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