#Molly2012

I’ve been a fan of the character Molly Squidgepidge and her background story since getting into the Malifaux game and since finishing painting her in March I’ve managed to include her in quite a few games, mainly used in conjunction with Seamus, but on a number of occasions I have tried her leading a crew.

She was heavily included in my crew choice during the recent BotCH (Battle of the Chumps) Tournament at Maelstrom, in which I think I included her in all but one game (which was shared Slaughter).

Now I don’t want to say anything too negative about using Molly as a leader as I’m a relatively new player, although from talking to people and reading plenty of forum posts etc it is fairly evident and generally acknowledged that Molly is considered to be an underperformer when it comes to leading crews and I’m pretty sure even the game developers are well aware of this, being that Wyrd are soon going to be releasing ‘at least one and maybe more’ story encounter packs, with the inclusion of some new minions for Molly.

Now it was quite a pleasure to read on Twitter/Forums and hear on the Malifools podcast (http://www.malifools.com/) that Jon Mickleburgh (@jdmickleburgh on twitter) was going to endeavour on his own #Molly2012 crusade. I’ve even accepted Jon’s ‘Molly only’ challenge for this year’s grand tournament.

With that in mind I’m going to increase the frequency of my own Molly lead games and have agreed to share my thoughts and findings with Jon.

Molly 2012 Part 1 (Reviewing Molly’s card, interactions with available crew and my experience so far).

Without covering too much ground that’s already been covered, Molly can only Hire Horrors, Belles and Totems and is Henchman 5. Currently this means she fairly restricted in Crew build to just a few minions, with the only option for high damage output being the ‘Rogue Necromancy’ which is the classic paper tiger model and it’s also worth noting that unlike Nicodem and Mcmourning, Molly does not have the option of summoning the ‘Rogue Necromancy’ in game! However Molly can summon (for 2 corpse counters!) Horrors, Belles and Necrotic Machines with base size of 30mm only, which does allow her to summon ‘Madam Sybelle’

Molly herself is fairly hard to actually damage and kill, with the opponent having to first pass a ‘Pitiful’ WP duel when targeting her and then get past her ‘hard to wound 1’ a potential trigger on her df which can negate all damage, followed by the ‘slow to die’ and ‘use soulstone’ combination. With 10 wounds the only let down on her survivability is the actual defense stat which is just df4. She also has a trigger on her WP which deals 2 wounds to anyone losing a WP duel with Molly as the defender, which acts as a very good deterrent for enemies with low WP and wounds.

Now her abilities certainly seem to have plenty of potential, however I have found that the vast majority of them can easily become redundant against crews that do not contain ‘living’ models or have ‘immune to influence’! If your opponent puts an Hoffman crew on the table then Molly’s going to end up doing very little in the game.

Instead of giving a breakdown of each of Molly’s spells and abilities which can be read about in plenty of other places (including the pull my finger wiki) I’m just going to list them in no particular order and give my quick thoughts on them.

·       Henchman 5 – Could really do with being higher (at least 7), especially has she’s more likely to want the ‘Rogue Necromancy’ in her crew, with no option to summon it, It would also increase her possible Soulstone cache which would help when it comes to making sure those key spells happen.

·       Instinctual +1 (0) action – Good but I can’t help feel that Molly being primarily a support master also needs a +1 casting action. And Instinctual is really there just to make sure Molly can cry each turn (see below).

·       Pitiful - very handy

·       Necrotic Spray – Deals 1wd to each living model within 1” when Molly takes damage. Limited use, but try not to forget about it when you do face a Living crew.

·       Reveal Philip – 0 Action that requires multiple living targets to be worth using.

·       Uncontrolled crying - 0 action - unless Molly is well out of harms reach she should always be crying at the end of each of her activations to ensure Pitiful is active.

·       Whispered Secrets – 0 action Spell that copies a 1 cost spell from the target, for Molly to use once. I’ve cast this plenty of times now on her own crew, taking abilities such as Lure (though Rotten Belles cast it easier than Molly), Acid Breath and Shriek. I’m thinking this could be the ability that’s key to unlocking Molly’s potential, and I’m going to start looking for combos that can come from enemy models.

