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Students of Conflict - Season 2 - #8A - December Tourney: Carel (Neverborn Kastore, Fervent vs Ulix Turner)
324 Plays1 month ago
This episode we welcome Carel to the show for the first time to talk about a game in his journey to a 3rd place podium at the Houston December Monthly Malifaux Tourney. We dig deep into how he works the complex unpack of Kastore, Fervent and discuss how to pivot when the game doesn’t go according to plan.
Hosts: Doug and Clay
Guests: Carel and Christian
Students of Conflict Discord invite: https://discord.gg/9eagXE6NWw
Tournament: December Malifaux Monthly Tourney - Houston
Tournament on Longshanks: https://www.longshanks.org/event/21901/
Encounter:
Round 3:
Deployment and Strategy: Corner, Stuff the Ballots
Schemes: Let Them Bleed, Deliver a Message, Sweating Bullets, Information Overload, Protected Territory
Carel’s Schemes: Deliver a Message, Protected Territory
Christian’s Schemes: Protected Territory, Information Overload
Final Score: 5-8L
Crews:
Carel’s Kastore, Fervent (Neverborn)
Size: 50 - Pool: 6
Leader:
Kastore, Fervent
Totem(s):
Marathine
Inhuman Reflexes
Hires:
Urnbearer
Cavern Nephilim
Ancient Pact
Cavern Nephilim 2
Athorak
Gwyll
Christian’s Ulix Turner (Bayou)
Size: 50 - Pool: 6
Leader:
Ulix Turner
Totem(s):
Penelope
Hires:
Old Major
Twelve Cups of Coffee
The Sow
Big Brain Brin
Sammy LaCroix
Flying Piglet
Piglet
Foods Discussed:
Wife’s *original* chocolate chip cookies
Oreos and Irish Cream
(Students of Conflict recipes can be found in the #s2-recipes-archive channel of our discord server … unfortunately, no recipe is available for the husband-winning chocolate chip cookies)
Also Mentioned in the Podcast:
Malifaux Shenanigans channel: Episodes on Kastore 2 - https://www.youtube.com/@MalifauxShenanigans/search?query=kastore
Dreysen Gaming channel: Malifaux World Series Top 32 game (Ressers Kastore 2 vs Von Schtook 2) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncwbPHDolTc
Lonestar Fauxdown October 24-26, 2025 … Please mark your calendars now!
Thank-Yous:
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 home of Texas Malifaux.
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 and Guests
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.
00:00:34
Speaker
Students of Conflict. We are Clay and Doug. Hello there. And hello. And we are working to become better Malifaux players, leveling up ourselves and hopefully helping others level up as well.
Episode Focus and Format
00:00:47
Speaker
Tonight we have the third and first place winners from the December tournament in Houston, Carl and Christian.
00:00:53
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Hello. We are back on our usual format tonight, taking a single game from these guys' path to the podium and asking about 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 can pass on to others, helping us all level up one game at a time.
Icebreaker: Best Cookies for Santa
00:01:12
Speaker
We'll be releasing our discussion with these guys at season two episodes 8A and 8B. And without further ado, take it away, Doug.
00:01:21
Speaker
All right, so I am very excited to bring a new guest onto the show today with Carl. How are you doing today, Carl? I'm doing okay, recording when I only they have to go into work for four hours next week, so that feels pretty good. Oh, nice.
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm very excited to have you on to the show for the first time. So ah if you have not listened to the show before, um give you the quick little rundown. We love to do an icebreaker question every show. And at some point along this line, ah we became the mouth of foodie podcasts or icebreakers have always become food related now. So Important ah earth-shattering question that Malifaux fans everywhere want to know. Yes. If you were going to be leaving cookies out for Santa Claus that are going to guarantee you the best possible gift, what cookies are you leaving for him? So this is a little difficult because I can't get these cookies again.
00:02:41
Speaker
But the first batch of chocolate chip cookies that my wife made me when we started dating were the best that she's ever made. It was the best chocolate chip cookies that I've ever had. But my wife, who is a very talented baker, ah bakes purely on vibes and has an active contempt for writing things down.
00:03:05
Speaker
Okay. So she's never been able to recreate them and in eight years. So it was the magic cookies, which won your heart. And now the whatever magic went into it, she expended the full amount of magic. That's right. That's right. Clearly they worked out.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, no, they were the best cookies I've ever had. um I wish that she would write things down so she could try to iterate back to it. That's a fight I've been making for years. Farron, well, you know, some people follow recipes, you know, letter for letter. And some people a just, you know, they they cook with their heart and just wing it, so.
00:03:54
Speaker
And she's very much the latter. I love her cooking, but sometimes, sometimes I wish that she would write things down. So because, you know, I'm going to pull a clay right here right now, because normally what ends up happening is when we're recording the second part of the episode, Clay's like, hey, Doug, what's your answer to this? So, hey, Clay, what's your answer to that question? All right. the Man, this is like the long pause. So I think that, ah so no one, once once I figured out the whole Santa thing, I think that the best plan for Santa was generically not a cookie recipe, but was more like like Irish cream. So I think I would have to go with like Oreos just because that's like the classic thing. ah And you do the Oreos, but then you just leave like a jug of Irish cream.
Carl's Gaming Journey
00:04:51
Speaker
um And I think that that would be... A whole joke. Are you gonna find Santa in the morning? We are going for the best possible, like the absolute best possible ah gifts from from Santa. So um' I'm leaving the jug. I'm like, that's okay. A lot of kids try to find ways to trap Santa. I appreciate that you went a different route to keep Santa in the house. Well... I remember so when I was a kid we had this uh like ah you know what it might have been a tape it might have been a CD I don't know it's probably a tape we had the Twisted Christmas and there was it was like Christmas themed covers and so um it was leave him cookies and beer he'll be back to your house first next year
00:05:42
Speaker
oh yeah and so we started doing that. And Santa appreciates it. I can't see it, but co Clay just almost died on camera. Man, it literally needs to be fair, man. Bro, just... So, um Carl, this is your first time on the show. Yes. I'm very excited. When we have a new guest on the show, we always like to ask them, what is your history with minis games? And how did you get started with Malifaux?
00:06:15
Speaker
So I'm actually, I'm quite recent to Miniatures games relatively. um I was a long time Magic the Gathering player and played somewhat competitively, ah specifically the modern format for any listeners that play. um And then when the pandemic hit in 2020, I did not want to play the online versions of Magic the Gathering. So,
00:06:45
Speaker
um And I had always been interested in miniatures gaming, specifically Warhammer, but being the the biggest, was the one that I was most familiar with. It tends to be a lot of people to get into early. yeah Yeah. So I decided, well, I need some nerd hobby to to play and to do in all of my free time. So I started picking up miniature gaming then in ah early 2020.
00:07:17
Speaker
um Malifaux came shortly after. I worked on a research vessel, so I had a lot of time where I only had the internet to search and keep me entertained. So I started doing a lot of reading on other minis games and found Malifaux and really just like fell in love with the concept of it. The art and ideas and lore were so intriguing and ah playing with a deck of cards sounded very different and fun from every every other system that I'd read. So I decided to give it a try and I have been hooked ever since.
00:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of people, like the aesthetic draws them in and then the gameplay keeps them around. that's Yeah, that's definitely my experience. The aesthetic is so, so strong and so much fun. um But it it has a lot of depth to keep me sticking around and playing it and thinking about it constantly.
00:08:27
Speaker
Excellent. Well, we are glad to have you. Uh, cause yeah, I met you, uh, first event you came to in Houston was the Fodown. And then I was excited that you were able to finally make it out to one of the monthly events. Yeah, me too.
Game Selection and Strategy
00:08:42
Speaker
Uh, I, live just north of Houston and the college station home of Texas A and&M university. So I'm trying to make Malifaux a thing there, uh, slowly but surely I'm bringing people around.
00:08:57
Speaker
So hopefully we can start hosting some tournaments too. That'll be awesome. Just, you know, post them in the Discord and, you know, we'll do what we can to get people up that way as well. So today, which round are you talking about and why? So I am going to talk about my third round against ah the other guests in Part B, Christian.
