Jacob Lynch v. Som'er Teeth
Scenario: 30ss Reconoiter
My Crew: Lynch
Hungering Darkness
Tuco
Beckoner
2x Stitched Together
Brutal Effigy
Schemes: Spread the Light, Bodyguard
His Crew: Som'er
Rami
Raphael
2xSkeeters
Some Bayou Gremlins (3 or 4ish, don't recall for sure)
Initially, my crew deployed together behind some terrain on my side of the central board, with Tuco hiding up field. The gremlins were in one main central group with a good-sight line for wannabe Nino to shoot down the center line, and one smaller group on my left with wannabe Santiago and a gremlin to hit him and make him mad.
Turn 1:
Hungering Darkness rockets up board at top speed, hiding inside a building so as to avoid being sniped. The brutal effigy runs through buildings to head towards my right, for reasons I can no longer remember. Lynch, the stitched, and the Beckoner move up towards the middle, hoping that target saturation will help keep them alive. Tuco helps this out by dancing out in front of them, popping his shotgun off at wannabe Nino to poison him, then continuing on back behind more cover. Wannabe Nino shoots at Huggy through a door frame. Wannabe Santiago gets punched in the face by his friend, making him angry enough to run up my left flank and be in position to cause mischief next turn. The gremlins don't immediately start splitting into more gremlins (as I expected). At the end of the turn, Huggy noms a wound out of the Beckoner, as she is the only Brillaint model nearby.
Turn 2-3ish
Huggy introduces himself to the gremlins, springing from his building and horrifically mauling wannabe Nino. He obeys another gremlin in close to him with his casting expert, then drains more wounds out of him. I was told later that my opponent was unaware of Huggy's speed. Skeeters run up the board and fart on my main contingent of dudes. Tuco runs up and probably shoots at Som'er, I think. Wannabe Santiago comes out and makes me nervous by shooting at the crew, but unfortunately chooses poorly and shoots at a stitched rather than Lynch. The stitched gets reactivate. Som'er wanders up and farts all over Huggy, killing him along with some other wounds (probably more farts from the other skeeter. Not sure now.)
Turn 4-5
Beckoner skirts around the skeeter to go use honeyed words on wannabe Santiago. Stitched Togethers + Lynch kill off Santiago, whereupon I drop a pair of nines and Huggy returns. He celebrates by mauling a Skeeter. Gremlins kill Tuco, but not before he takes one of them down with him. Lynch dances up field and does some shooting shenanigans. Huggy mauls a skeeter then runs up field to hit Som'er in the face and kill him as well. Opponent points out I've now lost my only brilliant models. I nod and decide to settle for tabling him.
Turn 6
Surviving stitched fans out to hold a quarter while Lynch goes for another, Beckoner and Brutal effigy, etc. Huggy chases more gremlins and eats them. Tasty gremlins is tasty.
Win 6-0
Things I learned:
1) I still don't know what to do with Lynch. He doesn't shoot well enough to be a shooter (I'm spoiled, though, having started out with the Guild). His card drawing isn't quite good enough to reliably have a huge hand. Not sure if there's something I didn't see. Maybe I should watch some other people play him to get a better idea.
2) Respect Som'er's farts. The damage piles up a lot quicker than you think it does. Still, gremlins are squishy and small, and Huggy thinks they are tasty, so not extraordinarily worried about them going forward.
3) Tuco should cost, like, 9 stones. That said, stop deploying him so far forward when opponents have kill protege on him.
Game The Second
Kirai Ankoku v. Mei Feng (am I playing Bushido?)
Scenario: 30ss Line in the Sand (from the new Gaining Grounds OP document (ha ha i'm a henchman so I have it))
Me: Kirai
Seishins (I think 3)
Night Terrors (I know 3)
Lost Love
Izamu the Armor
Him: Mei
Emberling
2 Rail Workers
Ototottoototototototo
K(W)ang
My Schemes
Grudge (A rail worker)
Bodyguard (Kirai)
His Schemes
Kill Protege (Izamu)
Holdout
We realize very quickly that one of the benefits of the new colored bases from Wyrd Miniatures is to throw all black bases across the board as the dynamite markers and then, as we flip them towards our respective sides, replace them with a color-coded base for our side. He deploys with his main crew in the middle and Kang with emberling on my right flank. I deploy with Kirai, Izamu, LL, and company behind a building mid-board.
