Last night I headed to the store and got a game in against a local who I haven't played in about a year. It was great to see him out again. I have been playing Outcasts up until the Blood Shaman and Nekima are released in a couple weeks, and I know Tim plays Outcasts too, so I asked him if he was planning on the Viktorias. He was, so I picked Hamelin instead so we wouldn't have a mirror match.It was Tim's first time facing Hamelin since he was released, so he was still a little rusty on what all Hamelin could do. I tried to explain as much of it as I could, and he did a decent job at mitigating a lot of what I could do by keeping himself out of LOS on the way up.
(me) Hamelin, Obedient Wretch, Stolen x3, Malifaux Rat x4, Nix, Rat Catcher, 4 stones
(Tim) Viktoria, Student of Conflict, Von Schill, Ronin x2, Freikorps Librarian, 6 stones
Strategy: Hamelin (Reconnoiter), Viktoria (Claim Jump)
Schemes: Hamelin (Bodyguard, Steal Relic), Viktoria (Stake a Claim, Frame for Murder - Librarian)
The Claim Jump marker is set next to the piece of terrain Tim picks for Stake a Claim - pretty standard. If you've got to stand there already, why not get six points for it? Since I knew he was going to come for that spot, I set my army mostly up near the marker and then put a Stolen on each of the flanks, both for Reconnoiter and to help for my Hamelin insurance policies.
TURN ONE
The first turn saw a little bit of action. As usual, I held off on activating Hamelin until near the end so that I could see if anyone presented themselves as a target for my Understand the Soulless early. While my rat swarm moved up around the Claim Jump marker and one of my Stolen moved into position to be sacrificed to Hamelin for Understand the Soulless, Von Schill jumped out, leveled his gun, and shot the poor kid between the eyes. A new rat popped out for my dead kid. Hamelin moved up, brought up a new Stolen, and then promptly sacrificed it to zap Von Schill with Understand the Soulless, making him Insignificant. I was up to six rats now, and Nix made a few of them reposition when the Stolen was sacrificed. The Gun Viktoria moved in on one of the rats that was outside of 6", attacked him and missed, decided it wasn't worth the effort, and then moved away back behind cover.
TURN TWO
I could see the Viktorias moving up slowly but hiding behind terrain a bit on their way forward. I knew they'd be coming in strong at some point, so I wanted to mitigate as much of their attack as I could. Fortunately they were split up so they could not companion. There was a little positioning going on as Tim was trying to force me to activate some of my other models first, but I was going with my out-of-the-way Stolen to make him come at me. Finally a Ronin came in on the Malifaux Rat out in the middle with no support. He flipped low but was hitting, so I cheated a low card to make sure he missed me. There was a 12 or so on the top of my discard pile, so if he cheated, he knew I was getting a high card in my hand. He decided the Rat wasn't worth it and called it a miss. The Rat went next, attacked, hit the Ronin, then flipped the Red Joker and a Moderate for damage, dealing 4 damage, giving her Rabies, and a Blight Token. Not bad for a little throw-away.
Von Schill moved up and took a shot at the Rat Catcher, knocking him down by three. The Rat Swarm took its turn and moved up on Von Schill and just started gnawing on him. By the first go around, he had been hit three times for three Blight Counters, five damage, and Rabies. Gun Viki moved up and bounced the Sword Viki up near Hamelin. Hamelin went, summoned a Stolen, then sacrificed the Stolen to try to Understand the Soulless on the Sword Viki. He stoned to resist. Nix used his (0) from the Stolen being sacrificed to pull the rats back to the Rat Catcher. Hamelin's second use of Understand the Soulless worked and Sword Viki was made insignificant. She killed some Rats to draw some cards at that point. The new Rats activated and did a little more damage, and then the Rat Catcher killed them all, bringing in new ones. They swarmed in again and killed Von Schill and started working on the Sword Viki. Nix rushed in and tried to hit the Sword Viktoria, but missed. Oh, and one of my rats managed to steal the Relic from Gun Viktoria. Ha!
TURN THREE
The Viktorias got the initiative and both of them went first. The Sword Viktoria cast Sisters in Battle for the extra flip, killed Nix, and brought the Gun Viktoria up next to Hamelin. She went and started swinging, Whirlwinding into the Rat Catcher, then back into Hamelin, then hitting Hamelin twice more to kill him. The rats all went and killed the Sword Viktoria and started working on the Gun Viktoria. A ronin rushed in and killed the Rat with the Relic while a second one moved in on the building for Stake a Claim. The Rat Catcher killed all the Rats to heal up and brought up a new swarm. I activated that swarm, sacrificed three of my nine rats for a new Rat Catcher, and the others started working on the Gun Viktoria and Ronin. We called the game there as I was going to kill both of them this turn, leaving him with only the Librarian left.
It was the first game I'd seen Hamelin die in, though no surprise given who I was facing. I knew I had to get the Vikis Insignificant as fast as possible, but with their bouncing, I didn't think I'd be able to get them both. In the end, though, the Rats and Hamelin were able to pull it out again.
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