00:09:24
Speaker
Um, and I'm going to talk about it because the, the list I played, um, I ended up playing the same list in all, in all three games at the tournament, not on purpose, but just kind of the way it played out. Um, but it, it has a very focused goal. And I achieved that goal without too much interference and it meant the first two games went ah Went my way very very well and the third game I lost and I learned a lot in that loss and I think it's very instructive to how to play my list better and also how to ah How to play against it because I think Christian did a really good job of countering ah You know in a lot of detailed ways
00:10:18
Speaker
You know, baby, we bring those bows. We bring those Texas bows. We bring in the male bows up. Well, yeah, and so one of the reasons why I really wanted to take the lead on the interview with you today is that um I sat at the table watching your second game for a lot of it. And also for this game, I kind of wanted to see how that I basically sat there just with you all for like the first like 20 minutes for both of those games at least. Cause I wanted to see how someone else runs Castor because
00:10:52
Speaker
I really enjoy Neverborn Castor. But, you know, seeing how someone else runs it in person, I find it a lot more informative than listening to someone talk about it as ah we literally are doing that right now. But it was the I wanted to see see the the engine in action and seen it second round and then seeing it how it was countered in the third round.
00:11:23
Speaker
was very informative and I appreciate, you know, you saying, hey Doug, get the hell out of here, you're throwing me off. ah No, no, ah it's a pleasure. um And like, I i think Castor is a lot of fun. um It's,
00:11:45
Speaker
One of them, in in my opinion, it's one of ah the most interesting master designs when you include both Castor I and Castor II, because they play so differently oh yeah and have you know basically completely opposite strengths. And I did bring both Castor I and II because I i think ah Castro 1 is kind of necessary because Castro 2 has some very rough matchups, in my opinion.
Gameplay Tactics and Challenges
00:12:22
Speaker
um So if you if you plan on playing one master, like I went into this tournament ah planning to do, you really need to to have Castro 1 in the back pocket to to use
00:12:36
Speaker
um But I think Castor 2 is also just a ton of fun to play. He has a very complicated unpack, but um once once the game gets going, he has a rhythm like nothing else. Yeah, there's a lot of like there's a lot of moving parts in his unpack and kind of seeing how someone else shorts it out was very informative.
00:13:06
Speaker
Um, I think the structure of it is really awesome, but the issue is it's a big tail. So when you have an engine that propels something forward, you've got a slingshot. And as you draw that slingshot bag, it's like, I have all that you're waiting for me to make the mistake. And I think that's really a big drawback to it, but also it can be a strength because if the, if you never fire your shot, it makes it like, I just played around you the entire time. That's like the counter to my counter.
00:13:34
Speaker
it was like a really good. Yeah, so real quick, ah let's talk about my list so we can talk about what that slingshot is. That sounds like a good ah good ah way to lead into that. For those who don't know, so i I did play the same list in all three games. ah It was Neverborn, Castor, Fervent, or Castor 2. Too many limes, Castor, as many people refer to it. I can't hold all these limes.
00:14:04
Speaker
He tries, but his fingers are too too big and clawy. He can't get a grip.
00:14:13
Speaker
um So Castor Fervent with the totem marathon with the upgrade in human reflexes, which I do think you gotta bring every single time. That's so, so powerful.
00:14:28
Speaker
And then I hired two Cavern Nephilim, one with an Ancient Pact, one Urnbearer, Athorak, and Guelph for a pretty elite crew, seven models. The Inhuman Reflexes, um yeah, and an Ancient Pact. Just looking at your list, is that kind of like you were playing Neverborn Kestor? Because you don't play other Neverborn crews, do you? that Is it just like you kind of made the call just basically off of those two upgrades, or or or what went into that, if you don't mind? So I i have some Neverborn stuff. um It's definitely not my not my primary, but I have Bayou and Resur's are probably the two factions that I've put the most time into.
00:15:21
Speaker
um which both have a master in Neverborne. So I played Castor in Rezzers for a while. um And then I played Zoraida in both Neverborne and Bayou for a while. I do think Castor, specifically Castor 2, is much, much stronger in Neverborne. And I think Neverborne shores up a lot of its weaknesses.
00:15:52
Speaker
So to touch on it really quick, Inhuman Reflexes gives the really important ability Blade Rush to Marathon. And Marathon is a sword that cannot engage or be engaged. um So you can just charge freely every turn, even if you're in combat with something technically, ah and ping damage off of it.
00:16:21
Speaker
And Castor 2 also has a bonus action that lets Marathon take a charge action, including if you get a tone trigger to teleport Marathon to Castor 2 and then charge. So two times around, you get to charge with Marathon and do a guaranteed uninteractable damage, ah which is really, really good.
00:16:45
Speaker
especially since I think generally the thing Castor's Weak is to is is good armor. So if there's only one or two things that have armor in your opponent's crew, that's kind of that's the way that you that you deal with it. Hmm. Little planks here and there is, you know, if you can't do ah ignore their armor, plink, plink, plink, plink, plink.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yes, ah and if if you can get it into a crowd of models too, ah all of a sudden that blade rush can can do multiple points of damage per charge, which I did get to do in my in my second game against the Reddit 2, which was fun. But it it really does add a lot of ping damage and power and is good at kind of finishing off models when when necessary,
00:17:41
Speaker
um as well as getting damage into high armor stuff, which I think is is something that Castor does not really have many good ways to deal with.
00:17:54
Speaker
um And then Ancient Pact ah gives card draw and initiative, which Castor really wants initiative, ah in in my opinion, because getting the first activation in a round when you have a Castor can really make or break a game. And so Ill Omen's helps a lot with that. And there's very little card draw in the keyword.
00:18:23
Speaker
So having that Nefarious Pact on a minion is a big deal. I've found myself needing that card ah pretty often. So cool, thank you. So now, um one thing you mentioned that you knew you were going to be running Castor every single ah round here. um You did mention that there are some rough matchups for Castor too.
00:18:49
Speaker
so What um impacts your decision as to when you do Castor 1 over Castor 2 and why did you end up doing Castor 2 this round? So I play i play Castor 2, you know, like like it's ah it's a heat seeking missile. I want Castor 2 to get to, I want Castor the model to get to either knocking out the primary damage dealer in the other side's crew, or to kind of sweep through the soft underbelly, ah because it has so much movement and is able to do so much damage. It's able to really go toe to toe with some of the top damage dealers in the game, or just get behind them and sweep through anything soft in front of it.
00:19:45
Speaker
um
00:19:48
Speaker
and crews that don't let you ah that don't allow you to do that um basically completely neuter Kastor Fervent. And Kastor only does damage. He does not do anything else. He has three actions on the back of his card. Two of them are attacks. The other one is the bonus that brings in Maratheons.
00:20:15
Speaker
Hold on just a second. I'm gonna try to take my toy away from my cat. yeah
00:20:23
Speaker
Okay, I'm back. Sorry about that. Oh, no worries. I was going to say, don't be sorry. The only the only thing is ah you have the mandatory, you're absolutely going to have to post some pictures of the cat in the Discord when we release this episode or else there will absolutely be listeners that will that will beat us to death. So you got to do that. all alright being yeah What about the cat? Gladly. i just she she's so lazy all the time but she decided tonight tonight's the night to party but of course oh where where was i um so uh i think you were the decision between caster one and caster two and what kind of yes decides that for you
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah, so Castor 2 only does damage. So in a matchup where he's not going to effectively be able to do that, um Castor 1 becomes pretty necessary because Castor 1 has a lot more flexibility, even if I think overall his power level is is lower.
00:21:34
Speaker
ah So like, in a lot of guild matchups, if they're bringing lead-line, if I think they're gonna put lead-line coat on the stuff that I need to kill in the matchup,
00:21:46
Speaker
um I often don't, I don't wanna bring Kaster two into that, um or Hoffman especially. Kaster really struggles to kill anything in Hoffman.
