One year after respawning

Somehow, it has been a year.

Last September, I started Respawn at Midnight as a place to write about the games and hobbies occupying far too much space in my head and, increasingly, my shelves. I didn't really know what the blog would become. I simply wanted somewhere to record games, talk about decks and crews, explore the lore behind them and occasionally investigate questions that no reasonable person had actually asked. Twelve months later, I think that last category may have become more important than originally intended.

A year of Eternal Struggle

VTES has undoubtedly become the heart of the blog. When I started writing, I was still relatively new to the game. Since then there have been new decks, tournaments, experiments, victories, spectacular failures and an alarming increase in the number of vampires living in my house.

The clans have taken me in different directions. The Ventrue appealed to the part of me that believes every supernatural conspiracy could be improved with proper governance and a sufficiently organised board meeting. The Tremere encouraged experiments, research and an entirely reasonable amount of staring at deck lists. Then came the Hecata, and apparently somewhere along the way I decided that the obvious solution to most Methuselah-related problems was necromancy.

There have been tournaments too. I was in Cambridge, made a final in Bedford, travelled to Edinburgh for the Scottish National Championship, experimented with decks ahead of the UK Nationals and spent a significant amount of time deciding what to bring. The Hecata eventually won that particular internal struggle, only for illness to keep both me and my carefully prepared corpses at home when Nationals finally arrived.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part, though, has been introducing other people to the game. Friends have joined our tables, decks have been built and rebuilt, and I've discovered the peculiar satisfaction of designing a Salubri deck for someone else only to have them use it to oust me. Task failed successfully.

Through the Breach

VTES hasn't been the only game appearing here.

My journey into Malifaux has continued as well, although opportunities to actually play remain frustratingly rare. I've taken crews through the Breach, learned the rules one mistake at a time and slowly expanded the collection.

There have been battles involving Kastore and Seamus, teaching games with Dashel Barker and the Guard, and Titania's attempt to conquer a small western town. That particular invasion ended when the local authorities introduced the Autumn Queen to rifles and an Executioner. She'll be back!

Malifaux has also given me an excuse to paint more, not just crews, but scenery. Some of that has even turned into a family project, with my daughter helping me prepare terrain before games. There is something particularly satisfying about putting a newly painted piece onto the table and immediately having imaginary people fight around it.

Experiments, rabbit holes and other questionable research

Some posts have been harder to categorise. We've looked at new cards and upcoming releases. I've written about the changing World of Darkness and what Vampire: The Masquerade Sixth Edition might mean for both the RPG and VTES. I've experimented with deck building, compared tournament results and occasionally wandered into statistics.

At one point my daughter helped me sort vampire cards alphabetically, which naturally resulted in me writing software to investigate why there seemed to be so many vampires whose names begin with A. As any respectable Tremere will tell you, research does not need to be useful to be important.

Looking back, the blog has ended up becoming a mixture of game reports, deck building, lore, opinion pieces, painting, statistics and whatever other hobby-related question happens to send me down a rabbit hole that week.

There is, however, one conspicuous absence.

In my very first post, I said that Respawn at Midnight would also be a place where I'd write about my computer gaming adventures. One year later, the number of computer game articles published stands proudly at...zero.

It's not because I stopped playing computer games. Quite the opposite. There have been plenty of digital adventures over the past year; somehow, whenever it came time to write, vampires, card games and tiny painted people kept pushing their way to the front of the queue.

Perhaps that should change. I'd happily write about the games I'm playing, old favourites I keep returning to, interesting discoveries and whatever digital world happens to consume my evenings. I just don't know whether that's something people coming here for VTES and Malifaux would actually want to read.

Which brings me rather conveniently to you.

What do you want to read?

As Respawn at Midnight enters its second year, I'm curious about what you actually enjoy reading here.

I know which articles I enjoy writing, but blogs are strange creatures. Sometimes the article you spend days researching quietly disappears into the internet, while something you wrote because you were wondering why there aren't enough vampires called Wilhelmina gets considerably more attention than expected.

So I'd love to hear from you.

Over the past year, the blog has covered (or, in one notable case, promised to cover) topics such as:

• VTES game and tournament reports – stories from actual tables, including the questionable decisions made around them.

• VTES deck building and experiments – building decks, changing strategies and discovering whether the theory survives contact with another Methuselah.

• Clans, cards and playstyles – exploring different clans, interesting cards and what makes particular strategies appealing.

• New VTES cards and releases – first impressions, ratings and thoughts about where new cards might fit.

• VTES statistics and strange investigations – tournament numbers, card data and questions nobody realised needed answering.