Turn 1
Night terrors flock up their side of the board, fanning out at the end so that one of them can flip the outermost dynamite marker and the other two can handle the one next to it. Kang and Emberling tromp their way up field on the right. Mei does some rail-worker hoppiness silliness to move forward. This proves to be a problem, as Lost Love turns Izamu into a spirit, a seishin boosts him while another floats forward, and Kirais swirls him into charge range of Mei. He chops her up for 6. Opponent looks alarmed.
Turn 2-3
My opponent, however, fails to factor in that I am a tard. Spirit+object 2 basically means Mei can only do 1 point of damage to me a turn. However, I forget the part where I can throw a mask at Mei's attacks to block her trigger that lets her continue attacking and that, if I do so, even if I'm cheating down to a lower card it will be better for me in the long run. As such, I believe I take about 6-8 damage from pummeling, and have like 6 burning tokens on me (not that that really matters.) Kang trots upfield some more, maybe flips the outer dynamite marker. Night terrors flip the outer two dynamite markers, and I realize just how good they are. Kirai swirls herself up board as, one way or another, I think things are going to get bloody soon and I want to take advantage. She soothes some of the damage off of Izamu and plops Ikiryo to the third marker, flipping it on turn 2 for the good guys. Izamu walks up and smooshes the rail worker I grudged. We hold onto the center marker through turn 3, but Izamu gets dropped. Ikiryo probably dies and has to be resummoned. Night Terrors start to flock around the back of the central melee. Lost Love passes (this will be important later.) Kang in the meantime trots over towards dynamite marker 2 and flips. Ototo(tototototo) probably is the one to smash Izamu, as he is essentially a spirit Izamu smashing fiend.
End of turn 3 score is 4-2 (2 for strat, 2 for grudge v. 2 for kill prot.)
Turn 4-5
Ototo(totototo) is killed by a combination of Ikiryo and a Night Terror poking him through a wall (amusing mental image). I lose a Night Terror in here somewhere to probably Ototo or a rail worker, not sure. I'm running out of dudes on the central objective, due in large part to my extraordinarily rancid hand draws (my opponent helpfully points out that I'm tabling him, and I should stfo. Can't argue with him on that one.) Kang gets up into the fight along with the Emberling and manages to push enough of my spirits off the central marker to clear us out and let him flip it to neutral, denying me a VP. I throw a Shikome and some Gaki silliness at the middle of the board to kill Mei, but not before she gets the middle dynamite marker switched to his side. The clutch performer of the match comes into play somewhere in here, as I notice that 1) my opponent has left the outside dynamite marker unguarded and 2) the Lost Love is significant so 3) he can walk over and flip it back to our team. Thus, he hoofs it over to the dynamite marker over the course of two turns and flips it to neutral just as the central one goes to yellow, denying him a vp. Go LL go.
We don't play turn 6, as LL is going to flip the third marker to me and Shikome is going to book it into the opponent's deployment zone to deny Holdout. Kang is essentially all the opponent has left, tying up two Night Terrors in what has "Stalemate" written all over it. Final score 8-2.
Things I learned:
1) I am not good with Kirai, and she is good enough to make up for this. No model even threatened her in this game. I can't overstate how bad my fate hand was all game long, and it just...didn't...matter. Ikiryo gets knocked down, and I just pop it back out. Shikome's go flying around. Gaki's pop to...Gaki you...I guess. She's really good, and maybe if I practice hard, some day I can be good with her too.
2) Night Terrors are the bomb. The thing that I think impressed me more than anything was that they did all this moving, effectively won me the game, and Kirai did essentially nothing to help them out. It was all them. They're good, and in this kind of a game they really shine.
3) Ten Thunders is good, but Mei isn't special. The biggest effect Mei had on this game was me forgetting to shut down her chain of attacks with Izamu. She can wreck face, but she doesn't have a ton of defensive abilities to protect her if you actually get into melee with her from what I could see. Stacking up burning tokens doesn't really do a lot when you can just choose to be slowed to shut it down. Ototo, on the other hand, is a single-minded smasher that just obliterates Izamu, whether he's a spirit or not.
Game 3
Kirai vs. Misaki (why don't the ten thunders like me?)