00:22:02
Speaker
And Hoffman has a fair amount of movement himself. So he can kind of get to the stuff that I need to stop him from getting to. So it's not 100% of the time, but ah I would say Guild is the main faction where where I've felt Castor 2 just kind of can't can't compete.
Reflections and Learning
00:22:27
Speaker
Ledline Coat is a big deal.
00:22:29
Speaker
um If they have support models that I don't think they can afford to put Ledline Coat on, I still would consider Castor 2. I think lucius is Lucius in Guild, I think, is a pretty good example of that, where he has enough stuff outside. He has enough stuff that I wouldn't expect Ledline Coat on that I think Castor 2 still has play.
00:23:00
Speaker
um Plus, ah that's ah there's a ah lot of nuance to it, but I think that's usually my concern with Castor 2. So stuff like Laugh Off and High Armor targets really puts you in the put you in the hole? Yeah, because the the way to handle those types of targets is ah I either have to get a marathon into them and ping damage off, um but if they're very high health, that's that's not really an option, which is where lead line coat on something that has a high wound count already starts to really really hurt.
00:23:39
Speaker
um And if I can't kill something, then a Castor has the ability to kidnap the model out of
00:23:52
Speaker
ah to somewhere where I can be safe and wail on it for a few turns to kill it, but Laphoth counters that very effectively. So I think the guild is the most common experience where I bring Castro I instead of II.
00:24:14
Speaker
Gotcha. Well, luckily you were not playing guild this time. So cast her two time. Hooray. So at the start of the game here, so we're kind of transitioning to where we're thinking at the start of the game. We know why you decided which master you're going with um with the pool that we had, which I guess the pool was around three. It was a corner deployment with stuff, the balance. I always let them bleed.
00:24:42
Speaker
deliver a message, sweating bullets, information overload, and protected territory. Okay. And so what did you go with? Also, I went with Castor 2. I did realize very quickly I was going to be in a lot of trouble this game, because this is a pool that I think is a little rough for Castor, but doable until I saw that Christian declared Uliks.
00:25:11
Speaker
And Ulyx makes this um a much, much more difficult pool to work in. ah Because he, I think Ulyx has two pretty easy schemes in information overload and protected territory.
00:25:29
Speaker
um Castor is just, a little my Castor list is a little too elite to stop even if everything goes right, Uliks is gonna be able to leak pigs into my side of the battlefield. And if I kill them, they become schemes and, or I don't kill them and they drop schemes. And information overload and protected territory just seem, I think they were really, really hard schemes for me to stop ah with a Uliks list coming in. um So that was very concerning.
00:26:05
Speaker
I went with protected territory because I think cavern Nephilim are really, really good at scoring it. Um, and I was planning before I saw the opponent to also go for information overload for kind of the same reasons. Um, I have a lot of stuff that can go along the wings quickly and I can stop a lot of crews in their deployment zone. So they get stuck there and I can start dropping schemes and score points. Um, but I, I don't think I could do that against, uh, against this you looks list. So I swapped to deliver a message instead.
00:26:44
Speaker
Okay, and so then going into it, what was your overall game plan for this game? So my my game plan was ah to rocket Castor up quickly and but not as quickly as i as as I can rocket them up. I wanted to see where the ulex list was going to push and commit and have the option to to hold back, which a spoiler, I didn't do and I probably should have. um But I, so I,
00:27:29
Speaker
Kept my cavern nephilim, one on each wing, which is usually how how I play them. um And then had a core of Gwill, Atharach, and ah the Urnbearer kind of follow Castor up, pushing him forward ah as as they went, and Castor getting set up in the middle to launch it, whatever target seemed the best, or hold back to kind of create a zone of danger around the center.
00:28:06
Speaker
Quick question that ties into what you're saying. So when you saw the list that I placed and you had, like you had already predetermined your list. I predetermined my list. We're setting up. You saw deployment zones. When you decided that game plan, what was like the, like when you saw what I had on the field, what was your initial thought? Like it was going to be like you were still going to go for the exact same game plan no matter what, or did you like change at all in your mind?
00:28:32
Speaker
um So my my initial plan, looking at your list, was I wanted to get Kastor into either, I mean, obviously his list really quick. Oh, I've got it here in front of me. So yeah, yes christian yeah Christian was running, Uliks Turner, so Uliks won. He brought Penelope the totem, which I know is surprising to everyone.
00:28:59
Speaker
You brought old major. um The big flex pick from what it sounds like talking to Christian about this was putting 12 cups of coffee in old major. um but The Sal brought a big brain brin, semi-lacroix, flying piglet, and a piglet.
00:29:22
Speaker
And so I know that, uh, so I sat down and watched, uh, the opening volleys of this game. And I saw that that 12 cups of coffee was nasty. Yeah. 12 cups of coffee is very, very good. Um, against Castro too, specifically, uh,
00:29:47
Speaker
So unlike almost every other model in the crew, Kastor does not have a way on his card to heal himself up very effectively, but he can teleport Marathyn, and any damage that Marathyn does on its attack will heal Kastor for an equivalent amount. ah But 12 cups of coffee prevents you from doing that. So Marathyn is stuck way behind the front lines,
00:30:16
Speaker
and is not able to heal Castor up. I committed the cavern nephilim on the wings a little softer than i than I usually do. Kept them a little closer to the center so that they could come back across are relatively quickly. um Because I know pigs have a lot of speed and seeing where you committed your ah your level two pigs was going to make a big difference to where those cavern nephilim needed to go.
00:30:45
Speaker
um And I kept, I softly pushed Kastor to, onto my right flank against, to counter the Christian's deployment of the S.A.W. Old Major in Uliks on that flank. um But mostly it meant i I saw you had a lot of options for where to push things. And I,
00:31:17
Speaker
try to keep options open with with my deployment and push. Okay, so now you did mention earlier, or you mentioned it or I mentioned it, it was mentioned that um Castor has a fairly complex unpack. So as we get started with, well, I mean, that was one of the reasons I wanted to sit down and watch this is to see like, oh, what have I been missing or oh, other cheeky ways to do it. And so as we get started in the game, um could you kind of describe what your normal unpack is with Castor 2?
00:32:02
Speaker
Absolutely. So ah I think the first key pieces to the Unpack are the Cavern Nephilim, because they have they're, first of all, pretty good, fast melee threats on their own. So I like to bring both, because they can hold flanks pretty effectively.
00:32:26
Speaker
ah But they also have regeneration too, and they're the only models in return that have ah regeneration that high, which means they can do the faith in the flesh ability, which lets them suffer one damage to heal another friendly return model within four inches.
00:32:44
Speaker
And it also gives them, the if they heal in excess of their maximum, they can move to. But it means you can do that on turn one and heal up. So you can take a damage on each Cavern Nephilim in their activation to heal casor over Castor Castor's maximum and move it. And then regeneration two will heal it up and also move ah move the Cavern Nephilim.
00:33:15
Speaker
So they're very important. They keep options open and get cast or moved up four inches after each of their activations. And all of that also powers up the earn bear. I don't have enough IQ points to play that crew just to let y'all guys know. I'm sorry.
00:33:36
Speaker
I saw him, listen, I was his opponent, I saw all this happening, and I was like, hey man, I didn't have him explain it like three times, and we kept it on my time. I was like, you're gonna have to toddler this crew for me, man. ah the The quick rundown I know is, when you activate, a lot of shit happens.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, ah so cavern Nephilim do that. And then ah after that, the activation order doesn't really matter between the other three support models.
00:34:11
Speaker
um Guill, the important thing is on turn one, you can use Guill's bonus action to give Castor focused. So you have to make sure that Guill is close enough to be able to do that during its turn.
00:34:25
Speaker
It can also use its decay attack to move Castor forward another two inches ah because it automatically heals living models, which Castor is. And then Atherac gets to do his ancient words attack into Castor's back. And Castor can reduce all damage from friendly models to zero and heal instead once per activation. So you can do that.
