Friday, December 2, 2011

Battle Report - Kaeris v Kirai

As part of our Winter Achievement league, I grabbed a game against Dan the other night. Dan and I do not end up playing each other too much in casual play, which is a shame. Dan is not only a great player, but also fun to play against. Well, fun until he decides something is broken and starts swimming for the deep end of the pool. For this game, I pulled out Kaeris vs his Kirai.


Set-up
Below is a picture of the board we were playing on. I had flipped Supply Wagon for my strategy, Dan flipped Escape and Survive. I was considering throwing down Colette, but was not sure she had what it took for Supply Wagon. Looking back, she may have been a better choice. This was my 3rd or 4th game with Kaeris, so I am still learning how she and her crew work.

I had a couple schemes left to get for achievments in the league, so I grabbed a couple of those. I decided on Stake a claim (placing my claim on the far side statue), and bodyguard. We flipped for deployment, with Dan setting up first, and deployed our crews. I announced both schemes, and Dan announced Betrayed by Spirits (Kill Kaeris with Ikiryo) and another scheme (I forget which). Away we went. We had corners deployment.


 
Our crews were:

30SS Scrap
Bill - Kaeris, 2x Gunsmith, SS Miner, 3x Fire Gamin, 5 stones
       - Supply Wagon, Bodyguard, Stake Claim
Dan - Kirai, Lost Love, 2x Seishin, Datsu-ba, Shikome, Desperate Merc, Canine Remains, Insidious madness, 5 stones
       - Escape and Survive, Betrayed by Spirits, ???

Dan's Crew & Deployment

Turn 1

Shikome started with prey on the female gunsmith. I started with the SS Miner digging up a SS. I wanted to play somewhat conservatively and burn some activations, even knowing he would be able to out-activate me. I know Kirai can move fairly quickly, so I was worried about moving too far forward and giving him a first turn strike.Dan began shifting forward slowly, with the Shikome swinging to my left and a bit forward, lining up for a run on the female gunsmith. I activated and moved my crew forward, taking positions where they could support each other in later turn or against a charge. Dan shifted forward as well, staying out of range of my guns and staying safe. He did kill off the merc and dog to grab some additional Seishin, a Gaki, and an Onroyo.


Turn 2
Things heated up quick on turn 2. This is where my unfamiliarity with Kaeris really started to show, as it was taking me excessively long to make decisions on my next activations and what to do. The Shikome moved forward to attack the female gunsmith, leaving her with poison and at 1 wound remaining. My male gunsmith moved forward and I looked to choose ammo. At that point I realized the gunsmiths have ammo to use against living, neverborn, and armored, and undead models. Unfortunately, none of those are spirits. With that in mind, I realized my gunsmiths would become marginalized through the game. I snapped off some shots, but didn't do anything significant. Datsu-ba and Kirai tossed out some spells that resulted (by the end of the turn) in turning both gunsmiths into Gaki. A fire gamin on the left charged the shikome, hurting it, and then Kirai swapped it with a Gaki to keep it safe. Ikiryo and the madness both moved up to engage Kaeris. I did learn some tricks with Kaeris to use vs Kirai. I was able to toss out a fair amount of burning counters, including a counter on one of the Seshin. I then used Immolate to kill of that Seshin and drop the resulting pillar of flame on Kirai. We ruled at the time that the resulting marker was not magical, although after revisiting the question on the rules forum, it appears that is a nastier attack than thought (the pillar is magical). Lots of models mobbed Kaeris, I lost both Gunsmiths and one fire gamin, and my miner grabbed melee master and buried. On Dan's side a whole host of spirits died, but Kirai and Datsu were able to keep him supplied with replacements.



Turn 3
The game was certainly turning against me, but judicious use of smoldering heart was keeping me in the game. During turn 3 Dan moved into full attack mode on Kaeris, bring a load of spirits forward to engage her. She in turn opened up with several stringed together ignites (turn it up!) and shared a bunch of burning counters with the spirits around her. Kaeris then finished with immolating the insidious madness and dropping the resulting pillar on Ikiryo and a Gaki. A new Onroyo moved forward, my fire Gamin ran up to kill the remaining Gaki, Kirai did some shifting around. The turn ended with Kaeris once again surrounded with 2 Shikome (1 with prey on her and 1 without) and an onroyo in range. Datsu was hanging out in the wings to clean up. I moved the Miner marker forward, positioned for popping him out next turn to engage the shikome with Kaeris as prey.




