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[Jan] Death Train: Sonnia Criid vs Mei Feng, 30ss


icarianmirror

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"Mei! Mei! It's a Guild inspection crew!"

Mei Feng glared at the panicked rail worker. Perfect. A surprise inspection, today of all days. The tall woman sighed, then strode towards the office door, snagging a pair of spiked gloves from a nearby chair as she did.

"Get Kang and the boys over here and get to work on that rail. I will not let some petty Guild paper-pusher interfere with this operation."

She smiled thinly.

"And fire up the Golem. No survivors, no report!"

30SS Scrap: Sonnia Criid vs. Mei Feng

Strategy: Shared Escape and Survive

Guild: Sonnia Criid, Samael Hopkins, Nino Ortega, 3 Witchling Stalkers.

Schemes: Holdout, Frame for Murder (Samael, hidden).

Arcanists: Mei Feng, Emberling, Rail Golem, Kang, 2 Rail Workers.

Schemes: Breakthrough, Alternate Route.

The encounter took place in an out of the way railroad substation (The Railroad Substation map on Vassal). Deployment was Diagonal, with Mei's crew deploying in the top right section of the map, and the Guild forces opposite them in the lower left. Mei and the Emberling deployed apart from the rest of the crew, closer to the center-top of the map and near some stairs leading over a large set of platforms dividing the map. The remainder of the rail crew deployed along the railway to the right.

Sonnia's forces also split, with Samael and a Witchling deploying opposite Mei Feng's position, Sonnia in the middle of the deployment zone, Nino in cover near Sonnia and the remaining Witchlings in the bottom right area of the map. Mei won first initiative.

Turn One (Mei initiative):

The massive Rail Golem warmed up its engines, advancing twice down the tracks and dropping a Route Marker behind it as it went, finishing by venting a large steam cloud. Nino, not exactly happy about the idea of the giant metal monster coming his way, checked out his range with In My Sights, but fell just short. He adjusted his position slightly and waited. The first of Mei's Rail Workers decided to play it safe, dropping a Route Marker between the Embarkation Point and the Golem's marker. He then legged it up the field to catch up with the Golem, joined soon by his fellow worker. The Worker used Shovel Faster to stoke the Golem, building up its burning counters.

Meanwhile, Samael dashed up a hill overlooking the platforms that Mei would be advancing over. He took a prime position behind some nearby barrels and waited. A Witchling joined him shortly afterwards, throwing up an Anti-Magic aura around them both. As Kang moved up to join the Golem and Rail Workers, Sonnia stepped forward and dropped a Flame Wall across their path. Sadly, this was more a way to check ranges than anything productive.

Mei and her Emberling showed the Guild what movement means, as the Emberling used a Seismic punch to send Mei towards the nearby stairs. As Mei rapidly advanced on Samael's position, the Emberling joined her thanks to Link. Finally, the two remaining Witchlings moved up towards the rail group advancing down the tracks.

Turn Two (Sonnia initiative):

Sammael, realising that he wasn't going to have long before Mei was too close for comfort, activated his Flaming Bullets and let fly with a Rapid Fire barrage. The first shot drifted wide, but the second struck home, dealing Mei a large amount of damage, even through a Soulstone prevention flip, and ricocheting off to kill the Emberling. Another Soulstone for Mei gave her more than enough power to dodge the 3rd shot, leaving Sammael looking fairly exposed.

Mei, well and truly annoyed, dashed forward, then launched a Jackhammer Kick at Sammael. The Kick delivered a solid hit, and with Mei in a Badass Pose, she looked a lot harder to hurt. The martial Master followed up with a Scalding Breath, eating into Sammael's remaining wounds, and followed with a Vent Steam into Superheat, leaving him on half-health and burned. Showing her contempt, Mei took the time to hammer down another Route Marker on the off-chance it would be needed.

As the rail crew advanced on the other side of the map, two of the Witchlings scurried forwards on an intercept course, one further behind than the other. A Rail Worker, failing to stoke the Rail Golem's boiler this turn, moved up to engage the foremost Witchling. The Witchling near Sammael and Mei moved into combat to support the Guild shooter, and the second Rail Worker moved forward and laid out another Route Marker, bringing the rail close to halfway across the map.

Sonnia, deciding that Mei shouldn't be the only one to show off what a Master could do, dosed up on a Soulstone to gain Confiscated Lore. A Flame Burst strike resulted in severe damage, the blasts chaining across both Rail Workers and the nearby Witchling Stalker. Sonnia threw up a Flame Wall in the path of the Rail Golem, then tried to disassemble the out of combat Rail Worker with a pistol strike, but only managed to get control cards tossed to cancel the trigger.

