson for everybody. So just, I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. Oh yeah, dude. Okay. So I, I don't know, uh, Doug, you've been on the other end of this a couple of times. Have you ever felt my time pressure? How could I use the, how I use the clock against you? so i yeah How did you feel about those times we played and I had like 20, 30 minute gap?
00:59:01
Speaker
um You know what, it sometimes it's just the, it's like, oof. You're sweating. Time is ticking away and i I do not enjoy it. I love it. I know, because I don't get to play the competitive game as often as I would like to. And so I know that I am slower than I want to be most of the time.
00:59:26
Speaker
So in when I was a kid, I played in chess club. I was in chess club, so clocks are no thing. I am a nerd. I love it. I've played many different types of, you know, I've played many types of games that require time. Rainbow Six Siege board game. You have five minutes and you get to activate all your operators. I'm used to time clocks.
00:59:51
Speaker
I play a lot of games that have, uh, they're all about resources. I play Stellaris. There's like 30 something timers and trackers going on. It's mayhem. You're trying to conquer galaxy. So I'm very used to time. And I'll talk to that. I know when I am on a test, you know, you're playing it, you ever had a test and you have, you're like, you're running down to the last questions and you've got like almost no time. You're sweating. You're feeling pressured. I know that when you feel pressured on time, it makes you play worse. So that's my enemy. That's my weapon.
01:00:21
Speaker
I'm very fast. I learned my crew. I learned my crew so well. I know the insides out. I know what I need to do. The only thing I'm ever thinking about is what play is going to be more efficient over the other, but I am never slow on time. I've never been timed out in the game. Never once timed out in a game. And majority of my games, I am 15 to 20 minutes over my opponent. It is a insane psychological warfare. When you are pressuring so hard.
01:00:51
Speaker
and your opponent, I do it in casual games. I do it in, I've had games where I beat people when I had 50 minutes left on the clock. And yeah we were talking it out on round two, because they had no time left. It is a very brutal tactic. And the reason why I like it is because you give the player who runs less models, a still at fighting chance. If I'm playing in a GG, where we have even time, I play seven models, I get two to three pass tokens, plus I cheat for initiative.
01:01:20
Speaker
Good luck. You just spent 25 minutes. You're going to be, I, you will never switch the clock back to me. I will pass, pass, pass, pass. You've spent 15, 20 minutes before you got anything done. And then my action is walk. I'm going to shoot flip. I've used one minute. Boom. You've got nothing on that. You can now stop that. That um going for the pass feels like it plays well with the Lucius crew. Amazing. You just draw, you're getting resources. Your opponent tries to do it to you. You're drawing cards when your opponent does it. So.
01:01:49
Speaker
I'm turning around and I'm like, great, give it to me. Cool. I'm going to walk this guy up here and I'm going to focus. so I'm going to walk my totem up. And if they don't know what they're doing or like, or I'll reuse the writer pool, my doctor guy, uh, Dr. Grimwell, then he's going to book it to the left of the map. He's going to get out of Dodge. You know, he's going to stay away or I'll leave them there and take a free shot. get Use the built-in Ram stagger and give somebody injured. Then Lucius is going to shoot through one
Competitive Spirit and Hypothetical Discussions
01:02:13
Speaker
of my guys. And now you're went from staff six defense staff five. Lucius is free to shoot you. You're even grounds.
01:02:19
Speaker
And I'm doing this very fast. i'm not I'm not asking questions. I don't read my opponent's crew 90% of the time. If it's something I play first, it's in here. If it's something I haven't played first and you get me, oh I'll learn. And you'll never get me again that way. And I will burn your time down. And that is like the best. That is something that I think not enough players do. Too many people who are locked in like the meta. you don't need You make the meta. if You can make the meta work for you. There's too many good things in this and this game.
01:02:48
Speaker
like way too much good stuff that people write off because it's not meta. Cool. So before we wrap it up, I've got a couple of questions from that were posted in our Discord. So it's one I find particularly amusing, because I know I do this when I play against my opponents. When you're in a matchup where your opponent happens to have you know a model that is the same as yours, because you both had grim well.