00:34:51
Speaker
And then if you cheat in a low tome or use soul stone to get the tome, you'll also get to draw a card, which is really, really important because it's the only way in keyword for Castor to draw cards.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah and on it that uh what allows them to reduce the damage from friendly models that's the feast on the faithful. I have totally been misreading that uh because it says oh yeah you know reduce black lead to zero and can heal one. I would say may reduce damage it suffers from other friendly models like oh shoot it in the back to heal like oh god damn it how did I miss that?
00:35:30
Speaker
Oh, that's just... yeah. So my favorite thing to do is... ah and the Atheract trigger also heals another friendly return model if ah that's nearby him. So I like to do that and then heal up the Urnbearer to keep the Urnbearer a little further up and close to the action. So you heal it and scoot it up. Yes, exactly.
00:35:55
Speaker
ah And then with the Urnbearer, often what I do is I will charge Castor in the back, hit it with Exsanguinate, and ah use that to once again heal Castor, move it up two inches, and then it has a bonus action where you can reduce its shielded condition by three to heal a friendly return within four inches by four and give it focused one.
00:36:22
Speaker
So you can charge Castor in the back. Castor will heal will heal from the attack, move two inches. Use the bonus action to heal Castor, move it to another two inches, and give it another focus. Between Urinebearer and Guill, that puts Castor up to focus, too. And there it's it's trivially easy to get Castor to the center line ah
Model Evaluation and Strategy Adjustments
00:36:49
Speaker
between all of those activations if you want to.
00:36:52
Speaker
yeah so i's i mean so you're getting like what like eight to twelve inches of free movement there or something uh at least it's way more than that it's okay i mean it's two inches of scoot scoot scoot scoots like math math math math math a lot more than you think. Yeah, if you're really going for Max, I think you can go 27 inches with him. um fuck It's it's like, and and that's that's one of those magical Christmas land, you know, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it's like, you can go basically wherever you want to go with him.
00:37:28
Speaker
um And I did want to throw out just a couple things that because it is definitely there is a level of like looking at the cards doesn't make any sense. You kind of need to see somebody doing it. And so um two things we're going to drop them in the show notes. ah There's a a YouTube channel called Malifaux shenanigans.
00:37:48
Speaker
And they have done two, and they have all kinds of just crazy stuff, infinite combos and just all kinds of crazy stuff. But he's got two episodes on Castor, which kind of shows some of the unpack things that, you know, he's pushing the limits in Malifaux shenanigans, but it's you can use some of those techniques in the in a normal un impact. And then there's also a Malefa World Series game. um In the top 32 of the most recent Malefa World Series, there was ah it was Resur's Castor, but...
00:38:18
Speaker
um it's It was a very, very good Castor 2 versus Von Stuk 2. Lots of armor, tough for Castor, and it was it was kind of a bloody mess. So a really good unpack and example. So for any listeners who are looking for that, I wanted to make sure you knew that those were in the show notes. Thanks. It was definitely worth a watch out for sure.
00:38:38
Speaker
And it's now, I would recommend, I think kind of the max you can do without kind of sacrificing all of the rest of your crew's ability to to function in a basic way ah is is really that eight to 12 inches range. You can do a lot more, but you're giving up everything else to do that. In my experience, the eight to 12 is enough to to get you far and also let you score other points on turn two, which is important, points between games. Scoring points, what? Yeah. It turns out it's easy to forget to do that with Castor. Fair enough. It's easy to forget to do that. But yeah, so it's a complicated unpack. You can get Castor close or over the middle line pretty easily, even in corner.
00:39:34
Speaker
And then that gets him set up for, you know, all kinds of horrible, horrifying nightmare rampaging that he can do then. Yes. Cause he does hit with a stat seven, three, four, five ah with a crow trigger with of mutilate, which is really good at killing most of the things you throw it into. So now you've got your unpack done there.
00:40:02
Speaker
ah What were some other you know interesting lines of play and key decision points that really determined the course of this game? So looking across it at Christian's crew, there were three significant targets that I think getting cast or into early would be effective against.
00:40:30
Speaker
um and At least prior to the game, this is what I thought. ah The first was Big Brain Brin, which I did not ever expect to actually get Castor into. I knew that he would be too well protected and with ah protected Bayou, if he's not isolated, nothing's happening. So I didn't expect to be able to get into so Brin as nice as that would would have been.
00:40:59
Speaker
ah Number two is the sow. Because the sow was where a lot of Christian's ability to make new pigs was. And ah my idea was if he would get to use her turn one, but if I could shut her down from doing anything turn two onward, I could start picking up a lot of the scoring pieces and he wouldn't be able to replace them very effectively.
00:41:27
Speaker
um And then third was Old Major. Old Major was the major source of damage that he started out with. And so if Old Major got picked up, I thought ah Castor could hold the center of the board very effectively and force Christian to so one wing where I could keep it contained and try and outscore him.
00:41:56
Speaker
i All of that strategy is assuming this is going to be a high scoring game. I believe that going into it. My goal was to try to keep try to keep him to six points. I really don't think Castro could have done ah under six in this matchup. would have been It would have been a real, real struggle.
00:42:23
Speaker
um unless unless my opponent made a lot of mistakes. But Uliks played well in that pool against Castor, I think is going to score two to three points on primary and ah a lot of scheme points too. So I was gonna want it to try and hold him to six, maybe five if if things went well and try and score seven myself.
00:42:51
Speaker
The second point on Deliver message I think was gonna be a struggle, but ah I think I could have gotten close if things had ended up going better. I think I could have gotten seven. So now we take a look at this and we see that it ended up being an eight to five game there. Yes. In Christian's favor there. so That's right.
00:43:17
Speaker
What were some interesting lines of play that shifted things from what you were trying to do into what ended up happening? So Christian did a did a good job in deployment of ah I think he knew that I wanted to get into the sow as a good, vulnerable target. That's the type of thing that Castor likes to hit. it ah Like, terrifying is non-functional against Castor, too, since it has Ruthless. And without really other good defensive tech, it's very easy for Castor to just chomp the sow, kill it. um And he put that with Old Major and Uliks.
00:44:04
Speaker
um which I i think were ah Christian took as two other contenders for models that I wanted to get castor into. um Being the master and a somewhat squishy one and um old major as as a big damage dealer.
00:44:24
Speaker
um As well as Old Major was definitely the model most equipped to slow Castor down with 12 cups of coffee and ah some good defensive abilities ah and hard to wound and tough critters or sturdy critters. That's what it's called.
00:44:49
Speaker
so So what does Sturdy Critters do? Because that was one when I was watching the game where I saw you shoot the caster missile right into that core there. And then suddenly this Sturdy Critters thing comes up. I'm like, wait, what happened here?
00:45:08
Speaker
Since Christian's on, i'll let him I'll let him go with it. All right. You're all right with me doing a quick little overview. Essentially, Study Critters. It's ah a beautiful ability that a lot of people overlook because it costs a lot of resources. Study Critters is if you throw down a weak or a moderate, ah you can throw down either card and you get the ability to either reduce damage on any friendly pig from one to two. So, Moderates and Severes count as two maximum, no matter what. And ah one through five counts as preventing one damage. So, it's Pseudo Armor. I know, it's trash, right?
00:45:44
Speaker
But in a crew where what what I was going for is a massive cycle engine, I'm going to pitch these cards anyway because ah you know we haven't really talked about my crew really. But I'm going to pitch these cards anyway in hopes to try to turn them into higher cards. So when people run in with with big hitters, I can just pitch all these cards anyway, right? So I'm just going to get free damage reduction. On any pig that's within six of eulics, I can prevent one to two damage just by pitching a card.
