My experience with the Malifaux world series: a journey (part1- Preamble)




Oh hi. I didn’t see you there. You see, I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately. Work? No don’t be silly, I waste away all of my work hours thinking about Malifaux, and at the moment the specific object of my obsession is the Malifaux world series. 

I have decided in my hubris that maybe, just maybe I could have what it takes to wade into the deeper waters competitively despite being absolutely savaged by the shark infested feeding frenzy of the New Zealand meta when I journeyed there for their Nationals last year. 




So, considering my track record of winning games, the real question is why? To put it simply, I love playing Malifaux and being able to compete in an event with (now) over 60 players is a privilege that I’m simply not likely to get in-person anytime soon especially as meatspace community building is rough. Here is a meta I can join that I don’t have to work for, and more importantly at such a large event I’m hoping that after the first few rounds, player skill disparity will even out and my last 2-3 rounds should be versus opponents who match my player skill enough for us to have even games that can be hard won or (more likely)lost without feeling like one player or the other was hopelessly outclassed from the beginning.

It will also be nice to be able to engage in online community conversations and feel like I’ve got the same experience as my peers and with that foundation perhaps even have insight that if not valuable is at least relevant.

Now we have that established I guess I’d better address the second question; why on earth are you looking to write about it? 

That answer is a touch more complicated and its one I haven’t fully examined myself yet, seeing as the idea to write this came to me whilst I’m watching the clock waiting for round 1 pairing announcements. I guess it’s partly to kill the time seeing as the work I should be doing is sitting on my desk growing cobwebs but in my defence, I simply can’t concentrate on anything else right now anyway due to being both excited and nervous. We’ve established why I’m excited, but not so much why I’m nervous. Firstly, despite my local efforts at community building, I am quite socially anxious and I’m about to delve into an event where I have to interact with new people (terrifying!) and I’m also concerned that with my stupid southern hemisphere time-zones that I might not be able to honour my commitments and maybe even let people down (the most terrifying!). 




The thought of letting people down is probably one of the reasons why I’m writing this. Perhaps the added pressure I’m adding to myself by putting this out in the world will prevent me from bailing and letting you down, dear reader (all one of you). 

Now the never-ending preamble justifying the existence of this piece has ended I guess it’s time to talk about my journey so far. 

As I stated previously the event has not yet started. For posterity, the event I am joining is the first event of 2025 cleverly named “Good Anya Mate”. Seeing as official games have not yet begun, there isn’t much to discuss as of yet, however I have managed to play the pool for round 1 four times in the past 2 weeks, twice on vassal with the map in question, and twice in meatspace with my friend Liam (of Azahul fame: heres a link to his latest contribution so you can read about an actually good player- https://beardfaux.blogspot.com/2025/01/half-blood-half-asylum-doctor-silas.html ) 

My goal going in to this event is, I think both realistic and humble. If I can get in the top 30 (again, out of 60) I'll be happy. 

The first time I got to play the pool was with my Jacob Lynch Dark Bet crew that I’d been running since New Zealand to have a “break” from complicated play (it was very complicated). This first time I really took nothing interesting away and to be honest can barely remember the game except that I lost (which is understandable considering my opponent was the inestimable Mikael of New Zealand)

However, since then, I’ve decided I wanted to run a specific master in the event (good chance if you’ve read my other blogs, you already know who) and this weekend just gone Liam was kind enough to play the same pool back-to-back with me in meatspace. 

We’ll talk more about the pool after I’ve played the official round 1, but we stumbled in our discussions post game 2 onto a list that should hopefully be able to play the pool quite well, but we didn’t have time to test it. 

Luckily for me I was able to secure one final practice game yesterday against Pete (from Rage Quit Wire) and the list performed admirably. 

The difference in confidence that I have from 1 practice game to 4 is so very much. I don’t think I’ve ever practiced the same pool more than once in a row for an event and it is a drug. I’m just hoping that the weekly schedule of the event allows me to get enough practice games in each round to keep my confidence at the same level going in. 

If I win my first round, I’ll be very happy with the work I’ve put in, and if I lose I’m confident it will be because my opponent outplayed me, not because I made critical mistakes in the piloting of my crew. Either way I’m hoping I come out happy, and I look forward to being able to report as such. 

Lance out.

EDIT- Part 2 here: https://beardfaux.blogspot.com/2025/01/my-experience-with-malifaux-world_16.html

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