Kirai crew - part 1

Following on from last week, I'm going to walk through my Malifaux crew in a bit more detail.

I was introduced to Malifaux through a few sources.  My brother had an interest some time ago although we didn't get chance to play a game.  Then I saw a few posts about it on Frontline Gamer and was interested again after reading these.

I was finally convinced when a local hobby store ran a Malifaux introductory day.  A watched a few games play though and bought myself a small rulebook.

After getting a feel for what this was all about, I had to decide on how to start the game.  Malifaux is roughly split into 5 factions, each of these having at least some themes running across all the crews within so narrowing down to one of these was one option.  There was the pretty candy approach, pick the miniatures that appealed the most - this nearly did it for me.  Then there was the voice of reason, discussion with veterans of the game and some forum reading.  I was sorely tempted by 'The Dreamer' both the background and the models looked really good to me.  I was warned off as a starter crew they might be a bit much.





Instead, encouraged by my wife's choice and a recent viewing of 'Spirited Away' I chose Kirai and the Spirits of Vengeance.


The Japanese style of these figures plus the undead faction they belonged to gave me several things I could work with.  I didn't know a lot of the Malifaux background when I bought this box, so instead I started thinking of my own.

My crew would be lead by Kirai, who was acting a bit like Dorothy in Return to Oz in my vision of Malifaux.  Taking the role of Chihiro from Spirited Away, Kirai has returned to a spirit world she visited as a child.  This time where there were only occasional dark elements to the world, now the world of Spirited Away is very much a part of Malifaux.  Returning as an adult has seen Kirai again abandon her real name and is known as 'Sin' (rather than 'Sen' from the film) which also ties into Kirai's Malifaux background nicely it turns out.

Kirai and friend

Kirai has become a Master in the world of Malifaux, with the unique ability to bind spirits to her will.  More, she is driven to discover what has become of her protector from her first visit to the spirit world, Haku.  She has been unable to summon him fully to her side, instead only an animalistic, spirit, version of himself has answered her call.  Followed as ever by faithful soot sprites, Kirai dominates the will of other spirits in her quest to find Haku and woe betide any who get in her way!

My Kirai crew then are, where I can find a link, inspired by characters from the Spirited Away film.  In terms of the Kirai figure, I've more or less use the colour scheme from the official boxset, Chihiro wore a red dress in the film so this is fine.  She's standing on wooden boards, as will all the crew.  This represents the bath house that most of the film is set in.  Finally I replaced the decapitated head between her feet with a soot sprite.  While Kirai is certainly not shy when it comes to battle, I felt this was more in character!

Ikiryo, the dark(er) side of Kirai

Spooky head tilt in full operation

Kirai is a 'two part' master in Malifaux.  Able to summon her own dark spirit forth to enact her vengeance from afar, the Ikiryo is a nasty minion that can be unleashed time and again.  This miniature was a tricky one for me to both place in the background and paint.  In the end I decided it was a new character to the story and used a combination of the official colour scheme and one I have used on my warhammer banshees.  I'm reasonably happy with the end result.  There's no real tie to Spirited Away on this character, aside from the mandatory wooden boards.

The robes on these are really nice to paint

The Onryo are a couple of the bath house girls who in the world of Malifaux became drained spirits.  Kirai quickly bound these women to her will.

Again the official colour scheme was used here.  There's plenty of echos from the film in the red and white kimonos, and the jade is a nice third colour to add to the mix.  I do have a couple of soot sprites to add to the bases here, I didn't get chance before the tourney last week.  They are at least mounted on the wooden boards however.

Rar!

Probably the most popular character from Spirited Away is 'No Face'.  This harmless spirit is corrupted by the greed of others in the bath house and becomes a gluttonous monster of titanic proportions in a key moment of the film.

Lots of robes to paint in this crew

This is perfect for the 'Gaki' spirits that can form a wall of slavering monsters in a Kirai crew.  The more of these spirits you have, the hungrier they get - the rules a perfect match for No Face.  I've got a pair of these beasties currently but really I want 3 or more.  I am trying to sculpt one of my own to closely resemble No Face, my first attempt is a bit large for the in game rules however so I am still thinking that one over.

