I managed not to notice Bigger Better Games, a local shop, until more than a year after they opened. When I finally did stop in, it seemed that their Malifaux hadn’t been moving too quickly, so it was being offered at 40% off. I couldn’t resist, and picked up some beasties to play with my small Tara crew. Then the boxes sat in the queue for half a year before I got around to them.

The Desolation Engine ended up with some nasty seams running down the center of the arms, but I was mostly able to clean them up. I’m pretty pleased with the flesh tones (achieved with an offwhite base and SW Sepia wash), and especially the sores around the implants.

Since killing the Desolation Engine causes Abominations to pop out, I had to get them too. This violated one of my guiding principals to Malifaux purchasing: don’t buy minions outside of crew boxes. But it seemed like if I ever wanted to go with Leveticus I might want more than the four Aboms anyway, due to all the summoning that can happen. So I took the plunge. They each have their own character, which is a lot of fun. I kept similar colors with the Desolation Engine, and greens to coordinate with the void creatures in the Tara crew.

In one of the few games that I’ve played with the Desolation Engine, I was able to surprise my opponent by charging my own damaged Engine, killing it to summon two Abominations, other opposite sides of a table quarter line, giving me points for both in Recon. Score one for attacking your own guys.

Now I’ve got a bunch of big Outcast hitters (Desolation Engine, plus Killjoy, Bishop, Aionus, and the Nothing Beast), I’m feeling a real lack of mid-point models.