01:03:17
Speaker
him Does it become a little bit of a competition? So you like prove who's grim wildly superior? Oh, you are damn right it does. i i If I see them make like a fatty play, like that's what I think about. I think of it like a steak, you know, a steak's, you know, like when it's too much fat and like he's doing things that are just, you know, like he's like, oh, I'm going to, you know, push myself for her own nimble walk and I'll go and fight this guy that he knows he's not going to hit. I'm just like, I have done that.
01:03:47
Speaker
And just in the back of my head, like I know what I would have done. you know And then you know I'll make the correct play. like I'll throw this murderer onto one of his best models and just leech onto him. And it's just like I'm just like, you will learn from me later. you know like That's what I think. i i try to I always compete with it, especially when that in that game. And then I also have like a little bit of an honor thing in my head. I don't make them fight each other. I, for the purpose, make them. That's awesome. I try not to.
01:04:16
Speaker
Like, I'll keep him as far away and I'll try to go around him. Well, I mean, when you have Grimwell versus Grimwell, you know who loses? Grimwell. Yeah, well, and if we both lose our Grimwell, then it's kind of the lame game, you know what I'm saying? right It's gotta to be one to live. One of them has to prove to be the superior one in whichever one survives is therefore the real one.
01:04:37
Speaker
actually they came into the game where it came to the game where he rocketed his grimoire at my grimoire and i purposely doctors ordered out so i didn't have to hit him and charged his backline because i didn't want to fight i could have probably killed him stop hitting yourself stop yeah i didn't want to so i was like i'm gonna throw him over here and fight all these guys instead because i just didn't like I could have gained more advantage if I would have sat there, but i just I don't. I have this honor, man. This like mental honor that I just wore. We are going to use that against you. I guarantee there there's going to be a time, so because you know the meta. Texas meta is pretty dang big, but it is finite. and aye so Watch out for that next time. but Now, having put that out there, you can now like
01:05:20
Speaker
you know, ah whatever, double, you know, double cross on that, maybe. So anyways, that's awesome. So to bring it kind of full circle here, there's this great question that Jim, the dice man, love Jim. I'm excited to see him when I go to Boston because this could be fun. um Drop this question in the Discord to kind of bring it back to our foodie nature, you know, bring it full circle, bookend this shit.
01:05:50
Speaker
Imagine you have been invited to dinner by one of the models you hired this game. Which model do you hope invited you and why? Oh, the Gatlin Gunner. I hope the Gatlin. And he's a militant guy, so I'm sure he's either eating a steak or something juicy. Like, that's what I want. That's what I hope invited me. That guy. Love him.
01:06:15
Speaker
I love that model. Okay, so the Gatling Gunner invites you to the game. First off, what is the name of Lucius' favorite Gatling Gunner? Scruffy. Scruffy, okay. So Scruffy invites you to dinner. What dessert do you bring to the meal? Oh, probably a cigar.
01:06:34
Speaker
Well, that is, that's not a food, but that is, you definitely know the dessert. Well, it's whiskey, whiskey and a cigar. It's whiskey and a cigar. No, I mean, if I had to choose what dessert would bring, it would probably be German chocolate cake. That's my favorite. I had it every year for my birthday. I've done it almost my entire life. Well, minus like years from five and below, because you're a kid, you don't get choices.
01:07:04
Speaker
so so you're So you're a coconut man? and Indeed. Yeah, in real life as well. I've got a question for you then regarding coconut because people tend to, I'm just seeing, what are your feelings on black licorice?
01:07:19
Speaker
yeah yeah There's enough people in the United States to get that band. Same thing with anchovy pizza. I think- I was going to say most of the people who I know who really like ah coconut like black licorice as well. But man, you're just there, you're throwing off my theory. Yeah, black licorice is just like, it's like some hateful person made that. Or, you know, I don't know, somebody was angry with somebody. They were like, I'm gonna get him. He likes licorice. You know, let me change the game up.