• Vampire: The Masquerade and World of Darkness – lore, RPG changes and what developments such as V6 could mean for VTES.

• Malifaux game reports – adventures through the Breach as I learn different crews and introduce new players.

• Malifaux crews and tactics – what I'm learning about Masters, crews and how they actually work once the cards start flipping.

• Painting, miniatures and terrain – hobby projects that eventually make their way onto the gaming table.

• Teaching games and introducing friends to the hobby – what happens when unsuspecting people encounter VTES or Malifaux for the first time.

• Computer games – my adventures on the PC, currently represented by an impressive collection of zero articles.

• General hobby stories and experiments – everything else that somehow turns into an article.

So consider this my first, extremely informal, reader survey.

What would you like to see more of in year two? More battle reports? Deck-building experiments? Deeper dives into clans and cards? More Malifaux? World of Darkness lore? Painting and hobby projects? More completely unnecessary statistics?

And importantly: would you be interested in reading about the computer games I'm playing as well?

Leave a comment, send me a message on Discord, hire a magician to project your preferences onto the night sky, whatever method you choose, just let me know what you'd like to read more of. I can't promise the results will be analysed with anything resembling proper scientific methodology, but rest assured that the Tremere Research Department will record every response, regardless of whether it arrives by comment, Discord or blood ritual.

A year ago, I started this blog without really knowing where it would go. Since then I've met players, travelled to tournaments, introduced friends to games I love, painted tiny monsters, summoned an unreasonable number of zombies and written about all of it.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to read, comment, share a post or simply follow along. It's been considerably more fun knowing there are people on the other side of the screen.

Year two begins here.

The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.

Custodian Hargrave

A weekend in torpor

For weeks, the crypt was prepared. The deck was sleeved, the final adjustments made, and my Hecata were ready to leave their resting places for the UK VTES National Championship. Unfortunately, somewhere between all that careful preparation and tournament day, my immune system decided to launch a successful bleed action of its own. I got ill and (with considerable reluctance) had to stay home.

Twenty-five Methuselahs gathered without me, and from everything I've seen and heard, they had a fantastic weekend of combat, politics, unlikely alliances and carefully timed betrayals. I won't pretend I wasn't devastated to miss it. This was the tournament I had been looking forward to for months, and watching it unfold from afar was a particularly cruel form of torpor.

Still, Methuselahs have one advantage over ordinary mortals: patience. The Hecata have returned to their crypt, the deck remains ready, and there will be other tables. 

The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.

Custodian Hargrave

The Autumn Queen flies West

There aren't many opportunities for me to play Malifaux, so whenever one appears, I have developed a very sophisticated decision-making process: I say yes.

A new gaming club recently opened nearby, offering tables for local players, so obviously we had to investigate. When we arrived, the place was already busy with D&D adventurers, Star Wars: Legion armies and the distant thunder of Warhammer 40K. We, however, had brought something different. A box of strange miniatures, several decks of cards, an unreasonable amount of scenery and everything else required to briefly open the Breach in an otherwise perfectly respectable gaming club.

This time I was joined by Aaron and his son, Isaac, neither of whom had played Malifaux before. My first challenge therefore wasn't tactical at all: I had to decide which crew to give them. I eventually settled on the Guard. Dashel Barker, riflemen, mounted officers and an Executioner seemed like the perfect introduction, particularly because I suspected the western law-enforcement  theme would appeal to them. I wasn't wrong.

For myself, I had something rather less civilised planned. Over the previous few weeks I had been painting Titania and her Fae, and although the crew wasn't completely finished (several bases were still awaiting attention) I was far too impatient to leave them at home. The Autumn Queen was finally going to war.

Before any fighting could begin, however, Malifaux demanded its traditional sacrifice: fifteen minutes spent arranging tiny buildings until everyone agreed that the table looked suitably dramatic. Our western saloon took centre stage, joined by the nook and market, while abandoned houses, fences and a broken-down cart filled the surrounding streets. By the time we finished, it looked exactly like the sort of peaceful frontier settlement where absolutely nothing terrible was about to happen. Then Titania arrived.

Because this was primarily a teaching game, I built Aaron a straightforward Guard crew: Dashel Barker, the Dispatcher, an Executioner, a Mounted Guard, a Sergeant and two Riflemen. At around thirty Soulstones, it offered enough variety to demonstrate different mechanics without requiring Aaron to study an organisational chart of the entire Guild before his first activation.

My own crew consisted of Titania, the Erymanthian Boar, Ithanna, a Carnivorous Wyrdwood, a Rougarou and two Bultungin. I had read the cards. I had considered the synergies. I had even formed some vague strategic ideas. This naturally meant I was completely prepared to discover that I had misunderstood half of them.