00:46:13
Speaker
That's strong. Yeah. Especially when used on a stone user like old major. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because it happens first and then the stone happens after. Yeah. And it's also one of those where, yeah, cause you're not pinging. So it's, you know, Castor's job of taking off big chunks, you know, it seems like that would be really good against the big beaters, you know, not so good against the ping damage kind of thing. Uh, cause yeah, you're going to run out of cars after seven pings for marathon. But yeah, when Castor is trying to take a huge chunk out of you, you're like, yeah, whatever. So yeah, oh that's cool. And so I went in, uh, looking at it and saying, um,
00:46:54
Speaker
I had a great hand. I had, I think, an 11 to 13s in the red joker. i That's so yeah wonderful. that With a hand like that, it feels like I could see going in and going, all right, cancer going, all right, who's my bitch? Who's my bitch? Yeah. And that's that is part of what made, I felt comfortable being as aggressive as I was, ah despite, I think,
00:47:20
Speaker
Christian did a good job of keeping his distance so that i did I couldn't just charge Old Major. I had to move charge into him. And Old Major was the only thing exposed to Castor. so But I still wanted to get rid of Old Major since it was the only big damaging threat on the board that turn. So I went for it with that hand. um So I got the move charge.
00:47:46
Speaker
i flipped severe on damage that time, so it didn't need to cheat anything. And ah did the Castor charge blasts onto Yulex, did a ton of damage. But then on the second swing, I black choked her. And this is where I think it's it's... With a hand as good as mine was, it's it's it feels bad
00:48:18
Speaker
to to say that I don't think I should have done it. I think the smarter move would have been to try to kidnap Yuleks out of that core and get out. um Because Yuleks did take sturdy critters and a stone to to reduce the damage and I wouldn't have been able to get Marathon into that into that core. um But I decided to go for another swing instead and Blackjoker'd on the flip Not to interrupt, but I think you're, you're actually glazing a really, really like you're glossing over a really important thing that you actually did. That was really impactful. So he's running an elite crew and something that a lot of players, I don't know if y'all guys know about, but the Pat pass tokens in the very first term, when you're playing these elite crews and getting initiative is so important because you give you, you can just immediately make your opponent go. So he got initiative on me. So he made me go first. So now I'm down in activation. I've got to, I got to expose forces to this massive
00:49:18
Speaker
demon creature that's going to kidnap something. So as an opponent going against something that's like Castor, who's guaranteed going to kill something, I have to play around this. And I, have well if you look at my list, I've got a million guys he can just kill. So how do I play around this, this giant thing? And so he does that. And then he had a pass token. I think he had two. No, no, it was one. Cause he has like seven models. So he gets two activations up on me.
00:49:43
Speaker
And I've got, I'm playing back like, Oh no, I'm going to like, this is going to screw me over. So I got to play into his hands. He wants this giant, you know, kidnapper demon. So to that, it's, it's a lot of pressure on my end.
Decision-Making Analysis
00:49:57
Speaker
So I have to like.
00:49:59
Speaker
choose who do I want to die and so therefore I got to let my flying peg let go and then I got to let my Sammy kind of run up the board or do it you know but I was like okay I'm gonna save these and that's really what it is is he's putting pressure on me during this time it's not like it was easy for me to be like oh yeah I've got him formulated calculated out I'm getting sweated on right now and maybe a good point a good point to that is uh I I I think you did a good job only exposing Old Major to that move charge, but it did mean that you had to swing your whole crew to a flank to stay far enough away from Castor that I couldn't charge. So, and if I was able to blow up the center, then I'm in a great position. Now, you did a very good job of making sure that I couldn't.
00:50:51
Speaker
um ah some Some things I would like to note, because the next thing that happened, I won initiative the next turn because of Ill Omens on Ancient Pact and took the first activation with Castor. And my attitude at that point was, if I can pick up Old Major, there's nothing nearby that could threaten Castor, really, unless you dumped everything into him. In which case, I would still consider that a win.
00:51:23
Speaker
And I would be able to get Marathine in the mix, in the center as well. I think this was a mistake. I should have played it a little cage-ier and not dug in so much. ah But that was my ah mental state. I was looking at the board and thinking, if Castor picks up Old Major, there's nothing in the vicinity that but can really touch it. Castor is going to take a little damage, but he'll live.
00:51:53
Speaker
Now, one of the things that you had mentioned was the possibility of ah turn one, instead of going for that you know second swing there, going for the kidnap. If looking at Castro's card, there is no ability on there called kidnap. What we're talking about is his visceral rampage ability.
00:52:17
Speaker
And so ah give them a quick rundown of what that ability does. So we're all referring to it as cancer versus kidnap. So it's the visceral rampage action. So visceral rampage is a stat six ah resisted by move attack action with a target number of 12 that you can only target one model ah per activation with. Well, it's a model cannot be targeted by more than once, yeah.
00:52:46
Speaker
Yes, so you can target different models a few times, but each one can only be targeted once. The target will suffer one damage. And then ah you can push Castor up to six inches in any direction, ah since that's its move. And then you place the target into base contact with Castor. Since Castor is on a 50 millimeter base, that means you can get up to, I think, 10 inches of movement on ah on an an enemy model.
00:53:16
Speaker
with with that attack.
00:53:19
Speaker
um So it's very, very good. You can, and this is something that Castro does very effectively, is since he he also on ah his main attack, Blood Rush, um if you generate that attack off of a charge,
00:53:41
Speaker
you get to add two blasts to the damage and then place Castor into base contact with any blast marker dropped. So he's very good at hitting something on the front line and then teleporting behind it on those blast markers, grabbing something soft and vulnerable that's in those back lines and zipping away to where nobody can reach him and killing it very fast.
00:54:08
Speaker
And to be honest, I forgot that was an ability in the game. When he, when he went, that dude was fast. Like came in still had two full AP to do everything he wanted. Then he places like buying right next to Yulex. I was clinching a little bit. I'm not going to lie.
00:54:24
Speaker
And Castor's got that move six, he's got that towering figure, yeah and he's got that range of two. So that is, you know, eight inch threat range. I'm gonna talk about this in my advice to players of different levels, but it's important to remember that being in base contact with two 50 millimeter blast markers means that he can hit things eight or more inches behind the front model. Yeah, that's nutty.
00:54:54
Speaker
yeah absolutely glorious I think you mispronounced glorious there, Doug. It's it's incredible. that smart is so ah um But I definitely in this game, I got stuck too much in an old major, ah especially after that Black Joker, when in the next turn,
00:55:15
Speaker
ah black Black jokering on that swing meant it was I was going to have to get very lucky to actually score the kill on Old Major. And Christian did a great job. used He burned a lot of stones to do this, but he burned stones to put me on negative damage flips so that I couldn't cheat in those 13s and the red joker on damage, and then used sturdy critters and stones to reduce damage more.
00:55:45
Speaker
ah So I just kept headbutting kind of a stone wall. And I got too stuck on it. Yeah, Old Major is a really big bait. And the thing is, is that when you see Old Major and Yule looks together, you think, oh, I'm going to. It's a really heavy shutdown. And when you have a model like Big Brain Brin that just sits there and you don't realize that, oh, he can see you over that wall because you're size four, you know, I could just stop those triggers.
00:56:15
Speaker
I'm bringing, I've got nothing, but my hand was dog water. I didn't have a high card at all. I had cheated in a six was the highest card I had. And you know, you so I just got six, sevens and eights and that's it. That's all I need to prevent two damage. Spin the stone. I hit a severe on it. Cause I had a hot deck and he did no damage and then black joker right after, and he had to use a full line of movement to get in. It was like, you used an entire master AP and I used two sixes and you know, a stone. And then it was just.
