Game Size: 45 stones
Deployment: Standard
Strategy: Turf War
Scheme Pool: A Line in the Sand, Distract, Deliver the Message,
Assassinate, Entourage
Crews:
Zoraida
- Crystal Ball
Barbaros
- Nexus of Power
Bad Juju
Silurid
Doppleganger
Terror Tot
Terror Tot
6 soulstones
Tara
- Obliteration
Symbiote
- Dead of Winter
- Knowledge of
Eternity
Nothing Beast
- Voiceless Words
Karina
- Long Forgotten
Magics
Void Wretch
Void Wretch
Death Marshal
Death Marshal
7 soulstone
Schemes Chosen:
Zoraida: A Line in the Sand (Announced); Entourage: Barbaros (Announced)
Tara: Deliver the Message (Hidden); Entourage: Tara (Hidden)
Initial Plans:
I wanted to use the Doppleganger. I didn’t
care if it was a good choice or not for the game, I wanted to use it. I wasn’t too fond of it during the playtest,
but it got a couple of buffs during the last revision and I wanted to try it
out.
I went without the Hex Bag for Zoraida mostly to save
soulstones, though I think that’s a mistake.
The Hex Bag is really good for her – giving her a useful (0) that she
wouldn’t otherwise get to use. I don’t
think I’m going to find a game that I won’t use that for her in the future.
I stacked up Barbaros to make him really hard to take
down with Nexus of Power and set him aside to get Entourage, and then had my
Tots set up to get Line in the Sand. I
used the Doppleganger, Silurid, Bad Juju and Zoraida to clog up the middle as
best I could.
Turn One:
Zoraida: 0 VPs, 6 Soulstones
Tara: 0 VPs, 7 Soulstones
Initiative: Tara wins, Zoraida goes first
Turn Summary: I was playing like a deer in the
headlights. Tara does a lot of things,
and I wasn’t sure what to expect from her.
She activated early, got reactivate, and had a Death Marshal bury the
Nothing Beast. I played cautiously,
sending Terror Tots and Barbaros around the flanks, and the Doppleganger up the
middle. Zoraida went and moved Juju and
the Silurid up a little before following them.
Soon enough, though, I could see that the Nothing Beast was going to
come in and wreck some face if I didn’t distract it.
So I sent the Silurid leaping down the field and charged
Tara to put some wounds on her. Probably
a mistake, as she was able to unbury the Nothing Beast and give it Fast. The Nothing Beast immediately activated, not
counted as its activation for the turn, and attacked the Silurid. I knew if I let the poor guy go, I’d probably
be in danger of the Nothing Beast wrecking me, so I cheated to keep it alive
after all the attacks. On the real
activation of the Nothing Beast, it killed off the Silurid and looked down the
field, hungrily.
End of Turn: Nothing happened.
Turn Two:
Zoraida: 0 VPs; 6 Soulstones
Tara: 0 VPs; 6 Soulstones
Initiative: Zoraida wins, Zoraida goes first
Turn Summary: I wrestled whether I should go first
or second and decided to go first. I
knew I wanted to get the Nothing Beast away from Tara and out of the lines, so
I had Zoraida Obey it to come forward, then had Zoraida Obey Bad Juju twice to move
him into melee and attack the Nothing Beast for a wound. Tara activated and gained Reactivate, gave
Fast to a bunch of models (including Bad Juju), then gave Juju Slow to cancel
the Fast. I activated Juju, worried he
wasn’t long for the world, and used Flurry.
Unfortunately Dan had used so many cards already that the Nothing Beast’s
defense was up to 7 and I only hit him for a couple more wounds. The Nothing Beast went after Juju and nearly
killed him.
I looked over the board and knew I was not going to do
well if I let Tara reactivate to give the Nothing Beast another round of
beat-down. So I had the Doppleganger
move up, Mimic Pine Box from the Death Marshal, and then buried Tara. That eliminated the reactivation, which
eliminated the Nothing Beast’s extra activation, and also eliminated the chance
for Dan do reactivate Tara next turn. If
I could keep the Doppleganger alive. A
well-timed Black Joker from the Death Marshal allowed her to survive.
Meanwhile, my Tots grabbed two objective points and
Barbaros moved behind the lines to start working on a Void Wretch. Activation Order was killing me. One of Dan’s Void Wretches healed up Tara
while she was buried.
End of Turn: We both got a VP from Turf War.
Turn Three:
Zoraida: 1 VP; 5 Soulstones
Tara: 1 VP; 5 Soulstones
Initiative: Zoraida wins, Zoraida goes first
Turn Summary: I needed a dead Nothing Beast. Bad Juju activated and swung at the Df3
monster three times, killing him with the final swing. The Doppleganger died to an onslaught from a
Death Marshal and Void Wretch.
