I'm still using Dreamer and a little Jacob thrown in. I've gotten two games in with each in the last week and a half, read on to learn how they went!
Last Sunday I played a game vs. James. I was all excited to use Dreamer with Mr. Tannen and see how many Teddies I could Summon, but alas when we went to put together crews, my Tannen card is missing! So I just subbed in a Stitched Together and went with:
Dreamer (Dreams of Pain)
Teddy
2 Stitched Together
2 Insidious Madness
2 Alps
James' crew included Seamus (with the Big Hat and a few other upgrades, didn't catch the details), a couple Rotten Belles, a couple Nurses, Sebastian, some Canine Remains, and a Punk Zombie.
Strategy was Reckoning. Corner Deployment. I don't remember the whole Scheme Pool, but I went with Breakthrough and Frame for Murder (on one of the Madness).
I deployed Teddy and the Stitched aiming for the middle of the table, while the Dreamer and summoning cronies hid behind a giant tower. The Madnesses went behind the tower also, ready to shoot around the flanks.
James split his force up a bit, with Sebastian, Nurses, and Remains going to my left, Punk, Belles, and Seamus more towards mid-table.
Now, remember when I said I wanted to use Mr. Tannen this game? My first hand included 13 Mask AND Red Joker. Could you imagine his reaction if I'd shit out two Teddies on turn 1? Hilarity! Instead I pushed Stitched up a lot, Teddy got pushed around to my left (to deal with Sebastian), and I summoned...all in one turn...Coppelius, Lelu, and Lilitu! Lilitu walked up to the middle to support there, while Lelu and Coppelius went around to the left a bit to support Teddy...lots of killiness going that way! Seamus zipped off deep to my right using Back Alley a time or two. I sent the "sucker" Madness that way, but hid him so as not to tip my hand!
Turn 2, I sent the "sucker" madness near Seamus (above the table stuff, I mumbled about not wanting him to Back Alley anywhere bad). Seamus took a shot at him, but didn't kill him. A Belle worked her way towards him, tried to Lure him, but failed. My other Madness zipped thru a ruined bulding and got a Scheme Marker just within Breakthru range. We jockeyed for position at midtable a bit. Dreamer summoned a Daydream to replace last turn's, spawned Chompy. Chompy re-buried and shit out a 0 wakening Dreamer....who I put a bit more than 3" of friendly Nightmares...
Lelu and Coppelius got pushed closer to the left where the action was about to happen. Teddy did Gobble You Up on a Nurse, Hugged the other nurse due to Smell Fear, then Flurried to kill the other.
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| Teddy wants to hug the Nurses! |
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| Dreamer hides behind The Tower, while Seamus tries to sneak around the Forest! |
A Belle Lured my "sucker" Madness in and killed him...yeah! I moved Stitched and Daydreams and an Alp to mid table. Lilitu lured the Punk in to the mess, and the a Stitched killed him!
On the left things got exciting. Lelu killed one of his Remains, and Pushed himself thru the forest to get closer to the other. Coppelius killed off the last Nurse. Sebastian tried to run for it,Teddy failed his Gobble You Up but Charged Sebastian, leaving him barely alive. My other Madness ran over and Schemed again. Seamus did a great Back Alley move that set him up for a shot on the Dreamer, leaving him with 2 wounds left...so the Dreamer ran like a girl 14", and removed Poison from Teddy. My last Alp moved to engage Seamus, forcing him to take a Wp Duel or be Slow, and at least have to kill the Alp before trying to Back Alley again.
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| Teddy and Coppelius have left corpses in their wake, as Teddy chases down the feeling Sebastian! |
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| An Alp engages Seamus, as the Belles look on and say "WTF just happened?!" |
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| Run, Sebastian....Run!!! |
At this point James realized he was going to lose Sebastian early turn 4, leaving him with 2 Belles and Seamus vs. about 100ss worth of stuff. I don't know what schemes he had, but he was down on Reckoning (I think I had a Nurse and a Remains on turn 2; a Nurse and Punk Zombie turn 3), I had two VP from Frame for Murder, and was going to get 3 VP for Breakthru. He would likely get 2 for Breakthru...I think maybe he had Bodyguard on Sebastian? So, he thought the outcome was inevitable, so he surrendered. Thanks for the game, James!