·       Imbue Vigour – 1 action spell that grants the target +3wk. This is the one useful ability that Molly can try to cast when facing non-living and ‘immune to influence’ crews, it does require 7Masks or greater, which unfortunately reduces its reliability somewhat. If you get the right cards in hand (7+ and 9+ of masks) this combos very well with ‘Madam Sybelles’ ‘Call Belle’, in practice getting both those cards and not wanting them for other things (Croolligans or sever damage) is rare.

·       Philosophy of uncertainty - 1 action spell that requires the caster to sacrifice, in order to kill a non-master model within 3” also requires a WP resist. This combos nicely with ‘Necrotic machine’, although I find it fairly hard to keep the ‘Necrotic Machine’ alive whilst getting into range, once you have the high crow required to cast it.

·       Molly’s other spells include ‘Terrible Secret’, a very functional double negative defence and attack debuff and ‘The Shocking Truth’, a short range damage spell that can paralyse on the severe damage. Of those I actually find the debuff the better option as it can cripple even the best of enemies including Von Shill.

Molly also produces ‘Extraordinary Dead’ a 4” aura that gives Belles and Horrors +2wk whilst in the auras range.

Crew.

As mentioned above Molly and Sybelle make a very good pair when it comes to movement tricks, although because both of the movement spells require either a 7 or 9 of masks, making any movement based plans unreliable, but handy if you do draw the right cards. I think the best bet is just to stick to using Molly’s +3wk buff along with the +2wk aura which if given to a ‘Rogue Necromancy’ or ‘Dead Doxy’ will give an initial walk of 10, followed by a second walk of 8 (no longer getting the aura buff).

Crooligans I’ve had a fairly mixed bag of results with. By having their key spell ‘The Mist’ a 1 action spell that requires 8+, the Crooligans suffer badly, because without it they are fairly weak and slow. Also worth noting is that ‘The Mist’ only has a 3” range unlike ‘The Fogs’ 5” (created by ‘Stitched Together’), so the Crooligans can still be targeted by ranged attacks. Having said that, when they perform, they do so fairly well moving around the board and sitting on objectives.

Rotting Belles are your bread and butter minion in this crew and luckily they are a good investment for 4SS each, the only drawback being their low damage output. I’ve learned that unlike a Seamus lead crew, you don’t have the same hitting power, so positioning and correct use of ‘Lure’ is going to be even more key to successful use within a Molly crew.

Lastly I’m just going to mention the ‘Grave Spirit’ totem, which I actually don’t own yet, but was lucky enough to borrow once and to me is looking like a fairly good choice to include for 1SS instead of the 2SS ‘Necrotic Machine’, as it can be used effectively by giving armour +2 to either Molly, Sybelle or the ‘Rogue Necromancy’.

Overview

Molly on first glance appears to have a good bunch of spells and abilities, however when it comes to actually using her to lead a crew then some of her flaws become more apparent. Because she is primarily a support master she doesn’t really appear to do anything and I suppose this is because the buffs and debuffs she provides are not significant enough to affect the game at the same level you would expect for a Leader.

Her biggest issue is probably with the lack of Living opponents and her complete inability to deal with ‘immune to influence’, which completely negates her more offensive spells.

That being said Molly’s biggest draw is her background story and the visual appeal of her crew, which is the main reason I’m being so stubborn and sticking with Molly girl, despite getting a beating every time she leads a crew onto the gaming table.

Hopefully through my own and Jon’s blog we can perhaps unlock the hidden potential and work out some sound tactics for Molly lead crews.

PS Must say after reading Jon’s first report he seems to be off to a good start with a 6-2 win.

[EDITED CROOLIGANS MIST ABILITY]

Avatar Seamus

Thought I'd best get a quick post up before I have to pack up my paints for a few weeks (for a house move).

Finaly finished the big guy .... Avatar Seamus!