Turn 4
This turn became a bit of a blur. The Miner popped up and killed off a shikome. The other Shikome did some marginal damage to Kaeris. Kaeris once again tossed around burning counters and then burned down a fair number of spirits around her. Datsu moved forward and turned one of my gamin into a Gaki, the other gamin attacked the shikome but failed to kill it. The turn ended with Kirai positioned close enough to pull out Ikriryo for his attack to accomplish the scheme, Kaeris with 1 wound remaining, and a load of spirits still surrounding her. I had done an amazing job of pushing out damage and killing off spirits, but I was not getting Datsu or Kirai, so there were always more to come back.




Turn 5
Turn 5 saw initiative go to Dan, Ikiryo come out and kill off Kaeris. The rest of turn 5 and 6 was an assault on the wagon until it was smashed apart. The picture below is the end of turn 6, just after the last damage was put on the wagon (I only placed 2 markers, the third destroyed it).




The game ended as a loss, Dan 8 to my 0. I found myself at a real disadvantage with Kaeris being the only model in my crew who could fully engage Kirai's crew. To be fair, I only knew Dan was bringing Resser's prior to the start of the game, so it could have been very different. I really need to work on learning Kaeris with a fair number more games with her. I think she will be a load of fun to play, although I am wondering if she makes a good Henchman as Master. I am tempted to modify a list for this strategy to be as follows:

30ss Scrap
Rasputina & 8 stone pool, Kaeris, Essence of Power, Silent One, Gunsmith, Fire Gamin

I will have to try it out.

Alt Justice, Abuela, and an Eldar Model?

Wait, what? Did the title really say an Eldar model? Quick, go back and check, I'll wait.

Damn, I guess it did. So, while painting up all the Malifaux I have been, I still have a full set of Eldar Harliquins sitting on my paint table. The Malifaux tends to push the 40K tree-huggers to the back of the tray, but occasionally one slips to the front. Its been a while since I painted up a 40K model, but I grabbed the Shadowseer from the tray last Sunday and laid down some pigment.

First though, the Malifaux:

Abuela - Perdita's Grandma

Alternate Lady Justice


Holy Crap, its a Shadowseer!





And that brings picture week to a close. I am not sure how much Eldar I now have, since my Army Builder has expired. I still have a boat load of Warmachine/hordes models to paint up, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. I also have some more Malifaux (Always) to get to. Justice's Avatar, a tourney legal Executioner, Johan, another Performer and Mannequin, and an entire Kiria Crew. Lots and Lots more to do, and with December here new models are being released. I am looking forward to grabbing the Executioners and Angelica this month and next, to flesh out my Guild and Colette crews.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Fire!!! Sonnia Alternative Sculpt and Avatar

Paint and picture week continues with Sonnia Criid. A ways back I posted some quick pictures of my avatar model, along with some quick pictures of the alternate sculpt. I figured I would pop them in the light tent for some better lighting and pictures overall.





Alternate Criid Sculpt





Avatar Criid - aka Cherufe




The pair of Fiery Ladies

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Lucius and Crew - Pictures!

Lucius, the leader of the Guild Special Forces. I have had him built for a while but never got around to a full set of pictures. I did complete painting my third Guild Hound this last Sunday, so that helped a bit with the picture taking. This whole crew was painted to a Table Top Standard, so nothing exceptional! Here are some pictures

Lucius - the Pimp himself

Woof Woof - Guild Hounds




Ryle





Lawyer




Guild Guard Captains - notice the Wyrd W on the left captain!




Drill Sergeant




Guild Guards




Lucius and Crew (missing 2 Austringers)




I realized as I was posting these that I forgot a couple models. My Austringers never jumped out of the case into the picture. Sad day, I will have to remember to rectify that at a later date. I will admit, I am really looking forward to the Wardens from Twisting Fates being released. I think they add an incredible amount to both Lucius's crew and the Guild in general.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Pictures Pictures Pictures

As mentioned yesterday, I was blessed with time over the Thanksgiving holiday. I used some of that time on Sunday to not only get caught up on my painting but to also start chipping away at the horrible backlog of pictures I need to take. With that said, I plan to parcel out the photo's all week this week.