But no worries, as Pat was standing by ready for a game! Pat plays Neverborn also, and we decided since time was a factor to do 35ss.
Strategy was Squatters Rights, Corner Deployment, pool was Assassinate, Entourage, and really...I don't remember what else.
I wanted to get some trigger-time with Jacob, so went with:
Jacob (Woke Up With a Hand, Wanna See a Trick, Rising Sun)
Hungering Darkness (Addict)
2 Illuminated
2 Beckoners
He had Lilith (with the Big Sword), Shaman, Waldgeist, 3 Tots, and a few Upgrades that I didn't catch the name of.
I went with Assassinate (I figured Lilith would be coming at me anyway...) and Entourage (let Hungry take a chunk out of Lilith, die, then Jacob finish her off, spawn new Huggy, and off he'd go!)
He moved very aggressively with the Waldgeist early, so I planned to Lure and Heed My Voice the thing up to where I could kill it with Illuminated and Jacob.
But after the first Beckoner's Lure, Lilith came up even more aggressively! She used her "lure" thing to pull an Illuminated in close, where she was surrounded by Severe terrain from the Cherub, which made my Illuminated take even more damage. Ouch!
So...I changed my plan, and started Luring her. A Lure and a Heed My Voice later (Yes! I know...I cheated! I realized later that it's only able to target Non-Leader models. My bad!), she was less than 10" away from Jacob. An Illuminated took a shot at Lilith, hoping for the Mask trigger to get her Brilliant, but that failed...
...so Jacob walks up, takes a shot, hits, discards for a Mask trigger and gets her hooked on the Brilliance, but only for weak Damage. Goes to cast Final Debt...with 8 cards in hand...Black Joker. Uhoh!
So did 52 Pickup for six, and stood by to die.
Second turn Initiative would be so important...if he wins, Jacob dies. If I win, Lilith dies.
Of course he wins!
Lilith moved well to engage multiple models, and killed the hell out of Jacob. Huggy got revenge though, killing her off. Turns out we both had Assassinate, so both got full points for it. Yeah?
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| Lilith is (cheatily) lured in to the Killbox! (Jacob is just off frame behind the rock near BootyButt) |
The Shaman made the game for him here, as Corpse Markers were used by the Shaman to turn Tots in to Young after they claimed some Squatters Rights. One of my Illuminated went down quickly (spawning a Young Nephilim), while Huggy and the Beckoners struggled to get things off Huggy, get Huggy across the table, and not die.
Pat went up quickly on Squatter's Rights, and on turn 5 I'd not made any headway getting in to his table half with Huggy, tried a hail-mary to disengage and by Luring a Young Nephilim off of Hungry, but failed. Final Score was 6-5 (He has assassinate for 3, and 3 Squatters Rights; I had assassinate for 3, and 2 Squatter's Rights)
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| Lilith is gone, but the Tots remain! |
In showing our age, neither Pat nor I can remember what his other Scheme was. Sorry!
This was a really good challenging game for me. I was out-activated, and was really in a pickle as I didn't feel I could 'trade' models well, as any dead models were likely to result in him Growing something. The speedy tots were all over the Squats, and I was not...I had to send fighty Illumianted to do squats, a guy I'd much rather have had to help kill stuff to free up Huggy! I had to make hard choices, and really enjoyed it!
Huggy was super survivable. With Terrifying and Incorporeal, he was very hard for Pat to get wounds on, then when he activated he was able to heal up well. I wasn't able to set up the Illuminated with Brillianced targets very well, but having one of them dragged away to his death and the other off Squatting made that kind of moot.
Pat did a great game with the Shaman pushing me in to bad spots with the Young Nephilim spawns and taking advantage of every mistake I made. Thanks for the great game Pat!
Well, two games written and this post is getting long, but I've got two more games under my belt to talk about, so talk I will...it's something I do a lot of!
Pat and I got together on Vassal for a 50ss game. I took screenshots of the game, but Vassal is smarter than I am, and has hidden the pictures from me. Sorry!