Meanwhile, both of my Tots grabbed more Scheme Markers along the middle
while Barbaros knocked the Wretch down to 1 wound. A Marshal killed one Tot and Katrina left the
other one with two wounds left.
Zoraida managed to kill off one of the Death Marshals by
summoning a Voodoo Doll on it, then smacking the Voodoo Doll for enough wounds
to kill it, but we both still had enough in place to get our VP for Turf War. The Void Wretch moved up on Zoraida along
with Tara.
End of Turn: We both got a VP from Turf War.
Turn Four:
Zoraida: 2 VPs, 4 Soulstones
Tara: 2 VPs, 5 Soulstones
Initiative: Zoraida wins, Zoraida goes first
Turn Summary: Who cares whether Dan gets a (+) on
Initiative when I’m flipping 12s and 13s?
The Terror Tot charged Karina, dealing a couple wounds. Dan decided not to activate Tara first,
instead grabbing the sure VPs from the Void Wretch delivering the message to
Zoraida.
Barbaros smacked Karina, killing her off. The Void Wretch on that side of the board
killed off the Tot, which in turn bled on it to deal its last wound, dropping
both of us out of Turf War territory.
End of Turn: Nothing happened.
Turn Five:
Zoraida: 2 VPs, 4 Soulstones
Tara: 4 VPs, 5 Soulstones
Initiative: Zoraida wins, Zoraida goes first
Turn Summary: Zoraida started off by killing off the
Void Wretch, leaving Dan without enough models to take Turf War unless he gave
up Entourage. Tara gained Reactivate and
then booked it to the end of the board.
Barbaros did the same thing, and the Death Marshal moved up and
destroyed one of the Evidence markers, dropping me from 3 points for the scheme
to 1.
End of Turn: Nothing happened.
We flipped and the game did not go on. If it had, I had a decent shot of pulling out
a victory, I think. Zoraida could have
moved to the middle with three AP and dropped a scheme marker, and there was
not a marker in range for the Marshal to destroy in one activation.
Final Score:
Zoraida: 6 (2 Turf War, 3 Entourage, 1 Line in the Sand)
Tara: 6 (2 Turf War, 2 Deliver the Message, 2 Entourage)
I was very lucky in that Dan didn’t
announce his schemes and denied himself two possible VPs. If he had announced even one of them (probably
wouldn’t announce Deliver the Message, though Entourage was a good choice to
announce), he would have won the game.
I had a lot go my
way – winning initiative nearly every turn, having Dan get the Black Joker a
couple of key times (keeping the Doppleganger alive on turn 2, and forcing the
Nothing Beast to waste its second activation killing the Silurid on turn 1).
Tara’s a scary
beast. She actually reminds me a little
of Zoraida. She can trade her activation
for activations for other models. She
can lead things off by gaining Reactivate and moving up, having the Nothing
Beast buried, and then at the end of the turn move up and unleash him, giving
the Nothing Beast the activation from him…
Wait a second, I
just read the abilities. Dan’s a
cheating whore! You don’t get two
activations out of friendly models at all!
Obliteration Symbiote has two abilities – one is a (2) that lets a model
be unburied and activate, but doesn’t count as the model’s activation for the
turn. This ability requires an enemy
model to work. The second one is a (1)
that lets a model unbury but can only activate if the model can still activate,
and counts as the model’s activation for the turn. You can’t double-activate the Nothing Beast
or the like.
On the other side
of the field, the Doppleganger was actually clutch to this game. I am still not sold on it, but I love the
sideways-ness of it. It was able to hold
off the assault for a turn in order to let me slow the bleeding.
I’m not sold on
Bad Juju the way I’m using him. I wanted
him to be a front-line hitter too much, and he’s not survivable enough for
that. I think I need to partner him with
another hitter. Barbaros could have
filled that role, but I needed to keep him safe and alive for Entourage. I think in retrospect, I would have been
better swapping the Silurid for Baby Kade to give a little more hitting
power. It was something I really felt I
lacked once Bad Juju was dead.
Figuring out how
to target Tara’s army is going to be clutch.
Katrina should be an early target, I think. Not because she’s overly great – but she’s an
easy kill and has a solid potential for damage.
The Nothing Beast (or whatever is used for killing) needs to die
quickly. And the Void Wretch. I don’t think there are going to be a lot of
these guys on the table, but if your opponent gets good at burying/healing its
models, those guys have to go.
Overall, it was a
fantastically entertaining first game.
Looking forward to the rematch, Dan.
(You cheating whore.)