The Rail Golem moved up, taking a measly damage from the wall thanks to its armor, and discarded its supply of burning counters to use the mighty PAIN TRAIN, gaining reactivate. Nino took the opportunity before the Golem could start up again to wing a couple of shots at it, knocking off a good half of its wounds. The reactivated Golem prepared to go to town, joining the combat between the Witchling and Rail Worker, but was unable to land a hit on the slippery stalker. The golem settled for using its instinctive to place a Route Marker on either side of itself, lengthening the rapidly growing railway. Kang moved around above the growing combat, while the remaining Witchling moved around it from below.

Turn Three (Sonnia initiative):

Sonnia started off the turn with a bang, dosing up on more Soulstones and using her newfound lore to send out another wave of blasts. These washed over the out of combat Rail Worker and bounce off to catch Kang, and all three combatants; Rail Golem, Rail Worker and Witchling. The two Workers are killed outright, and the one engaged with the Witchling lashes out, killing it and triggering a death explosion. All of this reduced the Golem to one wound, and Sonnia, unable to resist the opportunity, directed a Violation of Magic at it, creating a much smaller Witchling Stalker.

Mei, not to be outdone, effortlessly took Sammael off the table with a Tiger Claw strike. This did have the unfortunate side-effect of framing her for murder. Not one to let a minor thing like that slow her down, Mei leapt onto the nearby Witchling, took it down to half health and ended her move by Venting Steam and Superheating, catching both the Witchling and Sonnia in the dense cloud.

Nino took some shots at Kang, but was barely able to damage him. Kang retaliated by charging Sonnia, forcing her to burn another Soulstone to prevent the hit. Kang took advantage of Sonnia's pill-popping to lay down yet another section of rail, leaving only a small section of map left to link up the railway. The Golem-Witchling moved up to support its friend in combat with Mei, while the remaining original Witchling continued its trend of being a coward and doing absolutely nothing productive; a trend that continued till game end.

Turn 4 (Mei initiative):

Mei continued her streak of causing violent death by tearing apart the wounded Witchling, taking some damage from its Immolating Demise. An easy Tiger's Fury took her to the other Stalker, which was also quickly eviscirated, Mei using a Soulstone to prevent her death from this explosion. She quickly stepped into combat with Kang and Sonnia, throwing up a Vent Steam but proving unable to Superheat it.

Sonnia, fighting for her life, landed some quick sword blows on Kang, but was unable to seal the deal. She cast Inferno and attempted to bring up a Flame Wall behind the two Arcanists, locking them all in a raging fire. Her remaining power wasn't quite enough to bring up the wall, and Kang quickly made it a moot point, catching Sonnia in the gut with a shovel and throwing her back. He charged in, another swing knocking Sonnia back further and removing the threat of the Inferno. With Sonnia heavily wounded and out of the way, Kang proceeded to lay down another Route Marker, leaving barely inches of space needed to finish the track.

Nino retaliated, taking Kang to one wound with his first shot and finishing him off with the second. Kang, defiant to the last, threw a load of hot coals at Sonnia, but another Soulstone burn kept the Master alive.

Turn 5 (Sonnia initiative):

Winning the vital initiative flip, Sonnia was finally able to burn out the tenacious Arcanist master with her third and final cast of Flame Burst. With that, we called the game in favour of the Guild.

Sonnia limped through the charred circle, her breath coming in pained gasps. What a disaster. A team of Witchlings dead, Sammael critically injured and several valuable Soulstones gone, and what to show for it? A bunch of grunts and a pile of scrap. The enemy Master had vanished in the mass of steam and fire, and taken the big man with her. Sonnia fumbled out a cigarette and waved Nino down from the hill. This was not going to make a good report.

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Thanks! Yeah, it really could have gone either way in that last round - we were both out of stones, and Sonnia wasn't having much luck with her spells. If I'd have missed that last Burst, or he'd won initiative, he'd have had me.

Huh, I'll have to keep that in mind for next time. Pretty sure it wouldn't have mattered, he had a lot of track close together at that area of the board, but it's good to know regardless:-)

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I was the Mei Feng player for this battle (bought her and the golem during Gencon, but haven't got around to painting them yet, so used Vassal to try them out) equally rusty on rules. I'll keep in mind the distinction on the stem cloud, and my bad on Instinctual - we both remembered what it did in general, so neither of us thought to check the specifics

Thanks for the comments and advice everyone :)

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