Another model that was a real pleasure to paint.
I used my standard Seamus for reference on the clothing colour scheme, so that the Avatar looks right.
The main difference is the Skin colour, which I worked up using 5-6 layers of grey starting with a 75:25 GW Chaos black/skull White mix and working toward Vallejo London Grey, before washing with a very watered down Chaos Black and then building back up to a much lighter grey, with a final highlight of Vallejo Light Grey.

Here is a close up of a small bottle I added to the base.

Just realised I haven't posted any photos of my Rogue Necromancy! so here it is.

Photos not the best quality, but I took it quickly a few days ago, when I was applying to become a Wyrd Henchman.

I'll hopefully get a bit of time to take another photo and write up for this fellow after the house move.

Till then take care.

Will

Avatar Seamus

Thought I'd get another quick post up seeing as I'm going to be very busy for the next few weeks with sorting out an house move at the end of the month!

Started painting Seamus Avatar last night.
Starting from a black primer, I first mixed a dark grey and worked up to a mid grey tone in 5-6 layers.
I think Im going to give the model one more slightly lighter grey layer and then pick out the vein detail with a mid dark blue.

I'm keeping my normal Seamus on my paint station for reference so I can then keep the torn clothing the same colour.

Hopefully my next post will be showing the final paint job :)

Dead Doxy and Scenic Bases

I finished painting the 'Dead doxy' model last night and I am particularly proud with paint job on this one.
It might be because I chose to paint red, which is my favourite colour to paint (most of my previous Warhammer armies included red in the main colour scheme).
Starting with a black undercoat I first started with the flesh using my standard zombie flesh palette of 'Sunny Skin Tone', working up 1-2 layers to 'Light flesh', followed by 'Green ink' and then working back another 2-3 layers of 'Sunny Skin Tone'/ 'Light Flesh'. Touching up areas with the ink or final highlight where necessary.
After completing the flesh I moved onto the Red gloves & stockings. Starting with a GW 'Scab Red' I highlighted up 2-3 layers to GW 'Blood Red' which was then followed with an ink wash of Newton & Windsors 'Peat Brown Ink' to bring out the recesses and tone down the colour again. This was then highlighted back from a 50:50 Scab Red/Blood Red mix with 3-4 layers towards the 'Carmine Red' and then another 1-2 layers towards a 70:30 mix of Carmine Red/Pink on the edge details.
With the red complete I then moved onto the Green details, which where based on GW 'Woodland Green'  (the very old GW' / coat D'arm range with the cylindrical white top bottles, which I was pleased to see is still flowing nicely and will probably last another 10 years without drying up!), I needed a couple of un-thinned coats to cover the black undercoat, which where then followed by the 'green' ink wash. After the ink was I worked up 3-4 layers to 'Goblin green' which was then followed by another 3-4 layers working from 'Goblin green' to 'Flat Yellow' on the very edge of the details.
The lace trims where then painted with 'Gold Brown' with just 2-3 layers of lightly thinned GW 'Bleached Bone' (again from an older GW range with the hexagonal prism white topped bottle) to the edge of the trims.
I then moved onto the Black Areas (Corset, Boots and Parasol handle) which taking a tip from a good friend of mine Jon Kerr , I simply highlighted the black with sparse thin lines of 'London Grey' along the edges. This method produced a much better result than all my previous attempts to highlight black (which I have never been 100% happy with).
The Black hair was actually highlighted with a drybrush of 'Intense Blue' which gives a more natural looking Raven hair and differentiates the hair from the items of clothing.
With just a few more pint touch ups and small details I finished the model in time for Twitters #miniaturemonday :) (@willlambert4)

I also finished off some Victorian style scenic bases, which I intend to use for objective markers.

So really please with my painting this last week and moving on to my next model shortly which will be Avatar Seamus (The Hulk lookalike :))

Just to finish off this blog post Ill show you a picture of my 3 year old Daughters miniature painting after she wanted to have a go using some of my old paints and brushes :)

Woah Didn't realise my last post was soooo long ago!
I did have a post written out back in April and was just waiting to sort out photos, but then me and my family have been hit with various ailments, Sickness (me), Chickenpox, Toothache (me) on and off for most of this time
:(
and since getting back into the routine I actually needed to get some decent hobbytime done before writing about it ;)

First up is little bit of a write up for a little ongoing side project.

