Most of the coverage is up on the #MXDoubles tag on Twitter and Malifaux Minions UK page on Facebook, other than that here’s my write up of the event…
Last weekend was the UK Doubles GT and teams from across the UK converged on Maelstrom Games Eye of the Storm venue for a weekend of doubles Malifaux. I escaped the office early on Friday and linked up with the other members of Harrogate Wargames Club to make the run south to the venue.
So late Friday afternoon I joined my doubles partner, local player Liam Toop, and tourney regulars Ant Hoult (Stryder) and Paul Hansel (RhinoBuster) and we set off for the venue. Liam had offered to drive and we hastily agreed, it’s not often someone else in the team volunteers to drive.
About half an hour later we starting to question our decision. None of us are small guys and Liam drives a FIAT Panda, which is a sort of tiny metal coffin on between four and two wheels depending on how hard you turn the wheel. It was also at this point we found out Liam has held a driver’s licence less than two months. Having cheated fate with an ASDA Lorry and several other horrified motorists on the M1 we eventually arrived in one piece.
The evening continued with the normal ‘helping’ to set up the venue followed by an evening playing Zombie Dice, Mall of Horror, Forbidden Island and Nuts with other pre tournament regulars, including Stern, his partner for the weekend Simon, our TO neverata and partner CunningStunt.
We arrived at the hotel late that night to find a miscommunication had left us with two single and one double bed. Ant and Liam drew the short straws and wound up in the double bed. We decided to give sleeping preferences for the next night to the team performing best in the standings at the end of day one. There’s nothing like a little extra incentive to focus the mind for an event.
Day One
Dawn rose over Mansfield and we made our way over to Maelstrom for breakfast. I was playing aRamos, as he’s my master of choice at the moment. Liam was running Colette, his only Arcanist master. This gave us an interesting challenge as both crews need a specific core to work properly, and there is also little synergy between the two. That said there was little I could do about that at 9am on the day of the event.
Teams assembled we were ready for the day to begin. I’m a little bit sketchy on games one and two, as we were on the same table playing Guild lists with Hoffman. We won both games against really fun opponents, the highlight of which was Colette bagging Hoffman’s Peacekeeper Taxi and dumping it on the other side of the field. We were fairly lucky with terrain as the tall buildings on the board really cut down on the ranged power of the Guild.
This took us to 6TP and +13VPD.
The real revelation for me from the opening games was how differently I think about the game compared to other people . When playing alone I didn’t really understand how many steps I was thinking through and ahead at once until I had to stop and talk these through with a partner and agree actions it really hit home.
I’d love to say the games were harmonious affairs but there were moments of friction in both games. Little things like my partner accidentally holding our hand face up to our opponents, at least once a turn, every turn, all day, did cause me to utter some choice words. That and whispering trivia to me but talking vital tactics at full volume. That said I’m sure I was no walk in the park either, I can come off fairly prickly when I play, mostly because I’m a very focused gamer at the table.
Round three saw us on table one facing Ant and Paul our club mates. They were running Kirai / Seamus for shared Recon. Now this is a nightmare strategy for us, especially vs a resser horde. If you add in the fact that we’re facing the UK’s number 1 and number 6 ranked players well in their comfort zone it’s going to be a tough game.
The only practice game we played prior to the event was against Ant & Paul, in which Ramos Black Jokered Construct Spider. Well the old guy wasn’t feeling any better this time and did it again at the event. I just manage to get out of this with a Soul Stone but it set the tone for the encounter luck wise.
Fortunately our scheme selection had been a little stronger than theirs,we took; Power Ritual, Break Through and Stake a Claim. They took; Grudge (Gunsmith), Kirai’s Scheme and Bodyguard (Kirai). We turned our gunsmith into a mannequin on turn one and despite Ramos taking a beating in the early game I managed to capitalise on a play error and force him to die to poison early turn 4 rather than by the hands of Ikiryo. This denied them 4vp, but with no aRamos we weren’t going to have a hope of getting points from Recon or Break Through.