For now I have painted these in dark blues to sharply contrast the colours of the female spirits.  Their skin isn't black as No Face's is, but a dirty grey/brown.  If I do make No Face he will be in his true colours, but these are his lesser cousins.  Once again soot sprites and wooden boards link the crew to their bath house origins.

Finally, for this post, is my Haku figure.  Now in game terms, one of the best characters available to Kirai is the Shikome spirit.  This is actually a sort of Japanese version of a harpy/witch, but I have to admit I really, really dislike the official figure.  This problem was one of the key pieces in the background puzzle I created for myself.  The Shikome's role is that of a relentless hunter.  Fast, flying and very dangerous in melee I quickly thought of oriental dragons, which in terms of Spirited Away is the character Haku when not in human form.

A game winner and clear favourite figure for me

 I hunted the internet for oriental dragon figures and was really surprised and disappointed by what was available - very little.  I finally had some luck with Bushido releasing their Mizuchi figure, which I reviewed here.  I spent a lot of time painting this chap and I am quite pleased with it.   As it represents an older incarnation of Haku, some of his colours are deeper, he's hairier and has longer horns.  His base is decorated with a small paper figure, one of the minions that pursues him during the film.

There's more figures in the crew, but they are not quite complete.  I also have plans to slowly expand Kirai's minions to cover the options that seem to fit the theme, so future posts will cover these.

Slaughter in Salisbury!

My crew, Kirai's spirits of Vengeance

Well yesterday was quite a success.  I arrived nice and early at the venue in time to help set up the boards ready for a day or wargaming.  In the end there were only 6 participants, however this did make the event feel a lot more friendly and communal as a result.  The tables and scenery were supplied and prepared by Bryan and Pat.  We had a graveyard, a creepy forest and a couple of windy canyon tables to battle over.  Bryan kept everyone in order and was tracking scores throughout the day as well as providing cake!

There were 3 games to be played each throughout the day, each round with a specific strategy to play for.  Each player was also allowed to select up to two schemes per game, however no scheme could be used twice at any point during the day, so selecting the right ones for the right game could be the difference between winning and losing (and it was...).

Round One - Shared Slaughter

Dr Frankenstein, I presume?

My first game was against a a crew from the same faction as me (resurrectionists) - lead by the infamous Dr McMourning.  Controlled in fine humour by Matthew, the game was a slug fest where the objective was simply to do more damage to the other side than they managed on you!

As both of us were keen to increase the size of our crews through our necromantic skills, this had the potential to be a very bloody game.  Things started very well for me, I soon summoned pretty much everything I owned onto the table, well before McMourning had even started thinking about stitching anything abominable together.  As it turned out, time was short for us on the first game and we were only half way through the 3rd turn when it ended.  This caught me rather by surprise and as a result despite being in a commanding position to wipe out around half of McMorning's minions I wouldn't get the chance!

Matthew had been much cannier than I and succeeded in taking out his revealed grudge against my Onryo and managing to kill my Shikome (or the proxy "Haku the dragon spirit" I am using) in the dying seconds of the game through a slow to die action.  I gained only a single point through my own secret grudge scheme.

So round 1 - a loss 1 - 4 victory points.

Round Two - Shared Reconnoitre

Nothing up my sleeves or under my hat, honest

Game two was against Pat, one of the chaps who organised the event, using his show girl crew lead by the slippery Colette du Bois.  Pat knows the game of Malifaux well and was using a complex and subtle crew here.  The mission was to spread out across the table and take control of as many quarters as we could.

I was wary of Colette's sorcerer skills - Pat had a mountain of soulstones in front of him very quickly.  Taking the bull by the horns, I sent Haku the dragon off on a mission of violence against the only none-showgirl Pat had, knowing he couldn't do too many sneaky tricks against this.  After eating the unfortunate gunfighter, Haku continued to distract Pat by munching on his performers, eventually pulling Colette's attention away from the centre of the table.

This was fortunate, magical pigeons were flapping about far too close to Kirai for my liking - I had to dispatch one with her shears!  After a late game summon of Ikiru was incinerated by Colette in a single blast I was getting worried about her simply gunning my spirits down, but again time was running out and I had managed to distract Pat long enough to secure half the board.  Pat managed to secretly claim a nice mausoleum, but I had successfully bodyguard'ed Kirai after announcing it to him, so managed a narrow win.  As Pat is fond of saying, even if you get wiped out, in Malifaux you can still win if you did what you were supposed to.