Deployment was Standard, Recon was the strategy. As usual I only remember the schemes I chose, not the entire pool...I went with Assassinate and Deliver a Message.
His force was led by Pandora, with Teddy, Baby Kade, Candy Kane, a couple of Sorrows and a Poltergeist.
I took a slightly different Summony Dreamer list...what I'm aiming for Model-wise:
Dreamer (Dreams of Pain)
3 Daydreams
3 Alps
Teddy
Stitched Together
Doppelganger
Mr. Tannen
I'm in love with the DG, and really wanted to see if Mr. Tannen could be as helpful as he seemed he might. As noted, I chose Assassinate and Deliver a Message. In retrospect, Assassinate vs. Pandora was probably not the smartest move...but it was my first game vs. her!
Since I have no screenshots, I'll just have brief description....
brief for me means only a few thousand words, though!
I got a great first turn hand with Tannen, with a 10 and 13 Mask. Pat pushed most of his forces up the middle (this particular map was a series of interconnected buildings, with a wide train-track thru-way that cut thru the middle of the table. Most of the action took place along this wide street). His Teddy and Kade, a Sorrow and the Poltergeist pushed up at me, with Candy lurking behind...Pandora and the other Sorrow hid in a 'side room'. I pushed the Stitched up a bit, but mostly hung back first turn, and summoned...a second Teddy and Coppelius! Lilitu would have been a better choice probably, but I thought Coppelius' speed might come in handy if I needed to chase stuff down with all the LOS blocking walls and rooms etc.
Turn 2 things got hot and heavy. He beat up my Stitched, but it was able to help my hand with a few extra cards, and put a few wounds on hid Teddy. My plan at this point was to keep him occupied in the middle with the summoned stuff while I pushed the original Teddy (#1) around some corners where he could Deliver a Message to Pandora. This worked out well, particularly with the help of a Red Joker on a damage flip on his Teddy with one of mine that put him down pretty quickly. Dreamer and Daydreams pushed Teddy #1 as planned, he took a lot of knocks on his way in, and just barely survived long enough to get there and deliver it. Notably he was hit with Nobody Likes Me, so had to activate dead last in my crew...which was ironic, as that's what I wanted to do with him anyway!
The next turn I won the initiative (I believe I cheated it with the Doppelganger), Teddy activated, barely survived the damage taken just for activating near Pandora and a Sorrow, and he took a chunk out of Pandora. Lots of things dogpiled on him, and of course Teddy #1 died, but he'd done his job. Teddy #2 went to work fighting against Baby Kade and Poltergeist. He and Coppelius did pretty well, while Doppelganger tied up with a Sorrow and mimic'd Coppelius to collect some Eyes for her own!
Turn 3 Dreamer pulled off some great tricks...he summoned up two fresh Daydreams, getting me back to three, got to Waking 4 and summoned Chompy right outside the door to the 'room' Pandora was hiding in. The two new daydreams walked right thru the wall to get within range to drop Pandoras WP, the non-slow one pushed Chompy thru the door first then did the same. This left Pandora with Wp4, with Chompy ready to charge her. He did, and with her defense low he ripped her apart, and at that point we called the game. I had a damaged Coppelius and Teddy staring down his Poltergeist and Candy, his last Sorrow was unengaged but well within range for Chompy to get pushed to and kill on turn 5.
I believe the way things worked out, I won 9-0. I believe Pat had Assassinate and Breakthru (something schemey), but he failed to Scheme any. Moreover he'd misread Reconnoiter and didn't catch the 'models within 6" of center don't count' part, so he failed to get any there either.
I was quite happy with how the crew clicked together. I could easily see dropping an Alp for Otherwordly and a stone (I keep wanting to stone in a Crow when I'm going to summon something awesome, but am afraid to be defenseless!). This is a crew setup I'll most definitely be using at Nova!
And last, one more "quick" battle...Jacob versus Lilith round 2!
The first Jacob vs Lilith was a clear defeat for my Jacob force...the score was close, but I was trounced. I wanted some payback!
The deployment was Flank.
The Strategy was Stake a Claim!
