Regardless, I remembered to unpack my camera for the games during this last weekend. I convinced my family that they should go check out Durham NC while I was playing in a Malifaux tournament, then packed them all up and drove 5 hours south to get some games in! I had a really good time and was able to get in games with the NC crew, including the twitter famous @Sassylady1970 (Dawn). I event remembered to take pictures, although only 1 game actually got enough pictures to write a battle report about.
The tournament would be using shared strategies from the soon-to-be-released Gaining Grounds 2013 strategies. I am very familiar with these but have been trying to figure out what faction I will want to use in tournaments this year. I waffled all morning between Neverborn and Ten Thunders, but decided to give Ten Thunders a run for this event. I am missing some key Ten Thunders models, but still thought I could do well overall. I also wanted to see how well Saving Face really worked in the new tournament environment.
Game 1 Set-up
Our board had a number of ruins scattered around and lots of cover. The windows of the big ruins in the center were all ht 2, so models could hide behind them with no issues.
30SS Scrap
Bill - Misaki, Yamaziko, 2x Ronin, 2x Torekage, 6 stones
- Shared GG Line in the Sand, Stake a Claim (ruins near center), Hold Out
I did not grab a picture of my deployed crew, which was an oversight on my part. You can just make out the deployment at the bottom of the picture of the board.
- Shared GG Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Hold Out
Dawn spent some of her SS to give Yan Lo more defense and regeneration. I think she may have spent the points incorrectly, as she was actually under on her hiring, having 5ss left as she went into the game. I am not sure though.
Turn 1
Turn 1 was pretty typical with a lot of positional movement. Key moments of turn 1 included both of my Torekage using Shadow Stride to bury themselves. The goal was to pop out on or near the Dynamite, using one of the Ronin as my anchor point. I moved the rest of my crew forward, using Misaki's Fast to park her on the center dynamite. I trusted to her high defense to keep me safe should I lose initiative, and also used her Shadow ability on Izamu. Dawn moved everything forward, linking the soul porter to Yan Lo and using its ability to make Izamu walk forward. Dawn pushed the majority of her crew forward to threaten my right side of the board, while sending out her Night Terrors to the left. At the end of the turn I brought out my Torekage, one on the furthest left Dynamite marker, and one in range to charge and attack either of the night terrors.
Turn 2
Turn 2 would be the first turn where points could be scored. The first several moved in the turn ended up with Izamu trying to arm a dynamite, but Misaki using Shadow (following Izamu's walk) to move into his melee range, stopping his ability to arm the dynamite. Izamu make a couple attacks which missed Misaki, and then through a flurry of activity Misaki was able to get into the middle of Dawn's crew, engaging Izamu and Yan Lo and putting some damage on Yan Lo. This really depleted her hand as I was able to squeeze in a couple decapitate triggers to force her to discard cards. My Torekage on the far left armed a dynamite, while my Ronin on the left attacked a night terror guarding the second dynamite in. This opened up the dynamite, allowing my Torekage to move over in preparation for arming it. Chiaki and Yamaziko did a bit of positioning and healing, while my other ronin ran to the center dynamite and the Desperate Merc took off for the side of the table, out of range of everyone.At the end of the turn, I scored a VP for having more dynamite armed and we moved on.
Turn 3 & 4
As things picked up pace and importance in the game during turn 3, I forgot to grab a picture in between rounds. We ended up playing through a furious turn 3 and 4, which resolved the game with the game ending after the end of turn 4 due to time. Tun 3 opened up with Dawn using companion to activate Chiaki, Izamu, Yan Lo, and the Soul Porter together. I had a nice hand, but knew this could go very badly for me. She opened with a series of Weight of Ages from Yan Lo and the Soul Porter. I lucked out with good soulstone flips and a handy black joker on Dawn's side, finishing the series of spells with Misaki still standing. Izamu made a couple attacks but could not break through Your Mine on Misaki, then Chiaki didn't really do much. After depleting my soulstones and hand, I still had Misaki standing at half wounds and Dawn had burned the majority of her turn without the effect she wanted. I activated Misaki and Yamaziko together and started attacking. I was able to remove Yan Lo in the turn, but it ate up 3 of my AP, leaving only 1 ap remaining to attack Chiaki. Bad flips on my side left Chiaki alive. Yamaziko charge into combat and removed Chiaki, leaving just the big bad Izamu to deal with. The rest of the turn was my ronin's running for either the back board edge (cowboy hat) or moving up to arm the central dynamite. My torekage dealt with the remaining night terror and the second Torekage moved toward the middle-left dynamite. Turn 4 had Izamu attacking and killing Misaki and Yamaziko, which I did not fight as Dawn could still not activate a dynamite or move into my deployment zone. Somewhere during the turn the Desperate Mercenary was killed, leaving the game firmly in hand for me. I moved my cowboy hat ronin further into Dawn's deployment zone to break her hold-out, buried a Torekage to pop up next to the Ronin, and moved my purple haired ronin over to stake a claim. I ended up with Strategy points at the end of turns 3 and 4.
At the end of the game it ended up a win to Misaki, 7/0.
Misaki: Shared GG Line in the Sand (3), Stake a Claim (ruins near center) (2), Hold Out (2)
Yan Lo: Shared GG Line in the Sand (0), Bodyguard (0), Hold Out (0)
Final Thoughts
I had a great game against Dawn, which was especially nice since I had missed the chance to play a game with her on my last trip to NC. I had an advantage in this game on a number of fronts. To begin with, I am very familiar with this strategy and have had some opportunity to play it a fair amount. I know what models work and have practice with the pacing of the game for scoring victory points. Misaki can also be a tough match for Yan Lo, as her Decapitate ability can remove some heavy hitting models if the cards fall the right way. I also think Dawn was playing down a bit on her SS, so she probably should have had another model on the table as well.Overall the tournament was a lot of fun, and it was nice for my first tournament of the year. I played 3 great games, using Misaki in 2 of them and Jakob in the final game. I faced Yan Lo (Game 1), Ophelia (Game 2), and Dreamer (Game 3) in Line in the Sand, Beat Down, and Master of the Hill. I ended the day with 2 wins and a loss to come in second place overall. My loss was in Beat Down against the gremlin player, and was an incredibly fast paced and fun game. Both of us had lost our masters on turn 2, and a number of bad flips on my part kept me from removing his key models. After that the game ended with 2-3 turns of Ototo and Kang trying to chase down and corner Gremlin Santiago, who can move 15 inches in a turn.
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