08 February 2012

Game 4: Kirai vs Lilith


So last night was the long awaited next chapter in the Kirai vs Lilith war. There had been plenty of time to read up and research. I had pretty much made my mind up what I would take, but there's always time for a last minute change.

I flipped Distract for my Strategy and took Hold Out and Breakthrough. Fugs flipped Slaughter and took Bodyguard and Stake a Claim. I knew I needed to move fast.

My starting lineup consisted of Kirai, Lost Love, 3x Seishin, 2x Insidious Madness, Canine Remains, Desperate Merc and The Hanged.

Fugs took a compact but devastating crew of Lilith, Cherub, Mature Nephilim, Taelor and Lelitu. Half way through Turn 1 he realised that Lelitu takes wounds at the end of every turn Lelu is not on the board so would likely be dead by the end of Turn 3. Seeing as she had not activated yet we agreed a swap for a Doppelganger.

Turn 1 involved a lot of shuffling around. Kirai summoned Shikome and Onryo, Lost Love summoning a second Onryo. The Merc and Canine Remains killed each other producing two new Seishin and two Gaki. At the end of the turn I had 12 models on the table to Fugs'  5.

I spent Turn 2 moving up the board and setting up an alpha strike against Taelor who was pretty isolated in the middle of the board. Fugs crew were pretty much heads down in cover not committing to anything.

Shikome had chosen the Cherub as its Prey to try and disrupt Fugs' thinking and force him to hide his totem rather than being the linchpin behind all the Transposition tricks. Whilst this tied up one of my better models the mind tricks worked and the Chreub ran back to his deployment zone and hid behind the Mature Nephilim.

Turn 3 I launched my strike as Fugs' crew were still noncommittal. The Doppelganger had copied Taelor's Hammer and the Mature's Diving Attack and swept into the nearby Shikome. I had managed to construct a very good hand of cards by this time and stalled the attack with no damage inflicted.

I had thrown a Gaki forward (to swirl spirits) but Taelor stepped in and walloped him leaving nothing but a puddle of goo. I sent a Seishin forward then swirled in an Insidious Madness. Ikiryo was then summoned into melee with Taelor. The Lost Love stepped up and cast Chill of Death, Taelor already being on a negative WP flip. She failed the resist and everything was going to plan. The Hanged stepped up and blew away half of her Wounds in one fell swoop with an unresisted Beyond the Grave.

However, I had forgotten three things: the Ikiryo was Slow as he had just been summoned; Taelor has Hard to Wound as well as Hard to Kill.

Ikiryo pulled all nearby spirits closer (except Kirai who had failed her Into The Spirit World). He wasn't able to do a Focused Strike so had to do two normal ones. First attack Fugs flipped the Red Joker in defence. I couldn't match without blowing the Red Joker in my own hand so I passed – mistake. The second attack came in and only managed Moderate Damage, leaving Taelor on 2 wounds. This would mean she wouldn't die this turn. A nearby Onryo charged and did more damage – would have killed her except for Hard to Kill. I had nothing else in range.

Turn 4 would be our final turn. Lilith ran the length of the board to tag a piece of terrain near my Deployment Zone but hadn't gone far enough to be in the zone herself. Taelor did a Hammerstrike to push all the models (except the Insidious Madness) away then killed the Madness then Ikiryo. Shikome intercepted the Cherub and killed it before being charged by the Mature Nephilim and dying to the attacks. Something (can't remember what) took the last wound off Taelor, turning her into a Gaki.

With nothing else in range my remaining activations involved getting as many models into Fugs Deployment Zone as I could. End of Turn 4, end of the game.

A final assessment showed a 6-6 draw. A much more interesting (and close) game and a lot more to think about.

Whilst Fugs had taken the crew from hell it didn't actually do much; he later admitted to being rather intimidated by the size of my crew that was moving up the table en mass. I was very pleased with how the first half of the game had gone but again the alpha strike had fizzled and left me vulnerable to reprisals. Had Fugs come at me with his big hitters from Turn 1 I am convinced he would have wiped me out within a couple of turns.

The Hanged had finally delivered his payload, but didn't do much else except threaten from distance. Similarly Shikome didn't actually do much except chase the Cherub around and keep a 2pt model out of the game. The Gaki and Onryo helped fill out the numbers and do the grunt thing. I was quite impressed the with the Insidious Madness – both of them – as they seemed to fulfil their role well. Struggling to decide on a Man of the Match this time as nobody stood out.

4 comments:

  1. Good read and interesting how different tactics change and work and don't work.....

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    1. Only thing i'd say is that after looking over the doppelganger i'm not sure how she could have copied Diving Charge... it's Wk/Cg stat sure, but not the Diving Charge ability as it's a (2)
      Ok it wouldn't have mattered much it seemed as you had the cards to keep safe but it could have been key

      As Lurker said though, very nice to see how changing things up a little has helped the crew and playstyle evolve

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    2. By our interpretation "Diving Attack" is an Action which, according to the rules manual, is listed as a Talent.

      Combining this with Taelor's hammer was clearly Fugs' attempt to turn the Doppelganger into Thor!

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    3. Sorry, just realised where i went wrong in my thinking... Talents covers actions, mimiicing a (1) is for (1) Spells specifically... and i have read things about mimicing (0)Link for all sorts of shenanigans so yeah, i think copying Diving Charge was all above board... my bad

      Back to your game though, your experience with the Hanged eems to have mirrored mine, great when it worked but still a little underwhelming... they seem absolutely brutal, but all i got from one was locking down and slowly killing Samuel Hopkins over a couple of turns
      And the Shikome, maybe i'm a little to reckless with mine at times, but i through them at a target expecting them to only live one round, the psychological impact of them is brutal as people scramble to take them or somehow keep away from as fast as that

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