Avatar Zoraida vs. Lilith, 35 Stones

Headed out to the Huzzah Hobbies last night to get a couple of games in. I had painted up my Avatar Pandora and Candy over the weekend, so I wanted to give them a try too, and wanted to give Avatar Zoraida another swing. I was pretty sure I would get two games in so I decided to figure out my strategies before deciding which direction to go. Here’s the first of them, and if I get a chance, I’ll post up the second.

GAME ONE - 35 STONES - aZORAIDA vs. LILITH
Zoraida w/ Avatar, 7 Stones
Collodi
Marionette x4
Wicked Doll
Stitched Together
Lelu


Lilith, 8 Stones
Mature Nephilim
Younger Nephilim
Black Blood Shaman
Terror Tot x3

Strategy: Destroy the Evidence (Zoraida) vs. Reconnoiter (Lilith)
Zoraida Schemes: Reclaim Malifaux, Bodyguard (Zoraida)
Lilith Schemes: Bodyguard, Assassinate

The terrain was one of Bill’s fixed boards set up with a fenced-in cemetery in the middle of the board and then a lot of ruins all along the outside of that. There were not a lot of places to completely block LOS, so we added in a few more pieces of terrain – more ruins. I deployed first in standard deployment and set up where I could grab the back three Reclaim Malifaux points quickly and then start moving out. My plan was to get Zoraida to manifest and then control the center of the board with Lelu and the Stitched Together while Collodi jumped all around grabbing all the points I needed. Lilith deployed along his deployment zone – I reminded my opponent to keep his key pieces out of LOS of Zoraida if he did not want to risk being Obeyed on turn one.

I apologize ahead of time – I don’t remember a lot of the specifics of activation order and the like. I’ll do my best to reconstruct what I can.

TURN ONE - LILITH INITIATIVE
The first turn was fairly basic early on. The Tots started moving up, and the Younger flew forward, keeping himself out of sight. I was at a problem, though. I needed a 7 of Masks for my Hex on Lelu to work, and I needed a 10 of Masks to get Crystal Ball to work. My high card in my hand was a 6, and I had a 5 and 4 of Masks to work with.

I had my Lelu, a Marionette, and the Stitched all move up and grab the back three Reclaim Malifaux points. I kept trying to cast spells with everyone I could to see if I could unbury a high mask to use with Bayou Two-Card, but that wasn’t working.

One of my Marionettes activated, moved up and then pulled strings to get Collodi near the middle fence of the cemetery to try to grab another Reclaim Malifaux point. My next Marionette jumped to him and grabbed the middle point, and the last Marionette jumped to him, moved out and grabbed the middle-right Malifaux point, giving me five points at the first turn.

Of course, things couldn’t be that good. Lilith moved up and Companioned the Mature Nephilim. She Transpositioned the Mature with a Tot near the cemetery and then put up an Illusionary Forest to hold off my Collodi group. The Mature Nephilim charged and killed two of my Marionettes. Collodi activated and used one of the Scrap Tokens to create a new Marionette, and then tried to give him Melee Expert, but my hand was pretty bad. I still had not unburied a high mask.

My new Marionette activated and attacked the Mature, doing one wound to him. Finally, Zoraida activated. I tried to cast Crystal Ball, figuring if I could succeed at that, I might get lucky and dig up what I needed for Hex. I tossed my 5 of Masks to cheat the spell, and then burned a Soulstone needing a 5 of any suit. I flipped a 3, failing. F---. So I cast Hex on Lelu, tossing my 4 of Masks and burning another Soulstone, this time needing only a 3. I flipped a 12 of Masks. At least one of my spells went off. I was already behind on Manifesting, though. I needed to catch up. With my last action, I Obeyed Lelu to move forward to get ready to grab another Reclaim Malifaux point.


TURN TWO - ZORAIDA INITIATIVE
I drew my hand of cards again and this time had an 8 high, and no Masks. Zoraida really did not want to Manifest.

So I had a Mature in my face and had to deal with it quick. To that end, I activated Collodi. I probably should have made my dolls fast, but I didn’t want to sit without four Marionettes very long, so I had him create the fourth Marionette. He then Breathed Life into two of them and pulled up Melee Expert. Finally, he said the Stitched was going to activate after him. He closed out his turn and activated the Marionettes. All four of them went to town on the Mature and finally the last attack from the last Marionette hit the Red Joker for damage and did the last four wounds to the Mature. I had the Stitched left to go so he moved up a bit and popped smoke to try to hide more of my crew.

Two of the Tots sprinted in on one of my Marionettes and together killed him, and then Lilith rushed in and killed off two more of my Marionettes leaving Collodi with one bodyguard. It wasn’t looking good. Meanwhile my remaining crew - a Wicked Doll, Zoraida and Lelu – decided they’d need to pick up the slack from the Collodi crew. I Obeyed Lelu to move up but he wasn’t in the right section of the board when he hit the Reclaim Malifaux. Zoraida turned into a bird and flew over near the Younger Nephilim and the Wicked Doll snapped to her and tagged the final middle point. I had the three back points to grab plus my three Destroy the Evidence markers.

The Younger Nephilim decided not to try to take on Zoraida and the Wicked Doll and pushed back to the middle of the board to protect the Destroy the Evidence markers.