00:56:43
Speaker
I just flipped like a god after that on the retaliation. I had nothing. Oh, yeah. No, it was it was great play. But it's one of those deals where you know you kind of see that 90% of the time it works every time, or 80% of the time it works every time, or whatever kind of thing, where it's like, yeah, you absolutely can. you know And I don't know how how thin your deck was by then, but you know there's always... you know its at at least a one in 52 chance of of flipping a black joker. And sometimes it's like a one in two chance of flipping a black joker. you know And would you have done the same kind of thing again? you know Statistically, this is this is kind of what Castor wants to do. It just didn't happen to work out that time because Christian had a bunch of cards and he didn't mind throwing ah away and and and you just could couldn't quite get there. Or is it, yeah, would would you do the same again or would you
00:57:34
Speaker
you know, back up to the start of Castor's activation, would you have done something totally different there? Knowing what you know now, you know, but not knowing what but what the cards are going to be. You know, I talked this through after the game with with Doug and Christian quite a bit, and I have some new thoughts on it, but I think I think I still would have made the initial charge. The chance of doing enough damage to to clear out ah old major in the center there was was worth it. um
00:58:14
Speaker
i And especially with the hand I had. Because um you know even if I could have just, if one of my attacks could have gotten, I could have cheated that red joker in,
00:58:27
Speaker
ah Old major would have genuinely been in trouble even with all of the defensive tech he had um But I think my mistake was after my first attack was completely nixed I should have switched plans to the kidnap which still would have read Joker Black first still would have black Joker. So it wouldn't have happened ah and then I In turn two, when I got initiative, I think I should have swapped focus to pulling Yulex out of that bubble and retreating somewhere where ah Kristen would have had to either let Yulex die or dump resources to to try to take care of him. That also would have taken me out of the 12 cups of coffee
00:59:20
Speaker
range, so I could have used my bonus action to get Marathene back, and also healed up some, so Kastor would have been even harder to kill. Because Kastor does have ah a lot of wounds, and with the potential for healing is is hard to kill. Yeah, I think ah when I was thinking about this after the game, when I see 12 cups of coffee across a table from me,
00:59:46
Speaker
it's always that, oh right, before I go in there, do I have a bonus action I need to do? And I think had you, cause normally yeah, you want to draw, do the thing with Marathine when you're right in the middle of their crew. But if you're not going to be able to do that, do it and then charge it. Cause that way, you know, at least Marathine doesn't have to try to walk there.
01:00:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think... um Would it have changed a lot? You would have had the backup then, and then Marathon would have been there, ah in closer in range to start smacking things to heal up Castor. Because you ended up losing Castor... In turn two. Yeah, turn two. Yeah, in turn two.
Player Advice and Strategy
01:00:33
Speaker
Castor did get to activate, but I lost him later in the turn. I think...
01:00:39
Speaker
With the hand I had, I think ah threatening to bring Marathine in is worthwhile, even if I don't do it on term one. it's ah because it forces even if ah Because I didn't know how bad Christian's hand was. um But it it forces Christian to dump resources and resources into keeping Old Major alive, which um yeah If I had gotten that second swing off, I think he would have been down to, he would have had to use two stones and discard at least at least a card, if not cheat. So turn two would have been, Castro would have been in a much better position to potentially still kill Old Major.
01:01:34
Speaker
um and there was nothing that he had in the area that that could kill Castor, or even threaten to kill Castor that fast. So here's the here's the the little side thing that I don't ever do. Now, I am giving a bit about my crew, so if y'all see it in the future, you know you'll know what I'm planning. So here's the bait. You absorb all your resources into Old Major, and I get him down to two life, one life. you're He's right about to die. Then I turn him into a war pig and he heals,
01:02:05
Speaker
4 HP, so it goes to 5, and then I hit you. So you saw how I was hitting you, and then having my friend punch you as well on the trigger, on a mass trigger with euluchs, you gain an adversary beast, I get positives to hit you. So the trick is you burn all your resources into this henchman, and you use all these cards, and then you use a 6 and turn it into a war pig, and then all of a sudden heals back up to half, I kill your master,
01:02:30
Speaker
It heals two off of hitting you, plus it's going to heal another two if I flip a ram or whatever the case is. So the whole point is, is that I'm turning every bit of your hand. I'm trying to liquidate all your resources into this one beefy model and i turn them into something else. And then he runs through you and then he goes and scores in the back line with, you know, he can rampage through, shove aside. He has fast, he has a deadly pursuit. So that's the whole goal as I absorb you into this bubble.
01:02:59
Speaker
And the second thing with the marathon is to teleport, marathon, I believe it's a trigger, correct? Yes, it is. but So I bait you in and the big brain brain gets rid of your trigger. You can't do it. So whether yeah the tail ah the taking the charge is a trigger. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's it's the the base ability is. Oh, right. Charges. Right. Tom gives it a trigger to teleport. Marathon within an inch of Castor.
01:03:28
Speaker
So even if I wouldn't have taken the 12 cups of coffee, I would have just been like, great, here's a one. And you don't get her in irregardless. So I planned, I saw that before the game started. I didn't really know a lot about Castor, but I didn't read what he did. I knew he was like the spolkum of the crew or the center point. So I was like, I knew, I was like, I might want 12 cups, but I also have a way around it if I want the extra stones in hand. So that's, that was my thought process to try to counter you. And.
01:03:57
Speaker
that's That's a very good play. I did not think of prior to you telling me about it. I didn't think about you turning old major into a war pig. But on the other side, ah i do like part of part of all this is as much as I could have made things better, ah I think a lot of those lines of play still end up with cast or losing because The your eulics crew in this you know ah and this pool has such a high baseline of points. I have to do something to severely limit your ability to score those points as well as still allow me to score ah at at least seven. I have to plan on scoring seven.
01:04:49
Speaker
and When I went back and thought on it, that's kind of what I what i came to is ah I think charging turn one is still necessary um just because I need to put pressure on you. And if I spike it, then and get a little get a little lucky, then I can put you in a position where I can snowball the game from there. ah But I did not.
01:05:21
Speaker
turn back when I should have. So I think that turn one charge was the right call. I would do that again. But after I black joker that second swing, and there was really no realistic chance of killing old major, I had to, I should have changed gears, tried to force you.
01:05:38
Speaker
ah into either giving up euluchs or piling on castor in your backfield, where my cavern Nephilim could have done a lot of work in the center when where there was less support. Hey, Christian, good question for you. How are you turning Old Major into a war pig? You can target any pig and with the same thing grow up and then it should transform him.
01:06:08
Speaker
But it's to a pig minion with a higher cost. It says... Oldmajors10, Warpig's cost of mind. He started, heard him grow strong. Let's see. It's twice the difference of the cost. Target a friendly pig, non-undegged model with the name or non-undegged pig model with the higher cost. Actually, you're right. You can't do that. So if you win a black joker, you probably could have just killed him. Yeah. And that's like, so I think that attack was still correct.
01:06:36
Speaker
ah those first two attacks either drain your resources down. ah in like i didn't I didn't think about that play. It did not cross my mind. So it didn't factor in into the game. But I think swinging as that second time on turn one, I still would have done. It's that when it came to the next turn, old major at full health, I activate Castor who had taken some damage because I think you had You had Sammy LaCroix as your last activation on turn one, who did successfully deal some some solid damage to Castor. A red joker don't the damage from her her attack. But by the way, I think I was thinking because you can do it on the Sal and you can do it on Gracie, but you can't do it on all major. That's where I was getting mixed up. Gotcha. There are eight costs. They're both eight costs. And you can turn them into war picks because the war picks are nine costs.
01:07:31
Speaker
Yep, you have sour Gracie at works, but yeah that's right not all major. That's all just like really insightful and great discussion. And I appreciate just all of that answer. I really do. At the risk of driving this into like another however long, I do have a follow on question though. and And so this is, ah I don't know that that was the key flip of the game. um and And even if it was, you know, again, you were you were trying hard to keep Christian yeah You were trying to minimize the differential. You knew going into it from the instant you saw him declare you looks, I think you knew that it was going to be a really tough game and that he was maybe going to win. And, you know, if you could get a differential of one, you were feeling good. But no, I just, I just want to say, I don't think, I don't think I was that far behind with Castor, but I have to play him aggressively. I don't think I could have played him KG.
01:08:25
Speaker
and let Yulex get some of those early points, I think I needed to apply the pressure to kind of force a gap early that I could kind of hammer into. Yeah, which is just like super insightful. I guess my question is, going back to faction declaration though, um is having seen that flip happen Is that the kind of thing where you're like, man, ancient packed rocks and ah suiting up marathon rocks, but shit, I could have had a whisper there. ah Does that, if if I'd gone rezors, is that enough to make you think about rezors? Or is it just, is that part of the trade off for others? Yeah, you don't do whisper. yeah you You throw the ancient pack on Castor instead of a whisper. Yeah.