So, lets dive right in. Sunday one of the models I completed was my Male Gunsmith for my Arcanists. More importantly, he completed my Kaeris box set.  Its a shame I was impatient and painted up the fire gamin prior to the league starting. If I had waited a week I would have been able to get the "Paint a new box" achievement. Ah well.

Here they are:
Kaeris


Fire Gamin (Denis, Precious, and Sparky)




Male Gunsmith





Female gunsmith




Soulstone Miners




Kaeris and Crew




That's all of them. I still have a Large Steampunk Arachnid to put together, but I am not in love with the model. For the time being, I think Kaeris will do just fine with the crew as is! Ahh, I must not forget the Johan who just showed up in the mail. He will be joining Kaeris soon!

Monday, November 28, 2011

Colette Commision Recieved


A couple weeks ago I received a completed commission from my friend James over at 4-Ones blog. He had painted up my Colette crew for me, and they look fantastic. As I am sure you, faithful reader, are aware, I have been lax lately in getting pictures taken, never mind posted.

Thanksgiving weekend was a blessing on the time and picture front. I was able to knock out a bunch of models this weekend in addition to grabbing some long over-due pictures. I felt it was only proper to show off Jame's incredible work. Here they are, my new showgirls!

  
Colette, the girl herself

Cassandra

Performer and Mannequin

Performer and Mannequin

Doves
Coryphee and Coryphee Duet

Friday, November 25, 2011

Battle Report - Rasputina v Lilith

I realized while cropping these pictures and uploading them that the majority of the battle reports I have posted have been vs eChris. From reading these reports the readers would think he is my only opponent. This is not the case. I think eChris likes seeing battle reports posted, so he consistently reminds me to take pictures during our games. As such, our games are the ones that get posted. With that said, here is another Battle Report to be posted. I really expected this to be a slaughter when I saw eChris put out his Lilith crew, but I jumped in with a smile.

Set-up
This was a game we played as part of our ongoing Achievement League. I am playing Arcanists in the League while eChris is playing Neverborn. We agreed to a 30 point game, flipped standard deployment, and flipped who would deploy first, resulting in my having first deployment. We were playing on a small village board set-up prior to the game. 

 We started flipping for strategies, with eChris flipping Line in the Sand and me flipping Distract. eChris contemplated burning a stone to re-flip but decided to stick with his choice. I proceeded to my case and contemplated what to take. My Arcanist choices were Kaeris, Colette, and Rasputina. I had had some luck with Raspy previously on Distract, plus I only had 1 gunsmith painted. I did not think Colette would be very good at Distract, so stuck with Raspy for the mission. At 30 points I figured I would take a fairly direct crew, grabbing 2 SS miners (MVP in previous games) and 2 Silent Ones to heal them up. I grabbed the essence and decided to sit on an 8 SS pool.

Upon selecting my crew, I glanced across to see what eChris was bringing so I could pick my strategies. He brought Lilith, 2 Lilitu, Lelu, a Tot, and the puking snake. With that in mind, the choice on schemes really fell to what I had left to accomplish for the league. My choices were Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Extermination, Eye for an Eye, Frame for Murder, Stake a Claim, Steal Relic, and Reflections of December. Looking over that list here were my thoughts:

  • Breakthrough - Not likely since I would need the miners for hitting power
  • Extermination - Very unlikely to near impossible
  • Eye for an Eye - tough but possible
  • Frame for Murder - Impossible unless I hide it, and this game was not worth hiding a Scheme
  • Stake a Claim - Not likely, but possible
  • Steal Relic - I did not want to be close to Lilith without attacking
  • Reflections of December - Possible, and I am not sure how many more games I will have with Raspy
  • Bodyguard - Possible, only because I will have a fair number of SS to prevent damage.
So, I ended up taking Bodyguard and Reflections.

30SS Scrap
Bill - Rasputina, 2x Silent Ones, 2x Soulstone Miners, Essence of power, 8 stones
       - Distract, Bodyguard, Reflections
eChris - Lilith, 2x Lilitu, Lelu, Tot, Primordial Magic, 8 stones
       - Line in the Sand, Holdout, Breakthrough



eChris's Crew & Deployment
 My crew and deployment


Turn 1

My turn started in a fairly mundane fashion. The essence linked with Raspy, moved forward and cast pillars to cover up the middle dynomite marker. Following that the miners dug up soulstones for Raspy to use, and the Silent Ones healed the miners back to full. Each silent one, on thier activation, cast other spells to try and surge and stack my hand for later in the game. eChris used his turn more productively, sprinting and transposing models around the board and grabbing the first objective on the left of the board (from my perspective). He pulled forward and sent Lelu to work breaking down one of the pillars and activated a second objective as well. Not bad, 2 objectives on turn 1 is a strong start for eChris, and puts me a bit on the back foot.