01:07:50
Speaker
you know, baked it and then gave it to the dude and the dude threw up or something and he was like, yeah, yeah, you know, something
Farewells and Upcoming Events
01:07:57
Speaker
like that. I really don't like it. I think it's probably more because people, like people who like savory stuff probably like it a lot more. All righty. So, um, any plugs or parting thoughts before we go, Mr. Christian? Yes. Uh, Andre, if you're listening, all right.
01:08:18
Speaker
I got to see you in the next tournament. We better be playing, man. i can't You can't be dodging me like this. you can't i i have been waiting I might have to just travel down there just for a game against you. okay I have been winning a rematch. okay You beat me in my third month in the game, and it wasn't even a light beating. This man beat me like a Cherokee drum. This guy wrecked me. like It was like, i oh my god, I'm not going to get into it. But it's basically Andre.
01:08:46
Speaker
I'm coming for you, all right? i wanna i want I want a game. It feels like you're throwing the gauntlet, man. I am. i do this Every time, man. Every time, you know? and The only tournaments I've been to, and he's been either first place or second place, and I'm just sitting in the back like, wait, wait for me. and Now I feel like I'm good enough to stand on my own two feet, you know? Played enough games. I've gotten good enough to just feel like I can play against these top contenders and know what I'm doing.
01:09:16
Speaker
And also, you know, you can't help but love the guy. He's amazing. What can I say? Oh man, anytime I get my ass kicked by Andre, I have a blast getting my ass kicked. Yeah, dude. He's totally true. Make you feel great when it's happening. Make you laugh the whole time. Another one is Ryan. I want Ryan to hurry up and get back into tournaments with us. Like if Ryan would just get, you know, he's been, he's doing his YouTuber stuff and everything. house pick our He'll kick all of our asses at painting. Yes. Okay.
01:09:44
Speaker
Oh my God, that guy thinks beautifully. Did you see that new video he came up with? Yeah, yeah. Really good. But anyway, yeah, so if ah Ryan, if you would hurry up and start playing in these tournaments, I would like to start beating you again. And that's all. That's my part and thoughts. Cool. So ah speaking of throwing the gauntlet, I'm going to do a plug real fast here. So just wanted to remind everyone that the Lone Star Fodown Malifo GT is coming up in October. Tickets are available now. It has taken place October 11th through the 13th, 2024. We're throwing the gauntlet down. Come, come mess with Texas. It was the largest Malefoe event in North America last year and are hoping to get even bigger this year. Well, I'm hoping that we, you know, sell out the space. You just know that if y'all guys show up, you will be playing against me. All right. so
01:10:43
Speaker
It's it's gonna be a fun time it like they're never ever both times. We went we had so many players both times There's amazing prize sport. Everybody's amazing in the community It's really good time and I mean I recommend it like every time we get our money's worth like they always give us a shirt We get free decks, you know, like it's a blast, you know, it's going and it's great community support and I I don't think you should pass up on it Plus he plays some really amazing players. Like I got to go over some really really good players I don't normally get to see. the Danger Planet showed up. That's crazy. Again, I believe they're planning on coming again. So, you know, I'll talk to them this weekend when I'm out in Boston playing against them. But yeah, so I am going to wrap this up. Thanks for coming on Christian. Yeah, I appreciate you having me.
01:11:37
Speaker
Students of Conflict is brought to you by Top Dog Design. Check out topdogdesign dot.com for all of your Malifotrain needs. Top Dog Design, 3D printable designs to enhance your tabletop. Students of Conflict is not an official product of Nuke Miniatures LLC. All intellectual property belonging to weird miniatures is used with permission. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of entities they represent. Any content provided by our guests and or hosts are their opinion and not intended to malign any group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. Whoo!
01:12:33
Speaker
If I want anchovies, I fucking want anchovies. I don't like anything that's not murder.