Now that Kirai's crew is all painted up, I got to put her out for the first game (I did borrow Dan's crew once before to try her out, but this is the first time I used my own models). Brian and I stopped by Huzzah with his son, Ben, in tow. Ben spent the afternoon building his own towns out of terrain while we fought against each other for supremacy.
We had time for only one game, so we went with 35 stones. I flipped Turf War and Brian flipped Destroy Evidence. Our terrain was Diagonal.
Crew: Kirai, Lost Love, 3x Seishin, Jack Daw, Insidious Madness, Datsu-ba, Desperate Merc, Canine Remain, 6 stones
Strategy: Turf War
Schemes: Breakthrough, Assassinate
Crew: Hoffman, Mechanical Attendant, Peacekeeper, Guardian, Large Steampunk Arachnid, 2x Watcher, 8 stones
Strategy: Destroy the Evidence
Schemes: Breakthrough, Stake a Claim
Brian put his eggs in one basket tossing the Stake a Claim terrain piece in my deployment zone. Getting it would likely mean getting both that and Breakthrough.
I took Breakthrough because I figured I could summon a model close enough to his deployment zone late in the game if I needed to, and I was likely to outnumber him anyway. I also took Assassinate because I figured I wanted to see how much damage this crew could do and how better to do that than try to kill his master. Especially with Hoffman, since that usually meant I had to plow through several other models first.
We had a couple of unfortunate matchups. My Jack Daw was not going to do much to his Immune to Influence models, but on the flip side, Datsu-ba and Ikiryo would be better as they cut through his armor.
Our table was littered with small houses, walls, etc. There were very little long avenues with LOS. Against a normal Guild crew, that might be a bit more of an issue, but Brian's crew didn't rely as heavily on ranged attacks. This also let him hide the Evidence Markers and essentially leapfrog his Watchers behind cover to them.
TURN ONE - HOFFMAN INITIATIVE
This turn was pretty funny for me as I did just about everything possible to kill my Canine and Desperate Merc. I had the Merc activate, Defensive Stance, and then attack the Dog. The dog returned the favor. Then a Seishin gave the Lost Love a bonus to attack and it dropped the Desperate Merc by another wound. The Insidious Madness did some attacking and finally both were left at one wound remaining.
Meanwhile, Hoffman didn't do much. He moved out towards the center of the board with his crew sans the Watchers. Those two started flying the flanks to get to the Evidence markers.
Finally, Kirai activated, summoned an Ikiryo out about 5" from the Peacekeeper (I took the extra wound for that), then cast Into the Spirit World. She gave herself a healing flip and inched forward, staying near the two living models. Datsu-ba Weighed the Sins of both models, killing the Desperate Merc (which healed Kirai) and the Canine Remains. Weigh Sins brought out a Gaki with a Corpse token for each, and Kirai summoned two Seishin to bring her to full. Finally, Ikiryo moved up to the Peacekeeper and hit it for 2 Armor-ignoring wounds. He ended by bringing all my spirits 4" closer to the fight, and the Gaki each moved up behind him to get ready for the next turn.
TURN TWO - KIRAI INITIATIVE
Brian originally won with a 7 but I spent a stone and flipped a 7. We reflipped and I got the Red Joker, going first. Ikiryo started off and swung three times, hitting all three and killing off the Peacekeeper. I had to cheat my only Severe card in hand, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, I was left with a mitt-ful of cards 7 or under. Killing the Peacekeeper healed Kirai her last wounds so she was back to full.
The Large Steampunk Arachnid charged Ikiryo, but some good flips on my part kept Ikiryo at 1 wound left. I had my Insidious Madness double-move up to block one of the Evidence markers, but I was out by about 1/2". Brian activated Hoffman who Machine Puppet-ed the Large SPA to kill Ikiryo, then had the Guardian activate next. It moved up after one of the Gaki but couldn't attack it yet.
The Gaki both activated and swung ineffectively, but that was okay. Jack Daw zapped the Machine Puppet, making it ditch two cards for Heart Stopper. He was left with one card, and I had a bunch but nothing good. Jack Daw ended by putting up his no-cheating/no-stoning bubble, catching both the Guardian and Large SPA. Kirai stayed where she was and cast Into the Spirit World again. Luck had it that I flipped the Mask I needed. She summoned Ikiryo by using a Soulstone and a low Crow between the Large SPA and Guardian, then used a healing flip on herself and swapped the places of Datsu-ba and the Gaki in the front lines. No one up there could cheat anymore, but Datsu-ba and Ikiryo killed off the Guardian.
Brian's Watchers both moved after objectives. One was set to flip it the following turn, and the other one, near the Insidious Madness, was just out from destroying it this turn.