We kept the encounter deliberately simple. The main goal was to teach duels, positive and negative flips, Cheating Fate, movement and the basics of Malifaux's action economy. We played Plant Explosives as the Strategy but left Schemes out entirely. There would be plenty of time for secret objectives later. For now, learning how to shoot an ancient Fae creature seemed complicated enough.

Deployment immediately revealed our different philosophies. Aaron positioned his Guard conservatively, forming something resembling an actual defensive force. I did the opposite. The Carnivorous Wyrdwood went as far forward as possible, while the Rougarou started near the edge of the battlefield ready to sprint into enemy territory. The Fae apparently considered subtlety optional. Then the battle began.

Dashel started barking orders (yes, I am absolutely taking that pun) while one Rifleman climbed to the first floor of the saloon and established a firing position overlooking the street. Dashel himself advanced towards the centre alongside the Executioner, creating a rather intimidating welcoming committee. I suddenly became considerably more interested in careful positioning. I didn't yet know how durable Titania's crew would be, but I knew perfectly well what happens when Guard models carrying enormous weapons get close enough to demonstrate their job descriptions.

The first turn was therefore mostly a dance for position. There were a few minor clashes, but both crews concentrated on spreading across the town and planting explosives. My more aggressive deployment paid off and I managed to place two explosives in Aaron's half while the Guard planted one in mine. The opening score was 1–0 to the Fae.

For a brief moment, everything was going according to plan. Turn Two corrected that misunderstanding.

The Executioner and Dashel descended upon my Erymanthian Boar and proceeded to transform it from a terrifying mythical beast into what I can only assume became several reasonably priced cuts of meat. Meanwhile, the Riflemen opened fire on Titania herself from across the town, while the Sergeant and Mounted Guard quietly got on with the actual objective and started planting explosives.

My Fae responded with the sort of card flips that make you wonder whether Fate has developed a personal grievance. Attacks failed, opportunities disappeared and the Guard continued advancing. Ithanna, at least, provided one particularly entertaining moment by using Lacerating Roots to lash out at several nearby Guard models at once. There is something very Malifaux-y about watching uniformed enforcers discover that the local vegetation has become actively hostile.

By the end of Turn Two, both crews had three explosives planted, earning us one victory point each. The score was now 2–1, but the battlefield was beginning to tell a rather different story.

By Turn Three, the Guard had apparently decided that it was time to address the fairy infestation directly. Both of my Bultungin were killed, leaving me three models down overall. The Sergeant and Mounted Guard began removing my explosives with the calm efficiency of council workers cleaning up after a particularly supernatural festival, while Dashel, the Executioner and one Rifleman continued applying pressure in the centre.

Titania fought back by spreading Underbrush Markers across the battlefield, trying to divide the Guard and control their movement. At one particularly important moment, the terrain helped prevent the Executioner from reaching Ithanna, which probably saved her from joining the Boar in the rapidly expanding casualty department. The Autumn Queen was finally beginning to reshape the battlefield around her. Unfortunately, the Guard had guns. And numbers. And an Executioner.

By the end of Turn Three, Aaron had managed to plant four explosives on my side of the table while I had only two remaining on his. That earned him the final point and brought the score to 2–2.

We didn't have enough time to play the fourth turn, so that was where our little invasion of Malifaux ended. Officially, it was a draw. Unofficially, considering I was already three models down and the Guard were steadily dismantling my position, I suspect another turn would have ended with Dashel filing a very confident report explaining how law and order had been successfully restored.

But winning wasn't really the point.

Aaron and Isaac got their first taste of Malifaux, learned the core mechanics and seemed to genuinely enjoy commanding the Guard. I finally got Titania onto the table after weeks of painting her crew and began learning how the Fae actually function outside the comforting theoretical world of reading stat cards. We made mistakes, discovered interactions and watched a little story bloom naturally from the game.

An ancient Neverborn Queen emerged from the wilderness, leading beasts and twisted creatures into a dusty frontier settlement. The Fae crept through the streets, strange forests began growing where they had no business growing, and explosives appeared around the town. Then the local brute gathered his men. The rifles came out, the streets filled with gunfire, and Titania discovered that conquering Malifaux is considerably easier when the town doesn't have an Executioner waiting in the middle of it. Will the Queen return? We shall certainly see. One failed invasion is hardly enough to discourage the Autumn Queen, and I strongly suspect her plans for this little frontier town are far from over.

The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.

Custodian Hargrave