So after Rasputina took down Miss Ortega a peg or two last week, anticipation had been building for this week's 30 soulstone rematch. Fug has acquired some new models and splashed some paint on his icy master. In response I had finished painting Perdita and had added a couple of undercoated Witchling Stalkers to the mix.
The Crews
Perdita
Enslaved Nephilim
The Judge
Santiago
2x Witchling Stalkers
Rasputina
Essence of Power
Silent One
December Acolyte
Ice Gamin
Hans
For Strategies Fug flipped Distract and decided to take (and announce) Hold Out and Bodyguard for his Schemes. I flipped Slaughter and took Hold Out and Breakthrough, similarly announcing them thanks to some sound advice from Wrabbit37 after last week's game.
Deployment was standard set up, Raspy had her crew central again with Hans to my right, supporting the infiltrating December Acolyte. I divided my crew into two teams – Perdita, Nephilim and The Judge to my right and Santiago and two Witchlings to the left.
The game did not quite pan out as expected – I think both Fug and I were not totally on our game and the whole thing felt like a bit of a slog, so I'll keep it short.
I decided to go for it from the off as I had to get my crew into Fug's deployment zone to prevent one of his Schemes and complete one of mine. Perdita ran full sprint to the right behind some rocks, out of sight of Hans but in full view of the Acolyte. I had managed to get both Jokers in my Control Hand so felt I had some influence over the situation. As anticipated, he attempted to fire his harpoon at Perdita to pull her into view but I got off my Quick Draw response, cheating the Red Joker and taking him out of the game with a total of 9 wounds inflicted. It was a bit of a bloody nose for Fug so early on and he struggled to rally from then on as indecision and lack of direction took over – he was mostly reacting to my game. Elsewhere the rest of my crew moved up whilst Hans moved back to the centre of the board to support Raspy.
Following turn same thing, I moved up and Raspy consolidated, exchanging a few shots here and there to little effect, except the loss of a Witchling who had bared his backside to test out Reflect Magic only to not achieve the trigger.
I then saw an opportunity to get Perdita into melee with Raspy, so I took it, charging in and slapping 4 wounds off her. The response was unsurprising but caught me off guard – having not thought through my actions completely – the Ice Gamin moved into melee and the Silent One move over to drop spells onto the growing crowd. I attempted to shoot Raspy in melee with Santiago but only managed to hit Perdita – TWICE! Luckily I managed to cheat the shots down but for two turns I was out of cards.
I had overstretched Perdita and the rest of the crew were struggling to get up in support. The game became all about Perdita surviving the incoming attacks and spells by any means possible. Healing flips only managed to negate a single wound and her damage see-sawed dangerously close to death. This would be an all or nothing game for both sides.
Eventually The Judge made it to melee in support, having avoided a Headshot from Hans, and Perdita took down Rasputina. The trick was now not to die to exploding Gamin/Silent Ones. She took the Gamin explosion on the chin – one wound left – and Obeyed the Silent One out of melee so that The Judge and Santiago could shoot it, cheating down the Disengaging Strike to make sure Perdita was well clear of any exploding corpses. With the Silent One having activated first she was no longer a threat should the shooting fail to kill her. It didn't and she exploded, missing Perdita's crew.
At the end of Turn 6 Fug only had Hans left, who had given a decent first performance in spite of awkward initial deployment. I had lost the two Witchlings but everyone else was pretty much in Fug's deployment zone. Rasputina hadn't really had the opportunity to get going. Aside from taking down a Witchling via Perfect Mirror and casting a set of Ice Pillars she had struggled.
Final score 8-0 to The Guild.
A harsh result on paper given how close it came but a lot of lessons to be learned on both sides. Perdita had taken out Raspy, Acolyte and a Gamin but MVP for the Guild crew was actually the Enslaved Nephilim, who had accompanied Santiago across the centre of the board, achieving Obey several times to give the big man extra movement and shots – although he did resist on one occasion with a Red Joker flip. Idiot!
Next up… McMourning's debut this Saturday.
Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you mention the hidden schemes versus announced schemes - I still stand by my statement that having announced schemes is pretty much better. It gives you a better chance at getting the most points out of a game, and in a game that comes down to who scores the highest, you don't want to cap yourself if you can help it. But I was talking to Dan at NoVA Open and he was suggesting occasionally (not often) picking a scheme to hide: notably Hold Out if the game is going to be fought elsewhere on the board. Works very well with Neverborn as the assumption is always that Kidnap is the hidden scheme. I've tried it three times since this weekend and achieved Holdout each time. In fact, in my game against Zee, it was the one point that won me the game.
On the flip side of that, if I had announced it, I still would have achieved it since he didn't have any models left, but who knows how differently he would have played if he knew he could deny me points by stepping into my deployment zone.
Interestingly, he played with two hidden schemes: Holdout and Assassinate - Collodi. I did manage to break them both, even not knowing what they were, but it made for a weird game of me watching what he did and trying to figure out what he was trying to achieve. At the end of the game, I decided to move Zoraida into his deployment zone on the off-chance that Holdout was one of his schemes. It was.
Fun batrep. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys.
ReplyDelete@wrabbit
I'm seeing the whole announcing schemes as situational. I felt confident announcing Holdout vs Raspy because I knew Fug would struggle to prevent it, but might not feel so confident against Bull's Vikkis crew. As you said though, those two extra points can be make or break.
Our group is still in the early(ish) stages of playing Malifaux so I doubt many could guess the hidden schemes yet, though it is worth thinking about.
@Mike H
Glad you enjoyed it. Should have another batrep post on Sunday, fingers crossed.
Nice Battle Report :)
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned cheating down your disengaging strike. You realise that you don't have to make one at all if you don't want to?
In our local meta and at tournaments I've been to, schemes are pretty much always announced. As you say there can be situations where it's helpful to not announce, but that's pretty uncommon and most of the time we all just gun for full points. A couple of schemes lend themselves better to not announcing - Hold Out is one as you said, but Ive found an unannounced Frame for Murder can get you a sneaky VP. Announcing it always seems to lead to something other than the master killing your target and you gaining nothing from it.
Mike
Haha, I didn't realise that Mike but have since read up on it, thanks.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I can't see any benefit in announcing Framed For Murder.
Minor benefit might be to announce it on a tough minion then get up in the masters grill and dare them to attack you, make it so they have no choice but to kill it with the master or be very inconvenienced movement wise. Actually I might try that sometime :-)
ReplyDeleteMike
With Santiagos resist- you know that when casting spells on friendly models, after flipping to resist you can *always* choose to auto fail with a difference of 0?
ReplyDeleteMakes spells like Obey and other similar spells much easier to use.
Frame for Murder is probably going to be fantastic if you are playing rezzers - Jakuna Ubume would be a fantastic target for it. Drop her in front of the enemy master and lock him down, and he pretty much *has* to take you out or he'll get minced.