Got a really fun game in tonight on Vassal against a nice guy in Malaysia named Tekanan (well, at least that's his Vassal name...)and his Pirate Queen Skarre led Cryx force. Lessons learned tonight: dice are weird, and apparently her boobs are lethal!!
I was really tired yesterday, after a hard Friday night / Saturday morning...my first time to a Korean "Night Club" resulted in not getting back to my hotel until almost 9am Saturday morning. Fun times! But I'm feeling a little too old to stay out on all-night drinking binges with these kids, even if I did drink them all under the table!
Regardless of fatigue, I soldierly led my Absylonia force in to battle on Vassal. I was using Absylonia with two Shredders, Harrier, Raek, Scythean, Angelius, Seraph, 3 Forsaken, and a Shepherd. This list is something that seems like I should do well with, but I'm struggling to put the pieces together in my brain still.
Tekanan used Pirate Queen Skarre, Seether, Reaper, Cankerworm, Stalker, 6 Bane Thralls, Bane Lord Tartarus, 6 MechanicThralls, a Skarlock, and a Necrosurgeon with Stitches.
He won the roll-off and chose to go first.
As an aside, at the LGS they use 2d6 to determine who chooses, but on Vassal it's 1d6. Is this in writing anywhere?
He deployed right in the middle, and I deployed behind a forest. Go figure :)
First turn he ran, with the Stalker and Canker going to the right, with the Reaper and Seether leaning left.
I had deployed my Raek on the left, with the intent of tying up his big jacks, but got distracted and ran him off to my left to help deal with the fast little jacks coming that way. I was really good at distracting myself from my own plan this game!
On my turn I used Harrier to kill one of the McThralls blocking the lanes out of the forest. I used the Seraph to Slipstream the Angelius and take out another McThrall (they were spaced nicely so not to be within 2" of each other). Now here my sleepy factor set in. I had intended to try to slipstream up the Scythean too (using Absylonia), have Absy put a Blight Field on the Seether, and have both Angelius and Scythean charge the Reaper, finishing it off and using the Scythean to block charge to the Angelius (or at least making it harder for him to throw everything at one of the two). But instead a lot of sleepy brain and weird dice blew that plan out of the water. First, I started to move Absy up to be in position to Slip the Scythean and put the Blight Field down...but somehow distracted myself (again!) and moved her sideways so that the Blight Field couldn't be placed on the Seether...at the end of my turn I was really pondering how I had 2 points of Fury left...it was left because I screwed up! I did remember to Slip the Scythean in to position, though. Then the Angelius did her charge, standing on the boxes and stabbing the shit out of the Reaper. She hit with her charge-boosted Pow 16 AP strike and rolled 5-5-6 for the damage...at dice +7, for a wopping 23 points of damage in one shot! She was forced for another attack and easily finished off the jack in one charge. I wish that would happen everytime!
Sadly, though, this left nothing for the Scythean to charge except some McThralls. So in another fit of sleepiness I used my super-cool Raek to kill off three McThralls (throwing one at another, then biting the third). It was cool, but a damned waste! The Scythean then just stood in the forest. I probably should have moved him up continue the plan of keeping the Angel and Scythean supporting each other, but I failed.
Not only all of those mistakes, but I also did very poor Fury management. I only had a handful of Fury on the Forsaken, but still had too much fury on beasts! WTF?!
I think my opponent seemed to have some concern at being a jack down so quickly, but also saw an opportunity to tip the scales the other way. Skarre used her feat this turn, as well as casting Dark Guidance. The Necro guy then healed her back up. Boo.
The surviving McThralls, Tartarus, and the Bane Thralls all ganged up to kill the Angelius. Def 17 doesn't help too much when every enemy gets an extra die to hit, nor does armour help when everything is +5 Str. Wow, as if Banes didn't hit hard enough already! :)
The Seether ripped the Raek apart without breaking a sweat. The Stalker ran in to my forest, engaging two Forsaken and the Seraph.
On my turn, I was not feeling too bad. I felt I had a chance to take out his other heavy Jack, leaving just a few infantry to wade through, and not having used my Feat yet I thought that'd be ok. But I'd missed the part about Skarre's Feat adding to their Armour too...uhoh. The Scythean wasted no time in charging the Seether. I'd expected to tear it apart pretty good, but insted barely tickled it. This left me in an incredibly bad position, with my last real heavy surrounded by things that would do horrible things to it. On the positive note, my two Forsaken used their Fury to buy and boost enough attacks, that combined with my "goalie" Shredder to kill off the Stalker. Absy was remarkably ineffective this turn, doing nought much but pass out some Tenacity and put a Blight on the Seether. She did Slip the Seraph away from the Stalker, but even that was a moot point, as Seraph's shooting had done nothing and she could have just flown away after the Stalker died anyway. Sigh...poor play. In other words, Seraph and Absy did nothing this turn. Waste.
So now things are really looking grim. I have just a shooty Seraph, a couple Lessers, and a few Forsaken. I admit, I began to despair. But I soldiered on. The Seraph flew to the left part of the forest (I don't know why...too sleepy), and took 3 shots at the Seether. A decent first damage roll took off all his M, allowing me to hit without having to boost for the rest, which freed up Fury to boost the damage. This put a great deal of pain on the Jack, leaving him only a handful of boxes. Absylonia charged in then with her Reach and Strength mutations up. Her first strike finished off the Seether, and I moved Forsaken to try to block charges on Absylonia.
Notice how Skarre hid behind that traincar-hill the whole game? I would love to have just dropped a few Pow 12 shots on her and finish her, but she stayed hidden...until now. He moved her up just enough to get on the hill, so he'd have Dark Guidance where he wanted it. Tartarus and the available Banes killed off my Forsaken and pulled the Seraph down, leaving me only Absy and a Shredder.
But, I had a great opportunity here. I could tell by his command range that Absy was just under 12" from Skarre. She'd have to take two free strikes from Bane Thralls...unless my Shredder could remove them both. So Shredder goes rabid, advances on to both of them, initial bite kills the first...so far so good...force another bite, and he kills the second! Ok, now a free lane for the assassination!
Absy mutates: flight to get through the forest, reach to achieve the charge, and strength because I think Pow 15 with two initial attacks is a better use of the Fury...or maybe I'm wrong. I charge Skarre, and easily make it in to range. First attack hits, and boosted charge damage: 5-5-6! With the Focus Skarre had camped, that left her with only 3 boxes! Second attack, need a 9 to-hit, boost, and...Ordo...1-3-3. Sigh.
All I could think of was the turn I'd wasted two Fury....if I'd put Carnivore on Absy it would have been game-over, but instead Tartarus cursed Absylonia, walked up behind her, and cut her in half.
A really fun game. I had some nice dice at a few key moments that kept me in the game, but with my poor play and inability to think I needed a lot more help from the dice than I got. Thinking about the Fury use on my last turn later, I think I could have bought another attack...I had 6 to start, used 3 for mutations, leaving 3. Then used 1 to boost the charge attack roll, which hit...then I used a Fury to boost that damage. It was already boosted for free from the charge, so after missing the second initial boosted attack, I should have been able to make one more attempt to get a 9 on two dice...it could happen! That would have ended the game.
As it was, to come so close to a win after playing such a blah game felt pretty good! Dark Guidance took away my greatest advantage: high Defense. His Skarlock was killing Stitches every turn generating tons of Focus for him too.
Off to bed...still recovering from that Night Club. And now they say they want to do it again this Friday! Ug! ;)
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