25ss Deliver the Message
Me: Kirai
4 Seishin (ish)
LL
3 Night Terrors
1 Insidious Madness (who was supposed to be a drowned but I forgot the model at home)
Him: Misaki
Archer
2Torekage
Firefox
My Schemes: Breakthrough, Stake a Claim
Him: Kill Protege (Insidious Madness, mostly for comedy) something else he didn't get
Turn 1: I use absorb spirits to eat the Insidious Madness and deny my opponent 2 vps...oh wait, that's what I would have done if I was a GOOD Kirai player. Instead, I look at the board and am a bit confused as to what exactly I'm going to do. My opponent moves one of his Torekages and Shang up on my left flank to engage me and block off my Stake a Claim. I move the Night Terrors up en masse to go fight with them, for some reason. One of them claws the totem and the other fails to put a wound on the Torekage. The archer and the other Torekage go around the other side of the Stake to end up roughly center board. Misaki cautiously advances to keep me from delivering the message straight off. He need not have worried, however, as I have no masks and thus can't Into the Spirit world forward. Instead, I eat some Seishin to make an Onryo, mostly because I've never used one and I want to try and have some anti-range for the Archer. The Insidious Madness does the worst thing possible and sprints upfield to the Claim, hiding from the archer and preparing to go deliver to Misaki.
Turn 2: My opponent gets initiative every turn this game before turn 5ish, so he is going first. The archer trots around the log and gleefully focus fires my Insidious Madness to death, scoring 2 points for him. I grumble. I get a mask, pop up to the Night Terror/Torekage/Shang fight so I can get Seishin out of it, and drop Ikiryo on them. The Torekago senses his pending demise and buries himself. I probably kill the totem with Ikiryo's melee expert and send it to go fight the other Torekage. Unfortunately, it is still alive at the end of turn 2, which gives the other Torekage something to springboard off of and land within 2" of Kirai. I make an undignified noise. Onryo floats upfield and doesn't significantly contribute. This will be a recurring theme.
Turn 3: He flips an 11 for initiative. I flip a 7, burn a stone, get another 7. Message is delivered, 4 points for the bad guys (total of 6.) Misaki runs away from me, presumably giggling girlishly at how I just got served. Ikiryo mauls the bejezus out of the Torekage he's fighting. I eat Ikiryo with Kirai then resummon him to maul the one who delivered the message. I feel vindicated, but am still losing quite a lot. Night Terrors haul ass across the board to chase Misaki, dropping one within 2" of her, so if I can win initiative I can at least salvage some vps for my side from the strat. The archer pops some blasts off of the night terrors, but can only drop them two wounds a piece, which means he still needs two more hits to kill them. We both pause to marvel at the magnificence of these 3 point minions. The turn ends and I curse at him to stop flipping so high on init.
Turn 4: He flips high for initiative again, and I still can't beat him. Misaki kicks the Night Terror in the face twice then runs away to resume giggling in an anime-schoolgirl-like-fashion (where is a black tentacle monster when you need one? Oh yeah, I let the archer shoot it to death on turn 2...) The two remaining Night Terrors flock over to go pincer her in so she at least can't run away from them next turn. I float the Onryo onto the claim and drop her ranged spell on the archer a couple of times, to no great effect. The archer kills her, taking a wound back for immediate revenge (oo, she contributed.) Ikiryo rewards the archer by casually floating around the claim and mauling him to death. I get a Gaki out of soul food from something Ikiryo killed. I don't remember what.
Turn 5: I finally manage to win initiative and Deliver the Message to Misaki prior to her kicking them both in the face until they died. Oh well, I got 1 vp from it, so there. I drop another Gaki on the claim jump while Ikiryo and the 1st Gaki float towards the enemy deployment zone. Kirai sees a potential screw me scenario where Misaki drops into my deployment zone and gets one of the enemy's schemes, so she swirls herself back into the deployment zone. We both look at the board and realize the game will end a 5-6 loss for me regardless of what happens, so we shake hands.
What I learned:
I'm bad with Kirai, so it's a good thing she is so awesome: Seriously. An onryo? Sending the Insidious Madness up to get shot? Not eating the IM on turn one to deny VPs...just move along. I'm getting better. Quit judging me.
Ten Thunders is fast, yo: I had remembered the Mistaken Identity ability, which I believe the Torekage's used to flip places on me. I had remembered the run and shoot and the smoke bombs. I forgot about the damn unbury, and left Kirai exposed to basically get her pants pulled down by them mid-fight for 4 vps. That was very bad of me to do. Ten Thunders are deceptively fast, which I suppose is what one would expect from a pack of ninjas.
Plan your turn with Kirai from your control hand, not from what might come from the deck: This sort of goes with 1, but deserves special mention. I was particularly mask starved but crow rich this game. A couple of times I tried to force into the Spirit world with stones to catch the mask from the deck. It didn't work once. I need to just accept that if it's not there it's not there. Don't plan on it, and do something else. It didn't make a huge difference past turn 1, but it could be important later, particularly if I'm facing an opponent who can legitimately threaten Kirai (hasn't happened yet, but I know they're out there.)
Peace out. Probably lots more good game experience coming from this Saturday for Dead of Winter.
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