Thursday 23 August 2012

Malifaux WIP: Stitched Together & 35ss Collodi Crew

I've been playing quite a bit of Malifaux recently, probably gotten back into it with the excitement of a new book and a new crew on the way..

But I'm a Neverborn guy with a solid sprinkling of Ortega's. I played Ortega's for a long time after I started with Pandora but moved on pretty quick..as a real faction whore, I've got a whole load of mini's..from an all girl crew of the Viktoria's to a nasty undead Kirai crew..

But Neverborn are my real loves.. Lilith the brood mother, vampiric beast, the Dreamer - a scared child whose nightmares become reality for his opponent and Collodi; the evil Pinocchio.. these are my favourites.. whilst the common assumption is that Pandora is a broken nasty bitch, I have no interest in her anymore.

Some pics then.. I finally got the motivation to paint some of Collodi's crew - which at 35ss  can look pretty nasty.

But pics first..



So there are 2 Stitched Together models - they are both cool and evil looking fuckers. Perfect. I went for a simple, "burlap sack" type colour scheme:

Sorry this one is a bit blurry, but I wanted you guys to be able to see it from a more "tabletop" distance.

Whilst I am no painter, I am pleased with how the highlights and washes look from a distance.

Fairly simple recipe:
- Grey Primer
- Baneblade Brown (old khemri brown) basecoat
- heavy wash of Devlan Mud
- Reapply base coat leaving darkest recesses ..um..dark
- 60:40 highlight of Baneblade Brown with Kommando Khaki applied to selected areas
- Final highlight with P3 Menoth White Highlight mixed in to above highlight about 2:1 (1 being theMenoth)
- Very thing glaze of Warlock Purple
- Eyes are Warlock Purple
- Guts are a 60:40 mix of Scorpion Green and Kommando Khaki

So far today I've gotten the 2 Stitched Together's painted as well as 3 Wicked Dolls (which you can see in the background of the photo right).

The Wicked Dolls need a final Devlan Mud wash to bring the highlights down and blend the model overall a bit more. As well as a sickly glaze or two to mesh them with the other neverborn  models in my collection..

These guys all fit into a Collodi crew of 35 soul stones.
Collodi is a really unique and fun, distinctly Malifaux character, being led around the board by his little marionette dolls that pull on his controlling puppet strings, dragging Collodi along with them..

This crew is BLINDINGLY fast. As a brief example to those that do not play Malifuax or are not familiar with Collodi we'll put it simply: The Malifaux board is 3'x3'. In one turn, Collodi and 4 of his dolls (which is both the maximum number of Marionettes as well as my personal poison..) can move across the board and back some! It's crazy! 

The idea really is to flip a mission with objectives or interaction with an object, rather than say 'Slaughter' where you just have to kill stuff. They are not the most durable crew.

As a Henchman rather than a Master, Collodi has access to a greater number of Soulstones than Masters, basically because he is not as powerful as a Master, he gets to spend more on goons for the crew.
This is nice as Collodi has 'Henchman 7' meaning he adds 7 Soulstones to the pool to use for hiring. Sweet.
So the tournament standard is 35 soulstones, with Colodi that's 42 Soulstones.

Need to be careful not to spend them all, otherwise Collodi will have no Soulstones to play with in game. Really though, I think he only needs 2 maybe, 1 for certain to re-flip the mission his crew will be engaged with to make sure it is something that the Doll Special Forces can handle easily.

At "35SS" I'm going to run:

- Collodi -- 1SS Cache to use
- 4 Marionette's - 8 SS
- 3 Wicked Dolls - 9 SS
- 2 Stitched Together - 10SS
- Lelu - 7SS
- Lilitu - 7SS
This clocks in at 41SS with 1SS for Collodi to play with (again, mainly for the mission re-flip) .. I did think about grabbing another 4 Wicked Dolls and keeping a Cache of 3SS for Collodi to use.
But.. I like the idea of running the Crew in 2 forces..
One group made up of Collodi, Marionettes and Wicked Dolls
Second group made up of the slower Stitched with Lelu and Lilitu. This group can make a very swift start to the game with the Stitched getting 'Fast' from Collodi, then Lelu and Lilitu can sweep up under the cover of the Stitched's "Creepy Fog", an impenetrable veil of fog that'll protect them from magic and shooting until they get close enough..

I love the image of the sexy Lilitu stalking from the Fog, using her almost irresistible 'Lure' to bring models towards her, then dropping back into the Fog, only for the savage, vampire Lelu to leap out and drain the poor bastard to a dry husk.. Malifaux is so cool.. 

Any of you guys run Collodi or have experience against them? What other crews should I really be afraid of? I mainly play against - all Guild (especially Hoffman, which I know is going to be an issue), all Arcanists, Gremlins, Neverborn and Ressers...and the new stuff is all on order across our gaming group..

6 comments:

  1. They are looking really good mate.
    What do you need to finish painting to get that list finished ?

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    1. Thanks dude, still have to finish the stitched, 3 Wickeds, Collodi..all 4 marionettes...then probably more wickeds and effigy's to buy..

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  2. I really like the way your guys are coming out - they look pretty nice. I'd love to see a close-up of the Wicked Dolls. The scheme you used looks interesting.

    Unfortunately you can't have Lelu and Lilitu in a Collodi-led crew. Collodi will only bring his Special Forces and other Dolls with him. Lelu and Lilitu have pretty much every Neverborn keyword, but not "Doll". In order to add them in the list, you'd need to have a different master leading and Collodi added in after the fact.

    You could bring in several of the Effigies though. The Brutal and Mysterious are my favorites.

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    1. Ah crap! Just assumed in-faction was all good.. it didn't used to be a problem as we only played 25ss.. but we now play 35ss standard and I need to fill the crew out with stuff!

      I may give the effigies a go. Brutal and Mysterious you say? Let's give them a go!

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  3. Also adding a 3rd Stitched can be nasty but the Effigies can work really well with Collodi as wrabbit stated.

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    Replies
    1. I was thinking about adding just a load more Wickeds.. hide them in the fog and ping them about to Collodi as needed ..who knows, I could add a 3rd Stitched and 3 more Wickeds for the same cost as Lelu/Liliutu..

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