My side project is actually of an historical nature. 6mm scale American civil war from Bacuss. I’m hoping to play using Bacuss’s own Polemos rules, as soon as my mate can get some of his confederates painted up.

Painting 6mm is actually fairly easy especially when you set your mind to focusing on painting the ‘unit’ and not the individuals. Also makes a nice change from 25/28mm scale models, especially if you also like to be a bit more creative on the basing. I’ve included some green clump (sponge type) basing material for bushes and have also got a few mini trees, which I’m including on a few of the bases.

 I think I took this photo on my Mobile phone (so its not brilliant)

I have also been to the Salute show in London on 21st April (yikees that was over a month ago!). Got to say its certainly the best show I've been to in the UK and I really enjoyed this year. I managed to win a KR Multicase backpack 1 with a golden ticket. Also scored a good deal at the bring and buy for a set of Terraclips buildings, so I've now got 1 of each Terraclip set. I also had a few old GW fantasy models to sell at the bring and buy, which at the end of the day fetched a good price, so I was able to spend a fair amount of extra money on some new Malifaux models :D

I'll Show most of the new models in a future blog post as its going to be my first dip into another faction!

Heres a photo from the Show

Anyway I suppose I'd best show you a picture of my latest current painting project.

Got a 'Dead Doxy' or two on the go (using the Belles for reference) 

Also got for my Resurrectionists a certain hulk like Avatar and The Rogue Necromancy.

So anyway hopefully my next post wont take as long.

Camera sorted! Heres Bette, Necrotic Machine and Molly!

So got the camera charged up and I notice the dial on the top of the camera......oh .... so thats why my macro photos where coming out rubbish! yes I've only been using the lens to focus and completely forgot to change the dial to 'close up' mode .... DOH!

So without further delay heres some proper good photos of the rest of my crew.

Bette Noire.

For some reason I went with a normal(ish) flesh tone on this model, which turned out very nice, with the nearly white flesh contrasting well with the black dress.

Necrotic Machine

Very pleased with the way this one turned out and it was relatively simple. Just one coat of GW Bronze, followed by an ink wash of 'Newton & Windsor's' Peat Brown, then drybrushed with bronze again, followed by a splattering of Turquoise around the edges and joints. Was probably the quickest Malifaux model I've painted.

and finally Molly :D

The model is absolutely fantastic and a real pleasure to paint. I had to paint molly in the week when i got home from holiday, because I didn't have a base for her until then (see previous blog post).
I tried very hard to do the best job I possibly could with this one and was fairly satisfied with the results. Trying to keep in with her background story I splashed some red blood on the front of her dress (She's prone to coughing fits of blood).

And since I've figured out the Camera, I guess I should provide a photo of the entire finished crew :D

Overall I think I did fairly well with the crew so far. Im looking forward to expanding in the near future with, Rogue Necromancy, Dead Doxies and the hulk himself that is AVATAR Seamus :D

And yes Ill have much better photos again ;p

Crooligans, Bette, Necrotic Machine and Molly

After a great 2 weeks on holiday I managed to get a load of painting done.
I finished 3 Crooligans, Bette Noire and Necrotic Machine .... oh and I made a start and finished some Puppet wars models (but thats another story) :D
My original plan was to paint Molly on holiday, but due to my terrible post service, a batch of Micro Art cobblestone bases got lost in the post, so Molly was without her base :( .... Luckily the guys at Micro Art where kind enough to promise to dispatch a new order, in time for when I arrived home :D

So after an 8 hour drive me and my family arrived at our beautiful lodge in Argyl on the west coast of Scotland.

It didn't take long for us to settle in and on the 2nd night I dug out my models and paints.

First up for painting where the Crooligans. I wanted to do the models justice and give the figures a slightly more dirty appearance, whilst trying to keep in some bright colours, to make them stand out on the gaming table. For all 3 models I chose to keep to a basic palette of Red, Blue and Brown, with white bandages.