From this point the game ended a predictable 4-6 loss. Now I wasn’t too upset with this. If you’re going to lose a game in a five round tournamentlosing round three gives you the best chance of making the podium, you’ve won your easy games and are paired down again for the later rounds. This and a two point loss isn’t going to harm your VPD overly.
We ended the day 3rd on the standings with 6TP and +11VPD. This of coarse also meant unfavourable sleeping arrangements that night. We spent a good portion of the evening playing Pirate Fluxx, Zombie Dice and Last Night on Earth in the bar at Maelstrom and had a good time catching up with the other regulars and meeting the new players.
Day Two
I woke from an uncomfortable sleep at 3am to find my three hotel mates; flailing snoring and talking in their sleep in what I can only describe as being a reenactment of the scene where a giant squid attacks the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Sleep eluded me for the remainder of the night and that scene of Lovecraftian horror may very well haunt me to my bacon fuelled grave.
Game four the next morning was Shared Escape and Survive.
<;rant>;
I hate Escape and Survive. It’s so poorly worded literally no one understands how it works, even when the TO explains their spin on it the game tends to involve dancing around your opponent. I fail to understand why it turns up in so many rules packs, what’s worse is I suspect it keeps turning up through unquestioning repetition of what’s gone before.
There is no reason this atrocity of rules writing needs to turn up time and time and time again. I’d actually prefer to play Recon / Slaughter / Destroy the Evidence twice rather than play this damn nonsense at every single event.
<;/rant>;
So shared atrocity it was for round four. We played against two newcomers to the tournament scene; Alex and Jamie with Seamus and McMourning. The game proceeded to be the normal SE&S, we advanced down opposite flanks and took opportunities to snipe at one another.
We got both lucky and unlucky in places, a LSPA flipped moderate damage on tripple negative damage flips TWICE in a row to take down a Flesh Construct, we also flipped double one (on stones) on two critical initiative flips, so I suppose it evens out.
There was a great moment mid game where me and Liam started to gel as players. Liam literally saved the day with a great play I hadn’t seen and put us right back into the game when we’d been slipping towards a loss.
In the end we held the game to a draw, we could have won had the final turns initiative flip (flip 1 stone flip 1 vs their 3) allowed us to safety an almost dead aRamos. It wasn’t to be and a high scoring draw was a fair reflection of the play. It’s always good to play new opponents and these guys certainly seemed to be skilled. If they continue to play tournaments I can see them becoming forces to be reckoned with and I’m itching to get more games in against them.
The final round of the event rolled around and we were matched against TO Jo-Anne (neverata) and her partner Aiden (CunningStunt) with Viks and Ramos. It’s always fun to play Jo, even if she is my tournament nemesis, I’ve yet to beat her in competitive play. The game was lively, fun and relaxed. We managed to control space better than our opponents and worked to deny them models to kill while focusing on completing our schemes and blocking them from theirs.
Liam again proved adept and a great play by him in the final turn denied our opponents 2VP, leaving the game a solid 6-3 win to us. 10TP and +14VPD for the event.
Game over we chatted with other players and swapped stories of luck and victory until results. I felt we’d done enough to podium, and was really pleased when we got 2nd, just beating Stern and Simon into third. Our team mates and travel buddies Ant and Paul took a well deserved first place.
With the weekend over it was time to ride the crazy Panda back north to Yorkshire, hurtling into the night to cries of; Remember the car doesn’t have Blinding Flash Liam!
Thanks to Jo for organising another amazing weekend of Malifaux for the UK. Roll on the Team GT!
Round three was Aiden (CunningStunt) Kirk who looks a lot like 
for turn two initiative and flipped the red joker. How lucky. My opening move was the predictable safety Cassandra 12″ further back behind the barn I was unsung as cover.