01:09:09
Speaker
So and this is this is kind of this is one of the hardest things about deck building or list building with Castor is um those last ah those last couple sets of points and how to apply them. I think the inhuman reflexes and is necessary to go on Marathyn because it shores up so much of your defenses.
01:09:35
Speaker
um in in every matchup. Yeah. But I have been thinking about ways, because I would like to get a second ancient path to go on Castor. I think the first one Really needs to go on the cavern nephilim because card draw is just so critical And getting like card positive card draw in castor is a really big deal Yeah, because castor himself really likes to have those cards to to be able to do the alpha strike ah You need those Severs to push through the damage and take out the target that you want to get that you want to take out um but
01:10:19
Speaker
ah Cavern Nephilim are also very good but very card-hungry. Their damage track of 2, 4, 6 means you really want to have the card to cheat with them to push through the damage and get a kill. ah If you don't have cards in your hand when you actually need to kill schemers with those models, they won't do it. um I think you were asking about the, like the upgrade would you, so would you have preferred to have been like, if now knowing this, like the Rezzer's side where they have the opportunity to have the whisper, would you have preferred to have the whisper in that scenario instead, or to be able to see the three in the future? Or do you think the point doom would be better? I, so what I'm trying to say is, uh,
01:11:11
Speaker
I think in all in both of those cases, getting the card draw from a cavern Nephilim activation is more valuable because most of the time I will use that card. Like I need it. ah It's just such a card hungry like I.
01:11:30
Speaker
It's a rare turn where I don't use all of the moderates and severes in my hand with Castle. And that makes sense. It's just so heart hungry. and the And that the question is not, is it better with a whisper? Is it better with an ancient pack? It's where on earth do I find the two stones for either of them? i just did so Yeah. So no, that makes sense. And that's a great answer. and Yeah. The lizard building is tough. So that's, that's an awesome, awesome answer.
01:11:55
Speaker
So thank you. And and I will also say, I i think Castro really needs five or six stones, because every single game that I've played with him, I have stoned for cards three times. ah each game and Each game in the in this tournament, I stoned for cards at least three times. it's ah having like Having a good starting hand is just so valuable with this crew.
01:12:20
Speaker
um and and getting it potentially before Castor activates. So, you know, Whisper can draw you a card after you kill something, but getting the card before, so you can guarantee the kill, I've found to be to be more valuable. That makes sense. No, that's awesome. Thanks for, and thank you, Doug, for letting me drive drive an extra whatever on this podcast, but those are really good questions, so thank you. So, as we're getting to the the tail end of that game there, what model would you say was the MVP model of your crew?
01:12:53
Speaker
um of Of my crew, ah definitely the Cavern Nephilim. The Cavern Nephilim, despite Castor going down so early, um still meant that I scored five points. I scored three on primary and I scored two from protected territory.
01:13:10
Speaker
um And ah if Castor was able to live a little longer, one of my cavern Nephilim was gonna deliver the message and it was in position to do so. um It's just after Castor was dead, I would have had to sacrifice it to dive in and deliver the message, which would have meant I score one point there and lose two points elsewhere. So it wasn't worth it anymore. But um ah cavern Nephilim for sure, they they score points better than anything else in the crew.
01:13:44
Speaker
Awesome. So now ah going to the after the game, you know, kind of looking back here. um So what advice would you give to a bottom third player? You know, someone facing your crew for the first time, ah you know, what advice would you give them for running into Castor 2 for the first time? And, you know, what are some big gotchas they should look out for?
01:14:13
Speaker
I think the biggest gotcha is how fast Castor can actually move. So you have to be ready to get your stuff hit. Castor will succeed in reaching ah and reaching your models. So you have to be careful about what you put in the front line, what's going to take the first hit, because that's the one that's guaranteed to take damage.
01:14:40
Speaker
And then secondly, make sure that Castor can't do it freely. you know Play a little cagey on your turn one. Don't feed him easy charges. Don't push up super aggressively um unless you're absolutely 100% sure that you can handle it. ah Because castor if if Castor gets to do the charge and get three swings in, there's not that many models that can survive it.
01:15:09
Speaker
Well, that dance set in was a Min 3. Exactly. it's just so And he can get too focused before he activates very easily. So those first two swings are going to be focused. So even if you can just make it so that he has to move charge, that's one less swing, often going to be three less damage. And that's going to be the difference between life and death for a lot of models. So stay outside eight.
01:15:39
Speaker
You know, measure out where you think Castor is going to be. Remember, he can get a lot of movement before he goes, but you want to stay outside of eight of where you anywhere you think Castor is going to be until you're ready to engage.
01:15:55
Speaker
Cool. So now, what advice would you give to a middle third player? You know, someone who's experienced looking to giving you a challenging game and hoping to win out if they play a tight game.
01:16:09
Speaker
I think middle third is where you start looking at ah kind of the other tricks that Castor can do. So beyond just getting steamrolled by a turn one alpha strength.
01:16:22
Speaker
You have to think about how you're layering your models and creating you might want to create some screens feed them something in the front and Keep your beefy stuff in the second line. So castor can't get all the way over ah Into the really squishy support models that he likes to get to so much because he has so much teleportation over that front line of models and You gotta think about how you layer and create you know a mesh. Having watched this game and seeing how a Christian reacted to your your Alpha strike missile there, his positioning on Big Brain Brin ended up being pretty clutch for him there.
01:17:10
Speaker
I absolutely agree. Because he had the model that he was okay with you attacking, old major, right there. You come in there, blast it. Well, if you're going to be in range to smack, you look's an old major. Suddenly you are in range of Bryn and he'd go, Hey, that's an awful nice trigger. Would be a shame if someone did something about it.
01:17:35
Speaker
and And not only that, but layering those models so that if I tried to push further and get at like and drag bra Big Brain Brin out of there, kidnap him out, um he had it deep enough in his models, I couldn't i couldn't have gotten anywhere safe. So it's just it's something that I never even considered doing because if I tried to drag him out, I would just end up somewhere where the stuff that could threaten Castor could still hit him.
01:18:05
Speaker
And, uh, I think that was, that was really effectively done. And it's that kind of layering of, you know, shells of a bubble. Are those the layers of support there? Or an onion? Yeah. like can That can, that's slow Castor down and keep it from being, getting to the stuff that he really wants to get into.
Community Q&A
01:18:24
Speaker
And the goal is like selling it so that they don't know what's going to happen. You don't want to open your hand. Like I, he, he didn't know what I had in my hand. He didn't know I had trash in my hand, but like,
01:18:34
Speaker
selling it to where you're thinking, even if you got nothing in hand or you got nothing or he doesn't know about the big brain brain, using it at the core moment to win their no, it's like, oh no, I made a mistake. Don't let them know up until that point. Yeah.
01:18:50
Speaker
ah What advice would you give to a top third player? i mean With the caveat, I don't believe I'm a top third player at all. I'd like to think I've reached middle third, but I think that's debatable. For for upper third, I think um creating the bait is something that creates a lot of back and forth.
01:19:16
Speaker
you know if you If you create a trap, even if it's somewhat obviously a trap, you can make the Castor player's second guess and slow down and not hit, not even attempt to hit the things that you need protected. And ah that can be very valuable in and of itself. you know I think Castor,
01:19:42
Speaker
ah when played against well, creates a lot mostly or usually creates a lot of cagey play because he's just such a bomb on his own. So now, what do you wish you had done differently in this game? And what was you know the biggest lessons you learned from this game? So I think the thing that I wish I had done differently, I i wish that I I wish that I had taken the second to step back and reevaluate the position at the top of turn two. I think that was the key place after thinking about the game a fair amount in the couple days since it's happened. And um I should have changed tactics there. And I just kind of kept plowing forward with my with a plan that was no longer viable.
01:20:41
Speaker
um And so I wish that I had taken the time to step back and really rethink what I needed to do at that point. Cool.