First up was this charming young man, who is obviously trying his best to hide some really bad dental problems from the other kids on the street.

Again I used a mix of watered down GW and Vallejo paints. I've found over the past few painting sessions, I am tending to use a GW base colour and then highlight up with the Vallejo. This is mainly due to my need to use up the GW paints before buying equivalent Vallejo, whilst the Vallejo dropper bottles are much easier to use when adding just a drop or two, in order to highlight up the base colour.

I'm really enjoying painting the Malifaux models, because the detail on them is absolutely stunning and concentrating on just one model or two at any one time, is giving me plenty more time to consider lots of more technical painting ideas.

Just to recap I always start from a black undercoat, followed with the base colour, then ink/wash shading. After applying the ink/wash, the model is left long enough for the ink/wash to dry properly. Once the shading is complete I reapply a base coat to most of the raised areas, carefully avoiding the recesses. This is then followed by a gradual build up of a lighter tone to the base coat. A couple of years ago I would probably have highlighted up just a couple of steps, now I'm finding that (especially with watered down paints) its actually fairly easy to tone up the highlight considerably more with perhaps 5-10 different tones for each colour.

So anyway here's a couple of photos of the other 2 Crooligans.

This fellow hasn't got dental issues like his mate, though his toes are looking an unhealthy shade of green ;)

And who can't love this little girl with a cute little teddy bear .... and a big knife!

Ill hopefully be updating again in the next few days, when I get the camera recharged (I was intending to  do a massive post with the other models painted, but the camera battery ran out on me....typical)

Will

A quick update

Just got back from 2 weeks holiday.
lll post a painting update ASAP (managed to finish a few more models :D )

First Crew Painted!

So I finally hit my first major milestone with my Malifaux models.

I finished painting my first starter crew! Seamus and the red chapel gang are all ready to go :D
(by the way trying the camera without the Macro lens this time)

I suppose I had better show some individual photos of Hamelin and Sybelle, who I never got round to posting photos for.

Hamelin I enjoyed a lot for a number of reasons, first was he was my first Malifaux present and second I painted Nix the same markings has our own family dog :)

I'm very pleased with the result, especially for the cobbles on his base which I sculpted on myself with green stuff. Actually I think I did more highlight layers to Nix and the base than the rest of the model :p

So then on to Sybelle

As I mentioned in my last post this model was surprisingly very nice to paint, with the detail taking the paint very easily and being able to achieve some great shading and highlighting with minimal effort. I think my choice of colours also helped to bring out the model and contrasted well against the rotten green/flesh tone of the skin.

So then I turned my attention to the master of the red chapel gang - Seamus.

Another fantastic model to paint, with my only worry being that of trying not to make a bad job of him, seeing has I hope to be using him on the gaming table more often than not.
Went for a typical green leprechaun colour scheme, which I always wanted to do since I first saw the model and used red and black to compliment the green. Im certainly finding that watering down the acrylic paint achieves a much better finish than painting straight out the pot and gives you so much more control of the different paint layers.

So anyway the next step will be to paint up a bunch of Victorian style accessories for use on my Terraclips board and I've also now got Molly, 3 Crolligans and the Necrotic machine to add to the gang.
Hopefully Ill get all those finished when I go away on holiday :)

Sorry no photos this time. But a brief update.

Sorry no photos this post. I did take a few, but felt they where not good enough. So need to sort out some better lighting and things before I try again.

Anyway its been a while again, but since my last post I've had two more games.
The first game was at Maelstrom games in Mansfield against Adrian Mill who used Karai. Was a really fun  game with us both having similar strategies (he had claim jump and I had reconnoitre). I learned Shikomi are deadly and Karai can move faster than I expected :) Adrian was a really great opponent and gave plenty of helpful advise. Looking forward to arranging another game in the future.
Second game was last week against a guy from my local club, Alex. Alex is more of a newbie than myself and was using his Colette crew and he had even managed to glue them together this time (last game a few months back, his models where straight out the box.....literally! This game we played on my terraclips board. Again a good game, with us both learning a lot.