 From eChris's side of the board.






Turn 2
Turn 2 turned up the pressure with lots of action. I do not remember the exact steps of the turn (unfortunately), but to sum up it went something like this. eChris activated Lelu, smashed apart the second ice pillar, then moved over and activated a third objective. In conjunction, Lilitu drifted around the house and started luring one of my silent ones forward. I was pulled up, but resisted a couple times. My silent one activated and put up north wind, just covering Raspy where she was sitting. eChris moved his second Lilitu forward and pulled the Silent one the rest of the way into the scrum, but was not able to get any attacks through. To get some range, the second Silent one moved forward to get Raspy in range of North Wind, then popped the spell up. Lilith made a run across the street to position for the other two objectives. Raspy activated and blasted into the scrum, killing lelu with blasts and leaving the Lilitu's with some damage. Raspy finished her turn by putting up ice pillars to block Lilith from getting inside the building and grabbing her objective there. eChris ran his Tot to the back of the board, then followed up with the totem transposing one of the Lilitu's to get her to safety. I activated my miners, ate a soulstone for Overdrive, then moved forward and tunneled. At the end of the turn I shifted one tunnel marker forward (the corpse counter) and the second one to the left between the small and large houses. My goal was to threaten eChris's crew with 1 miner while the other went to deactivate dynamite.





 From his side of the board



Turn 3
Turn 3 let me finish what I had started on the previous turn. eChris started by moving to threaten Raspy with his Tot. I responded by moving my silent one away from the objective and damaging the tot with her healing spell. eChris moved his rear lilitu forward to position near the center of the board and lured my silent one forward. My silent one moved closer to the tot, pulsed and killed it off. eChris moved the second Lilitu to the center of the board, getting Raspy, totem, and a silent one in melee range. Raspy activated, defensive stance, then walked out of combat. I forgot at that point to pull my totem to me with link, leaving it engaged. I tried to use my (0) spell to knock one of the Lilitu's down but failed the cast. I then followed up shooting my blast spell into combat. Flipping for the targeting in melee ended up with my targeting a Lilitu. I then flipped the red joker for my irresistible flip, realizing that had I remembered to snap my totem, I would have had that joker on my cast. I followed up with a cast and stone to drop severe damage on one Lilitu, and blast onto the second. This left one of them at 1 wound remaining, and the second at 2. Lilith then moved out from around the house, but I do not remember what she did. My totem dropped two more ice pillars to block Lilith from moving directly to Raspy next turn, then it came time for moving the Miners. Miner #1 moved to be next to Lilith, and #2 moved onto the far left objective. At the end of the turn the two Lilitu's healed one of them up to 6 wounds, and the other one died.





Turn 4
At the start of the turn, I brought both miners up from Tunneling. I won initiative (13 to a 12) and started with the Miner next to Lilith. He attacked 3 times, missing 2 attacks, and dived back below ground. Lilitu started by luring and killing a Silent One then moving forward to engage Raspy. The second silent one moved forward and pulsed near the Lilitu, putting 2 damage on her. Lilith activated, broke through the ice pillar and charged the silent one to kill her. Shatter had Lilitu down to 1 wound, and had Lilith had prevented most everything. Raspy activated and threw everything she had at Lilith, killing Lilitu in the blasting. The soulstone miner dug up another stone for Raspy, then the tunneled one moved over next to Lilith.








Turn 5 & 6
Turn 5 started with the miner popping out and then I again won initiative. The miner attacked and got a luck shot off on Lilith, killing her. Raspy then moved forward stand next to one of the activate markers. The non-insignificant miner shut off the far left objective. On turn 6 Raspy and the other miner shut off the remaining objectives.



The game ended with a win to me (very unlikely game). I think there were mistakes made on both sides, but the bulk came down to eChris focusing on his line in the sand early in the game and not picking apart Raspy's crew, allowing me to build up my stones and start picking apart his crew. Final score, Raspy 8 -> Lilith 2 (holdout).