TURN THREE - KIRAI INITIATIVE
I had an 8 on my card, and Brian tried to stone into an initiative, but failed. I started with Ikiryo and killed off the Large Steampunk Arachnid leaving Brian without any more heavy-hitters. Brian activated his Watcher near the Insidious Madness and destroyed the objective, then moved around the building slightly. Datsu-ba walked through the house and attacked the Watcher but didn't do much. The Mechanical Attendant moved up to Hoffman, then moved on to the Watcher and brought Hoffman with him.
Ikiryo wasn't dead. Kirai couldn't resummon her. I know I could have had her swap places with a nearby minion, then eaten her and resummoned her, but that's a lot of actions. Plus I don't think I had the crow in hand to make sure it would work. Instead I had Jack Daw fly over near the scrum but did not put up his no-cheating bubble. I was afraid I'd catch Kirai in it. Kirai didn't really succeed in doing much this turn, but got herself positioned and healed up.
My Insidious Madness tried to get away from melee but couldn't, and the Watcher destroyed one of the objectives and moved on to the last one.
TURN FOUR - HOFFMAN INITIATIVE
The Watcher next to Hoffman took off and got away from my models trying to block him, carrying Hoffman out near Kirai. Kirai looked at the stack of 7 or 8 scrap tokens worriedly. I wasn't sure what Hoffman could do to me, and I wasn't sure what I could withstand, so I took no chances. Kirai went, sacrificed two of her Seishin to create a Shikome a bit farther away with Hoffman as its prey. Then I jumped into the Spirit World snapped to a Gaki farther away from Hoffman. Finally, I healed myself up and moved away from the Gaki, getting myself some separation.
The Mechanical Attendant tried to get away unsuccessfully and the Shikome moved towards Hoffman with Nimble, then charged him. With the extra action from gaining Fast near her prey, the Shikome dealt a good 2 wounds a two poison to Hoffman, and drained him of two stones. Hoffman had the Watcher Machine Puppet into the Shikome, but only dealt four wounds total thanks to Spirit.
My Insidious Madness ran onto the last objective point and the Watcher there tried to bash him a couple times, but was mostly ineffective. Only got one wound in the trade. Of course, my Insidious Madness didn't even get one wound against the Watcher with a couple of Bashes.
I moved Jack Daw towards Brian's Deployment Zone for Breakthrough, and brought the other models back. Except Datsu-ba. She managed to Weigh Sins on the Mechanical Attendant and make a third Gaki.
TURN FIVE - HOFFMAN INITIATIVE
Brian sent his Watcher near Hoffman over to Kirai, carrying Hoffman with him. I looked over the board and knew I could probably get Kirai away, but might risk leaving my Seishin behind to do it. Besides, with my Lost Love still alive, I felt in good shape. I had the Lost Love double-move out of sight of Hoffman in case Brian had some crazy plans that could kill both Kirai and the Lost Love.
Hoffman activated and I sacrificed one of my Seishin to make sure Kirai and my last Seishin were immune to blasts, pulses and auras. Hoffman Machine Puppeted himself and whacked the Seishin. He turned attention to Kirai and whacked her, failing the Pitiful check and taking two wounds for it. He gained Fast at the cost of his Watcher gaining Slow, and then attacked again. The last hit pasted Kirai, leaving her dead, but she remained courtesy of the Lost Love.
My Shikome moved in and charged Hoffman, leaking more stones and putting up more wounds. My Gaki tried to attack and another one double-moved to get close to Kirai. The last Gaki moved up to get near the Watcher on the objective marker. Kirai dropped both Gaki near her to summon a second Shikome, also hating Hoffman. That Shikome killed Hoffman leaving Brian with two Watchers to face down my spirits. We called the game here.
FINAL SCORE: 8-2, Kirai wins
Kirai is difficult to kill. Very difficult. She has so many layers of defense it's ridiculous. She's got her Pitiful, her Seshin, the fact she's usually a Spirit, and then the Lost Love. I got lucky with a few heal flips and becoming a Spirit with Into the Spirit World, but she is quite a pain to pull down all her defenses. Even without getting more spirits from killing living models, I was still doing fine with Seishin.
Ikiryo was on fire. She only really did anything the first three turns, but in that time, she killed the Peacekeeper, part of the Guardian and part of the Large Steampunk Arachnid. Being able to teleport Datsu-ba up to the front lines and add some more hurting and potential summoning really helped too. I have a hard time seeing the dislike for Datsu-ba that I seem to read about on the forums.
Overall, a good debut for Kirai. Though I did end up having to proxy a third Gaki and a second Shikome during the game. That meant only one thing - on the way out I bought my 3rd and 4th Gaki and my 2nd Shikome.
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