So on the modeling/painting front.
I've now finished Hamelin and Sybelle and now looking forward to painting the main man himself (Seamus). I'm especially proud of Hamelins dog (Nix) which I spent extra time on, painting identical markings to my own dog :D.
Sybelle was surprisingly a pleasure to paint, with the detail on the model being especially good for picking out with the paint.
Anyway im hoping to get some good photos of them soon and will post them as soon as I can.
I've started to base some Crooligans, Necrotic Machine and Molly on identical bases from Micro Art Studios.

Time to get back to painting.

Terraclips!

So its been a while since my last post, but I've been very busy with family and work, namely helping to look after my poorly daughter and sorting myself out with a new job.

Anyway on the painting front I started painting my Hamelin model, and was doing really well, until I decided to do an ink wash .... Oops... Not a disaster but its put me back a few steps as I'm now going to have to clear up the lighter areas, whilst trying not to lose any of the detail :(
Sort of put me off painting for a few days and then my personal life took over again.

Had a game of Malifaux last week with a chap I meet on the Maelstrom forum. My first 35 Soulstone game and I used 'Molly Squidpiddge" for the first time. My opponent was using the Viktoria's and Von Schill and I ended up getting tabled!
oh well it was a really fun game and I did learn a lot from the game, so didn't feel too bad about losing all my crew.
Whilst I was at Maelstrom I picked up a Terraclips pre-order (My birthday present).

So anyway I've spent the last 3 nights and part of the weekend preparing and building up the Terraclips. I got 1 set of sewers, 1 set of streets and 2 boxes of clips. Im very impressed with the quality of the product and would easily recommend it to anybody. I decided to build a complete 3' x 3' gaming zone, but for storage reasons I need to be able to break down the board into 18"x18" sections. With that in mind I went about making 2 sections of sewers.

Heres a photo from my 1st evenings build, after a fair few false starts.

The 2nd evenings build went a lot quicker as I got more use to way the system fits together and started to visualise the end set up. At the end of the session I had the 2 sewer sections complete. My plan was for the street sections to be raised 1 level and interchangeable with each other.
Day 3 was a weekend day and I had help from my 3 year old Daughter :D who was having fun playing with the stair sections and her own little toy people. Towards the end of the build I had to swap some of the clips around to allow for some additional support under the raised street sections.

Anyway heres a couple more photos of the finished 3'x3' board, photos where taken on my mobile phone, so are a bit blurry.

Overall really pleased with the results and just need to find a big enough box to store them in now.
So looking forward, Its back to finishing off Hamelin and I've got another game lined up this week at Maelstrom. Hopefully I'll soon be getting some more games in at my local club Derby Wargames Society with the Terraclips.

Another 2 Rotten Belles painted. And type of paints I use.

So it been nearly two weeks since my last blog and I think that two weeks is going to be as regular as I can hope to be at blogging.
Anyway I've completed the remaining two Rotten Belles from Seamus's Crew and varnished all 3 (using Citadel 'purity seal'
I'm currently painting using a mix of some old GW paints (some of them more than a decade old, in the old white plastic top pots!) and I've just started to pick up and use theVallejo paint range.
I've only recently changed to painting from a palette instead of dipping my brushes in the pot (A MAJOR NO NO) and these models are the first ones I've started to water the paint down.....What a massive difference! The results are so much better. I can't stress enough that whatever doubts you have about watering paints down, put them to the side and just do it, you wont look back!
Anyway so thats another reason Im finding the Vallejo paints to be better than GW, because they come in a handy bottle with a dropper, so you don't have to waste loads of paint trying to pour just a few drops of paint onto your palette, as I find happens with GW paints. Quality of the paint is comparable if not better and to top it all they are cheaper.

Having said that I'm still a bit disappointed that my Fiancees DSLR Nikon camera and lens are just too good and my photos are picking up things you just can't see with the naked eye .... LOL so Im thinking off using my own standard Digital camera.

Anyway I've started painting Hamelin now, before I get back to Seamus's crew, as he was actually my first model and a gift from my Fiancee.