Game of the Week - 4/17/12

I have been trying to get this battle report posted for a week now, but work and vacation plans have conspired against me. A couple weeks ago I made the mistake of boasting that I had a very good record with Pandora (hadn’t lost with her since my early days of playing her). True and deserved, Aaron, one of our local henchmen, challenged me to a game with his Leviticus crew for last week’s Game of the Week.

We rolled up with 30 stones each. Aaron asked if I would prefer to face Collodi or Ashes & Dust. I have faced Collodi many times before, but had yet to see Ashes & Dust used to its utmost. Plus, Aaron liked to talk about how good a model it was, so I asked him to put it on the table so I could see what it was all about. We flipped Strategies and I ended up with A Line in the Sand. My first instinct with Neverborn and that strategy would be to take Collodi, but having just told Aaron not to use him, I felt like I couldn’t justify turning around to use him myself. So instead I took a basic Pandora list and counted on my superior intellect and skill to guide me to a victory.

Crew: Pandora +8, Primordial Magic, Lilitu, Lelu, Baby Kade, Stitched Together  
Strategy: A Line in the Sand
Schemes: Stake a Claim, Kidnap (Ashes & Dust, Canine Remains, Watcher)  

Crew: Leviticus +4, Canine Remains, Rusty Alice, Ashes & Dust, Watcher  
Strategy: Supply Wagon  
Schemes: Kill Protégé (Lelu), Soulless Life

It’s been a little while since the game was played, so I’ll try to recall as best I can.

TURN ONE Most of this turn went pretty simple. I was being out-activated as the Waifs and Canine Remains moved up to do stuff. I moved Baby Kade up on his own towards one of the side Dynamite markers. Leviticus moved up and got himself killed so that he could come back and move the tracker on Soulless Life. At the end of the turn, Ashes & Dust moved out with Reactivate on it from Rusty Alice, then went after Baby Kade and killed him with a couple swings, Harmless and DF 7 be damned! No doubt this shocked me, and threw a wrench in my plans. I was intending to use him as my primary objective grabber.  

TURN TWO I pulled Pandora and Lilitu in the middle of the field with Lelu going after another objective himself. The Stitched Together held the center while I had Lilitu yank the Watcher into killing range. A quick shot later from Pandora and I had wrapped up two victory points (the Canine Remains had been turned into a Waif, the Ashes & Dust had already separated, and now the Watcher was dead).  

TURN THREE Pandora activated and zapped Leviticus, making him turn around and run away. It managed to get rid of an activation for him this turn, but Rusty Alice just shot him in the head and killed him anyway. In the meantime, Ashes & Dust rolled over and killed off Lelitu. My Stitched Together killed the Ashes & Dust, but I lacked the ability to do any more damage to him after that. The Ashen Core stuck around the middle while the Dust Storm jumped to one of the sides and started coming in.  

TURN FOUR Levitius popped back up and with the newly reformed Ashes & Dust managed to kill off the Stitched Together. The poor Stitched had nothing else left he could do, so he died a lonely death. Lelu had activated one of the markers and was moving in to another of them. I moved my Primordial Magic up to the center, trying to find a way to squeeze out some points. Pandora managed to thread the needle and hit Rusty Alice to make her run away. The woman dropped to 1 wound left, but was too far away to finish off by that point.

TURN FIVE The Ashes & Dust split apart and the Dust Storm deactivated the Dynamite marker on the board edge that I had flipped with Lelu. Very sneaky. The Primordial Magic gave Pandora Dementia and she activated two Dynamite Markers herself that turn, while Lelu activated yet another one.  

TURN SIX The Ashes & Dust reformed and killed off the Primordial Magic while Leviticus killed off Pandora and the slowly-dying Lelu. The game blessedly ended and my Pandora streak came to a well-deserved end. I ended up losing the game, 2-8.

 Fortunately, Aaron’s not a drinker, so I only had to buy him a soda at dinner. But Dan had also bet on me, and had to buy Pierre a beer.