With Collodi not long for this world and not drawing a good enough hand for Crystal Ball two turns in a row, I decided to abandon my initial plan and try a new strategy: use regular Zoraida’s speed with the Wicked Doll to grab all my objectives and use the Stitched Together and Lelu to hunt as many models as I could to deny him Reconnoiter.


TURN THREE - LILITH INITIATIVE
Damn. I had a plan to get Collodi and the Marionettes to kill the two nearby Terror Tots but instead Lilith goes first. She kills the last Marionette, then hits Collodi and her Greatsword gives her the straight flip for damage. She cheats in a Red Joker and flips a moderate for 10 wounds. I spend a stone to prevent (I really wanted to make sure Lilith would have to spend her last action on Collodi – I didn’t want her with one more AP out there) and he managed to flip a moderate to leave him at 1 life remaining. With her last action, Lilith swapped off Collodi’s head.

My Stitched Together moved up and Gambled his Life with a Terror Tot, killing it. His Black Blood moved up and gave his Younger Nephilim Flurry, but there was nothing close enough. He started moving towards the side of the cemetery with all the corpses from the Mature, no doubt trying to fuel his unnatural ways! His Younger activated and repositioned a bit, keeping an eye on Lelu. Zoraida activated and Obeyed Lelu to move closer, then turned into a raven, moved to the first evidence marker and destroyed it. My Wicked Doll snapped to her and activated the terrain for Reclaim Malifaux. Lelu charged the Younger and missed, then hit for 2 wounds and 2 poison. His two Terror Tots rushed Lelu but one was too far out and the other wasn’t able to hit him.


TURN FOUR - ZORAIDA INITIATIVE
I started out with Lelu attacking the Younger and knocking him down to two wounds left and two poison, then turned around and knocked the Tot to two wounds left and two poison, then tried to move away to avoid any retaliation, but the Tot held me in place. His Black Blood Shaman went and pulled his Nephilim towards him, then healed the Younger for two. Damn, I forgot about that ability. Should’ve finished him off!

Zoraida Obeyed Lelu to charge the Younger and kill him, marking off one of my Manifest requirements. Oops. I wasn’t meaning to do that since my whole plan was not to be an avatar this game at this point. No worries – as long as I didn’t cast Crystal Ball anymore, I wouldn’t need to worry about it until the final turn. Zoraida then double-moved to the far side of the board and the Wicked Doll snapped to her and took care of the Evidence Marker there.

Lilith dropped a forest on the Stitched Together, keeping him in place a bit, and then moved towards the middle to Lelu. She attacked him but didn’t kill him.


TURN FIVE - ZORAIDA INITIATIVE
I could Manifest pretty easily, but still didn’t want to. I needed Zoraida’s speed. I started with Lelu and went for the Black Blood Shaman, knocking him down a bit. Lilith went and murdered Lelu.

I Obeyed the Stitched to move more and then moved Zoraida to the middle of the back end. Lilith and the Black Blood were too close to the Evidence Marker for me to be able to grab it. The last Terror Tot charged Zoradia, but missed. The Wicked Doll snapped in and grabbed the last Malifaux point. My Stitched Advanced on the Lilith/Black Blood.


TURN SIX - LILITH INITIATIVE
I paid my last soulstone not to Manifest. I didn’t want to lose my (-) flips on his attacks – I thought they’d keep me safer than Irresistible would.

Lilith charged Zoradia and missed the first attack, but hit the second knocking her down by 6 life. Ouch! Zoraida activated and Obeyed the Tot to charge the nearly-dead Black Blood. Lilith tried to stop the Tot and managed to. I cheated the attack so that it was a double-negative flip for damage, making it a straight negative. I didn’t want him to cheat the damage in case I got lucky. I did. Two moderates came up and Lilith killed her own Tot. Zoradia made a new Wicked Doll.

The Stitched moved up and used Gamble Your Life on the Shaman. It managed to turn it around on the Stitched and flipped two Severes on a (-) flip, killing it. That worked out well for me – if I could kill the Shaman on my first action, I could use my second to activate the last Destroy Evidence marker. Unfortunately it took both actions to kill the Shaman.

I flipped to see if the game ended and it did.

Zoraida had 2 from Destroy the Evidence, 2 from Bodyguard and 2 from Reclaim Malifaux.
Lilith had 0 from Reconnoiter, 2 from Bodyguard, and 0 from Assassinate.

6-2 Victory. Had the game gone on another turn, I don’t think Zoraida would have survived and it would have become a 4-4 tie.


This game showed me a bit more about Avatars. The idea that they are more powerful than their counterparts is simply not true. In some ways, they are. Avatar Zoraida gets more actions and can do more to control the game than regular Zoraida, but that didn’t matter as much in this game when compared with the ability regular Zoraida has to move around the board quickly. I ended up having to hold off manifesting simply because I needed to keep the maneuverability and defensive superiority of regular Zoraida. I feel strongly that had I manifested in this game, I would not have won.

And that’s okay with me. I like the idea that Avatars are not always the best move. But in the end, it’s interesting to me that I spent four soulstones over the course of the game related to my Avatar and ended up not manifesting (two to purchase at the beginning, one to try – and fail – to cast Crystal Ball on turn one, and one to prevent my automatic manifest on turn 6).