01:20:53
Speaker
So um we've got some ah questions from the Discord channel, which those of you listening at home, we've got a Students of Conflict Discord. We can post some questions to our guests ahead of time, interact, see the awesome recipes for what we talk about food.
01:21:16
Speaker
But we always like to ask some questions here. And looks like there's a few of them where i've already where where we've already kind of touched on those over the course of the conversation. So now you mentioned that ah for this tournament, you ended up running the same list all three times, right?
01:21:34
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So, um, uh, Islander on the discord, that's a Jonathan, you played into round two. Yeah. How much flexibility is in your list? So while you did run the same list all three times, do you have models that you flex in and out of your caster list or is it pretty much a set list?
01:22:01
Speaker
There is there's some flex, but there really isn' isn't that much. um The core of the list is so necessary. It's really hard ah to swap around too much. I think you really need to cavern Nephilim. I think they're necessary to the strategy.
01:22:21
Speaker
ah Castor will inevitably bring a very elite crew. So having some models that can act independently on the flanks in this GG, it's just it's too important because otherwise you will be giving up points. And Castor is not a crew that very easily scores max points on anything. So you need to take the points where you can get them and the Cavern Nephilim are what do that. The Urn Mirror I think is necessary if you want to do an Alpha Strike list. It provides so much movement and focus on Castor. And extra healing as well.
01:23:02
Speaker
Exactly. And it also creates, ah after you send the missile out, the earn bearer has a hazardous aura around it. So it can actually do very well at shoring up your back line a bit and taking out any ah scheme runner, light models that go around Castor, but between the flanks where the cavern nephilom are. The urnbearer is actually pretty good at dealing with them, or at least tying them up long enough ah for something a little heavier hitting to come finish the deal.
Closing Banter and Farewell
01:23:41
Speaker
um So it's hard it's it's it's hard to cut the urnbearer. I think it's one of the more cuttable models if I felt it very necessary, um but it's
01:23:53
Speaker
it's It's hard to actually pull the trigger on that. ah And then, Gwill, I think, is very rarely not hired. I think it's not quite an auto hire, but I I have trouble thinking of the situation where I wouldn't hire it unless I knew what the opponent was going to bring. But just seeing a master, it's I can't think of a situation where I would see a master with no without seeing the rest of the crew and not hire Gwill.
01:24:25
Speaker
um It brings so much, it gives you healing and movement when you need it all around the board, because it's line of sight, not distance based for a letting your return models count as overhealing with any heal. Which is very, very powerful, lets you push in and out of combat at will, basically. um And he provides a ton of healing on his own.
01:24:54
Speaker
Atherac is the other closer-to-cuttable piece. I like him a lot. He provides you card draw with that trigger on his Ancient Words attack. He also throws out a ton of shielded, something that I didn't mention a ton in the early game, but or at the beginning. He can put three to four shielded on Castor quite easily on turn one, so you can send him into danger and feel pretty good about him.
01:25:22
Speaker
surviving surviving the attack ah if he doesn't fully succeed. I mean, in this game where a lot of things went wrong for him, ah he still only took five or six damage on turn one, despite being red joker'd against and and all that. So, Atherac, I think, is very, very nice for all of that utility. So, i hard to say. i I would cut Atherack or an Urnbearer for a flexible piece, I think, but um I would really need to feel justified to do that. Now, I think we answered most of the other questions from Discord, just it over naturally over the course of conversation here.
01:26:13
Speaker
Anything I'm missing there, Clay? or I mean, I think we got all those. Two thumbs up, baby. Except for the ever important question from Jim, the dice man, Dyson. Oh, I love this man. What's up, Jim? Who always asks, love the guy, always asks the most delightfully absurd questions. And so the important question is, Carl, how many limes can you hold?
01:26:44
Speaker
Uh, if we're talking experimentally, I can guarantee for, guarantee for, yeah. What, what is it? Okay. What is the maximum you think you can hold? ah Okay. That's, that's a fair question. Uh, I, I'm going to go, I feel like I don't, do I get a sack?
01:27:05
Speaker
Oh no. No, no, no. It's it's it's your hand. It's loose. Loose line. It's it's in the Castor pose. Yeah. Yeah. If you haven't seen the meme, Clay shared it in the ah in the chat there. Yes. Just so you can make sure. Okay. Then I'm going to go... I feel like I could get 20. 20 lines. Yeah. That's a lot of lines. You stack them carefully. I think I think i can get 20.
01:27:34
Speaker
You can come to my birthday anytime you want. I'm a big guy, big hands. Christian, why does his ability to carry limes make him invited to your birthday? I don't know, something about hands, round objects. Don't dig into it, OK? Don't dig into it. Do you have a line to carry in competition at your birthday? Something like that, all right? They're carrying something. OK.
01:28:03
Speaker
I think we need to get some limes. Next time you're at the grocery store, Carl, I think we now have a moral imperative of you need to just like do the Castor pose and then like like the picture of your cat is going to be more important to our listeners. But I think that you holding a whole bunch of limes in a Castor pose ah next time you're at HEB or whatever is ah it's kind of mandatory now. I'm just saying. Okay. I'll see what I can do.
01:28:29
Speaker
I think you should hold the cat and the 20 limes. Well, you know, i'll bringt i should I should bring limes to the next turn. You know what? like I taught myself how to juggle using limes. Nice. Juggling is a key skill. Because I got bored at work when I worked at a Mexican restaurant. With the jester hat? Nice. Oh, that is going to be chef's kiss. Oh, yeah. So so i'll ju I'll bring limes, and I will juggle them for you. Sweet. Anyway. um I think that's, you know. That's a lot of talk on Castor. I think we're there. A lot of Castor talk. And not all of it was off off the rails. So, you know, hey. But hey, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show, Carl. ah Great to have you. Thank you for having me. um
01:29:19
Speaker
Pretty excited. I got to do this my second tournament at a at Dragon's Lair. Do you have any plugs or parting thoughts before we take off? you know ah No plugs. I ah try to avoid social media when I can.
01:29:34
Speaker
um And i I don't do anything unless, you know what, actually I will plug. ah Come to College Station and message me on Discord. I'm Pee Wee Platypus. If you're going to be in College Station, message me. I would love to get games in with more people. um And if any anybody happens to live in College Station, please message me. I would love to try and get a community here. Yeah. And we've got, we've got you know, the students of Conflict Discord and we've got the
01:30:06
Speaker
the Texas Malifaux Discord, which we try to use to help build the Texas community. So. I'm also with Carl in that one. If y'all guys, my Discord server name is Blaze. I'm not very social, but I don't mind coming in for games. If y'all guys want to get games and stuff, my college semester just ended. I'm going to be taking a little break. So I have time to kind of drive around and maybe meet some people, get some games in. I want to get a game in against you. I haven't played you in way too long, man.
01:30:35
Speaker
Come on, baby. But you know what, sometimes I like that hurt. I'm bringing two 12 cups for you. Oh, fuck 12 cups.
01:30:48
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Um, it's for a parting thoughts from, uh, plugs from me. Uh, I'm going to have more information up ah up about it soon. And hopefully shortly after the first of the year, I will be, uh, putting tickets available. So not available yet, but soon Lone Star Fodown, Malifo GT was the the largest event in North America, two years running.
01:31:12
Speaker
aiming to make it even bigger this coming year, October 24th through the 26th, 2025, Houston, Texas. Mark your calendars, block that shit out, because then I'm gonna be getting all the details and tickets put together there. But yeah, hey Carl, thanks for coming. Thank you guys for having me. It's been a lot of fun.
01:31:35
Speaker
Students of Conflict is brought to you by Top Dug Design. Check out topduggdesign.com for all of your MALFO terrain needs. Top Dug Design, 3D printable designs to enhance your tabletop. Students of Conflict is not an official product of Rude 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 align any group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything. Whoo!
01:32:32
Speaker
And now that we're thoroughly derailed, I'm going to go attempt to re-rail up. No, I am not going to use that phrase again. Get us back on track.