Battle Report Zoraida vs. Tara - 45ss

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.)