Malifaux Global Campaign, Relicblade Expansion and More

So by happy coincidence there is not one but two significant gaming goings on just at the right time for my newly founded blog to focus on; the Divergent Paths global Malifaux campaign and (as I mentioned in my introductory post) Metal King Studio's announcement of a Relicblade expansion going up on Kickstarter.

The first then is Wyrd miniatures global campaign for Malifaux which began yesterday (12/09/16) and will last until the 20th of November.

I am a big fan of Malifaux, so much so that when I went travelling for six months I took the starter set in a small pencil case with me, so I could play with my Fiancee on the road. Unfortunately due to going away and being very unsettled since I got back I don't get to play as much as I'd like. Although the game is growing, finding regular Malifaux nights (particularly when you can't drive and live in Cornwall) is still not the easiest thing to do so I'm going to use the campaign as the boost I need to play more games and get more painting done, as I have also ground to a halt with that over the last month.

I look forward to seeing how altered these three are by the end of the campaign! Mechanical limbs anyone?

Now, on to the campaign itself! Divergent Paths places the fates of three characters, namely a man, woman and child, newly arrived through the breach into Malifaux, into the players hands. Every two weeks (on a Monday) Wyrd releases a new story encounter for each of these characters for players to...play. Players can only play each encounter once for a total of three Divergent Paths games every two weeks and the faction which wins each character's encounter overall will grant that character a new skill or attribute based on that faction, which the character will take forward. At the end of the campaign each of the characters will be made into actual models by Wyrd, their stats and abilities will be based on what happened to them during the campaign and each character will join whichever faction got the most wins for them (with provisions in place to stop one faction getting all the characters).

Whew - I hope that makes some sort of sense. If not, head over to the official website where you can find all the information above and more (including how to log your winnings) just put more succinctly. The first of the story encounters are up and available for free here I'll have a read through the tomorrow and put together a quick post on my thoughts.

I haven't decided yet what faction I am going to play for Divergent Paths. Between my fiancee, Ash, and me we've got Neverborn, Ten Thunders and Arcanist crews so whether I pick one and stick with it or do a mix up we shall see. I also haven't decided how best to cover the event, I don't own enough scenery to make a really exciting gaming board and a lot of our models are still grey so I cant see it being a particularly thrilling read. Possibly I will just give the highlights of our three games with a few pictures and a mini review of the different encounters but we shall see.

To Relicblade then, and a new expansion set to the core game. This is the announcement from Sean Sutter of Metal King Studio late last week that a new Kickstarter expansion, Bone and Darkness will be starting on the 15th of October. Since my copy arrived about a month ago I have been really enjoying Relicblade, the rules are clear and the games are quick and brutal, but what really makes this game stand out is the models. Sean is the illustrator and creator of Relicblade and I think it is obvious that as a modeller he is going from strength to strength so I am excited to see what this next Kickstarter will bring.

Bone Minion #1

So far what we know for certain is that the bad-ass Dark Wanderer model is being released for general sale (until now it was only available as a stretch goal to backers of the original Kickstarter campaign), and it wouldn't be a monstrous leader for the adversary side without a couple of bone minions for it to boss around. We've got some work in progress renders of the minions and they are already looking great. There is also a new ten card booster set including six new upgrades, many of which I'm guessing will boost the Dark Wanderer for some unique loadouts. Whilst that is about it for information at this time, Sean has also promised some new heroes for the path of the advocate to field against the growing roster of monstrosities. Again this is another educated guess but I would expect to see the Ranger/Fighter model featured on Beasts of War last month to make an appearance during the campaign.

...and his friend with a terrible case of club arm.

Over the next month on the lead up to the campaign I have a few posts planned for Relicblade, the first is a review of the two player box set which was pretty much already written before I found out about Bone and Darkness which you should see up this week. I also want to do a post on kitbashing the Pig Men from the starter set as the sprues come with plenty of weapon options available and it is easy to create some cool and unique looking piggy's. Not sure when these pictures will see the light of day on the blog - I'm still learning how to use my quite fancy camera! If anyone's got any help or advice regarding photographing minis, lightboxes and such, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please drop me a comment. Also if anyone has any particular topic you want me to cover,  let me know. I have a few more articles planned/part written including my view on the current state of tabletop miniatures gaming (quick spoiler, it is more optimistic than many might think!), I've also started penning an article about gender parity in model games and again, I feel like positive strides are being made of late, with some notable exceptions (looking at you Hasslefree). But more on that later.

Until next time, thanks for reading and take care.

Jenton.

All pictures are the rights of Wyrd and Metal King Studio respectively.