King of NOVA - Round 4

So I have stretched out the reports of my games to 4 days now, I hope your not bored yet. As previously mentioned, I was on the top table for round 4, facing 1st Generation Awesome Mike with the master he possibly knows best in the game. At the same time, I had only gotten 2 games in before this point with Zoraida, and used Collodi a total of 4 times before this game. I did not take much time to look at his side of the table, although I had seen him carrying around aZoraida during the day. I knew he was running with Collodi, and thought that meant Collodi and Zoraida through the day. Mike is another member of my local group who regularly beats me in games. He is a really good player and one of the best Neverborn players I know.With that said, I have won a couple games against Mike, so I was a bit more confident than I was facing Dan. On top of that, maybe this was my day, I had just beaten Dan pretty badly so I was feeling good. Then I remembered I did not know how to play the crew I had chosen to bring to the table.

Mike and I drew a dungeon board with some bridges and columns. We understood that the open spaces between tiles were solid walls that blocked LOS and were impassable.

I had the closer side (to the left) while Mike had the far side of the board. Mike flipped Line in the Sand and I flipped Slaughter. I contemplated dropping a stone to reflip, but decided against it. (Mistake number 1). Mike set out his crew and I was surprised to see Collodi leading the crew. It ended up being Collodi, 4 Marionettes, 3 Stitched Together, Carrion Effigy, and Brutal Effigy. I looked through my remaining schemes (schemes were unique for the tournament) and did not have much left. Eye for and Eye was out as my plan was to kill off Collodi and remove a bulk of Marionettes to reduce his crew size. Frame was not a good strategy, and Steal Relic was not something I felt I could reliably pull off. I ended up grabbing Bodyguard on Zoraida and Exterminate Dolls. It was a long shot as I was aiming to wipe him off the board, but I figured what the hell. (mistake #2?).

Turn 1 was very little shuffling around as Mike did a great job of staying out of LOS from Zoraida. I summoned up a Voodoo doll and put it on Collodi, killing it off for the scrap shortly afterwards. I made the mistake of giving all my dolls fast on turn 1 instead of creating the new marionette and giving them fast at the start of round 2. Bleh. Mike ended with his Stitched moved forward under clouds of smoke, and one of the dynamites flipped on turn 1. I had not moved from my initial deployment in a ball, waiting and priming my crew for round 2.

On round 2 Mike did some more moving around but I got aggressive. (Mistake #3). I gave my dolls fast, told a wicked doll to go after me, gave the wicked doll and 2 marionettes melee expert, and launched up the board to the bridge to start killing off his dolls. I got some positioning out there and took out one of his marionettes before learning my big mistake. Gamble your Life is not a strike or spell so cannot be shifted by Collodi onto his marionettes. Crap. By the end of the second turn Collodi had died to an onslaught of GYL, and I was severely down on the game. Over the next several turns I tried to recover with my stitched and Zoraida, but was unsuccessful. Overall I was just too damn aggressive and should have held back. The game ended in an 8/0 loss.

I was amused later when Mike said he went into the game thinking he was at a disadvantage vs my crew. Once I threw Collodi forward he felt that he had a strong chance because he realized I had no idea what I was doing. When I followed up by throwing the Stitched into the meat grinder and leaving Zoraida unprotected he was confident the game was his and there was no way he could lose. All of this was true.

So, at the end of the tournament I ended with a record of 9tp/+7diff/22VP to come in 3rd place. I did not get a chance to face Weakland, so that game will need to wait until I get back to NYC. And, at the end of the day I ended up beating a local player who regularly beats me, and lost to a player I regularly lose to, with the master he may be best with. Not a bad showing overall.