Schemes were Entourage, Bodyguard, Spring the Trap, and Assassinate
I liked the idea of Assassinate, as I was pretty sure Lilith would get up close, but at the same time I liked the idea of just not getting engaged with Hungering Darkness, using his Incorporeal to stay away and hide and zip in to his backfield to score. Moreover, with Rising Sun, I felt I could even use him a bit offensively early and replace him to still score full.
So I went with what will probably be my standard Jacob crew:
Jacob Lynch (Woke With A Hand, Wanna See A Trick, Rising Sun)
Hungering Darkness
3 Illuminated
2 Beckoners
2 Terror Tots
He went with:
Lilith
Nekima
2 Young Nephilim
Lilitu
2 Terror Tots
I'm quite certain there were lots of upgrades in there, but I don't know what they were...sorry.
I deployed scattered all over, hoping to not tip my hand to what I was doing. I wasn't happy with the deployment, particularly putting Beckoner on the top floor...lazy.
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| Deployment! Note the Beckoners head in the top floor of the building |
As this post is already way too long, I'll keep it brief. He played cagey with most of his models early, as did I. I wanted to push an engagement that I wanted, so I dangled Hungry out at mid-table where Lilith might come to get him...and she did. She killed the shit out of him, but that left her in a lureable spot.
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| Lilith in position to be lured! |
So lure her I did, then got Brilliance on her. An Illuminated then charged her, and left her with only two wounds left. Then, what I didn't see coming....Nekima flew over, and killed her! He thought I had assassinate, and didn't want to just give her up. I'd arranged it so she was within 6" of Jacob, so Hungering Darkness popped back out, and Jacob went to work on Nekima...he burnt many soulstones, despite having all 3 AP to shoot at her with, plus 52 pickup, I couldn't finish her off.
He won the initiative next turn, and did some great Nephilim magic...Nekima flew over and killed Jacob, but within range that a Young got credit for it, growing to a Mature! Nekima, having effectively 4 AP to use, also killed an Illuminated. Lilitu lured a Beckoner off the balcony she was on, she fell, was killed by a Tot that grew in to a Young! Yikes!! Hungry tried to save the Beckoner, but wiffed horribly before the Tot could get to her. While this was going on I managed to get two Claim Markers down on his side of the table.
Hungry disengaged from the young he was stuck with, and got away in to his deployment zone, but Lilitu lured him right back out! Even worse, the Cherub hit him, making him Slow! His last Tot Sprinted to get ready to place a Claim that would remove one of mine...so I ran one of my Tots to engage him. Make him work for it!
My hand on turn four was GROSS. I had Red Joker, a 13 Mask, and two 11s!
I won the initiative, and the Illuminated already stuck on Nekima went first, cheated the 13 Mask to trigger Flay (allows cheating damage flip even with a - ), and cheated Red Joker for massive damage (she only had 4 wounds left at that point, so was probably overkill, but I wanted that bitch dead!) With her out of the way, I thought I had a chance...my illuminated and Beckoner could keep his Mature and one Young occupied while Hungry killed the other Young and made his way in to his deployment zone!
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| Nekima preparing to die to the Illuminated! |
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| Huggy tries to fight his slow way out of the Young Nephilim |
Pat saw that, and resignedly revealed he had Bodyguard and Entourage on Nekima. He was screwed for points, I was already up 2 on Stake a Claim (potentially 3), and Hungering Darkness had a good chance of fighting his way out of the mess he was in for 2 VP on Entourage...we talked thru things, and it looked a lot like it was going to be an 8-2 win for me!
We'll have to get a Jacob vs Lilith rubber match in soon!!
So the rest of the weak has been spent getting everything ready for Nova! I have a few Wicked Dolls I'd like to have painted "good enough" to get them on the table if I use Widow + Handback, but otherwise I'm all done and ready to go!
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| Dreamer Crew |
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| Jacob Crew! |
Well, I'm done...except all the Guild stuff I have (Austringers, Latigo Pistoleros, Riflemen to go with Perdita), and then there's all the stuff I ordered from Gencon...and the Johana I just picked up, and I need to get a Mr. Graves...
...see you at Nova I hope!!
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