So round two - a win - 4 -3 victory points

Round Three - Shared Claim Jump

Some interesting models in this crew, not sure
 they are a great choice out of the box however

Feeling a bit more positive after the second game, I faced Rob using an interesting choice of crew - Lucius's special forces.  This is a bit of a brave choice as Lucius is a henchman not a full master so considered a bit weaker than standard.

Knowing a bit about this crew (their rules are much less complex than Colette's!) I played very aggressively.  This suited the mission well as I needed to own the centre of the table to win.  Ryle was real concern to me, so I made him the target of a scheme and proceeded to hit him really hard before he could fire that blasted cannon at me too many times.  After that, Lucius's men were outnumbered and outclassed by my swarming spirits.  Haku had another blinding game - eating the guard captain and Lucius!  At the end of time for the round only a single guardsman was standing (just, on 1 wound) and I had dominated the table, gaining all the victory points I could.  Rob had some terrible luck, his cards never seemed to be much help to him.

So round three - a win, 6 - 1 victory points

So after the dust had settled and the points were added up, the placings were read out.

In third place was Matthew.  I'm not quite sure how his fortunes faired after his victory over me, I know I heard that McMourning had died in at least one of his games.  Regardless a fine performance.

Somewhat unexpectedly (at the time) I came second.  Turns out Bryan, the main organiser, had taken himself out of the running as he was only playing to help with numbers (he should have won by my reckoning).

In first place was (Viking) Dan.  I didn't play Dan so  don't know how mean his crew were, but I did see some rather empty tables opposite him through out the day, except when he played Bryan...  All the same, very well done!

There were non-place prizes too, one for sportsmanship - won most deservedly by Matthew who remained upbeat, fun and in character throughout the day, and one for painting.  Now to be fair only 4 of the players had any serious amount of paint on their crews but I had spent a fair few hours the last few weeks working on mine so I was hoping to be in with a good chance of clinching this prize.

The votes went my way (I don't know if Bryan again took himself out of the running) 

and I got this fine certificate to remind me.  Very pleased I am too.

There was a 'bad luck' prize for Rob too, he received a new card deck to hopefully improve his luck in future!

So all in all a fun day and a pleasing result.  Thanks and well done to Bryan and Pat for putting this all together and thanks to 7th Heaven for sponsoring the event.

I'll post more about my crew, the theme I am using and how Malifaux the game works in future posts.  For now here's a couple of shots of my crew's leader Kirai and my star of the tourney, Haku.

These shears aren't just for show as a magic pigeon found out

Fast, poisonous, relentless and cool, its Haku

Getting ready

Just a quick post to get up to date and clear the decks for the next series of posts.

The main, full sized rulebook.
Now rarer than hen's teeth.

I've been getting prepared to take part in a Malifaux tournament.  I've never actually taken part in a competitive event before so this is something new.  It's been billed as a starter event so hopefully I wont feel like a total idiot.  As a result I've been painting a lot and playing a number of games to 'get my win on' as the event organiser would put it.  I've also been trying to read up on as much as I can - knowing that some characters can instant kill you in revenge for killing them is good to know...

I managed to watch and then take part in a game last week, my opponent was using a crew lead by, essentially, a giant evil wooden puppet.  It was a fairly unique gaming experience, one of the reasons I am currently enjoying the game so much!

I always thought Punch and Judy were sinister...

Sadly we ran out of time to complete the game, so it ended on a draw.  I was hopeful I could turn the game into a win given a full game, so a very useful learning experience.

Mine's like this, but green and
not ready for blogging

I also squeezed in a game of 40k this week.  It was a chance to try out my Contemptor dreadnought.  I had agreed with my opponent (good old Greg) that we could both use things from the Imperial Armour book that had the 40k stamp on it.

Greg tried out a couple of Warp Hunters.  Turns out they aren't very 40k ready - some might even say they are 'broken'.  So this combined with an unbelievable turn of saving throws from Greg's assorted turbo boosting jetbikes and apparently invulnerable farseer meant I lost 7-5 on kill points to a very well commanded Eldar army.  The game was fun all the same but I think we'll save the Forge World rules for really big games in future.

So its back to the painting table to see if I can get all my figures in a reasonable state for tomorrow.  Report and finally some pictures of my crew soon to follow.