2v2 #2

[benjoewoo]

Here's another battle report with 2v2. Again, for those who wonder why I keep playing 2v2, it's because when my friends and I meet around our schedules we basically get time for one game.

 

It was Alliance (my Seamus, Lillith player) vs. Ressers (double Nicodem). The game was 26SS.

 

Seamus had Sybelle, a nurse, a crooked man, and CCK--of note is that Sybelle had corpse bloat and decaying aura while Seamus had red chapel killer and bag o' tools. Lillith had 5 terror tots and herself with lots of upgrades. Nicos had mortimer, phillip and the nanny, one vulture, grave spirit, a flesh construct, and lots of upgrades.

 

Deployment was standard, and the strategy was turf war. The schemes were assassinate, body guard, vendetta, and outflank. The Nico player thought planted evidence was flipped, and chose that as one of his schemes by mistake.

 

TURN 1:

 

As always in our games, the first turn saw a moderate amount of action. Nicos summoned a flesh construct and healed it up, moving vulture into a position to turret for Nico, Phillip drew cards. I summoned a dead doxy from corpse bloat, and we started a fight between seamus and a flesh construct, bringing it to 1 wd. The summoned flesh construct moved to block, but was ultimately killed by a terror tot and evolved into a young nephilim. I dropped a scheme marker somewhere in case I needed it for red chapel, and my crooked man moved into position for turf war come turn 2.

 

TURN 2:

 

This turn saw a lot of death. Nicos summoned a couple punk zombies, a flesh construct, and a rotten belle, and attempted to kill the young nephilim by pulling it. They couldn't get the kill before my nurse put some meds into one of the punks, causing it to only walk and not do anything to the young nephilim, leading into a pull after I summoned my own rotten belle later in the turn. Lillith was able to kill the flesh construct that wasn't killed turn 1, growing another terror tot into a young nephilim, and killed one of the punk zombies, growing the damaged young nephilim from before into a mature nephilim. The mature nephilim was charged by a flesh construct, which was backed up by grave spirit. The mature nephilim managed to attack the flesh construct and declare the push trigger, sending it into hazardous terrain and allowing the mature nephilim to charge and kill the vulture. 

 

I slowly began moving sybelle, who by this point has 6 wounds from corpse bloat, to the other side of the map and calling a dead doxy so that I had 2 runners for outflank on one side. 

 

I forget exactly how, but a terror tot and the young nephilim were killed. 

 

Both teams scored for turf war, so 1:1.

 

TURN 3:

 

This turn saw just around the same amount of death, and saw a lot of re-positioning. Seamus summoned a dead doxy, who essentially pushed herself out of danger from punk zombies and the nurse. The nurse was pushed towards the opposite side of the map of sybelle and doxy as part of a move to maximize outflank points. Seamus, CCK, and crooked man all shot at Phillip who had slowly moved to Alliance's deployment zone and deployed two scheme markers for planted evidence. Phillip ended this particular turn with only 3 wounds left. Seamus crew otherwise just moved for outflank and to get ready to get rid of scheme markers and kill phillip.

 

LIllith and Nico summons kept engaging. The mature nephilim was charged by the flesh construct, and retaliated by attacking and declaring the push trigger to throw that flesh construct into hazardous terrain, charging and damaging one of the Nicos. The mature nephilim was killed by a punk zombie flurry, and Nicos summoned another punk zombie and student of sinew, seeing as how the Lillith player was down to two terror tots and Lillith by the end of the turn. 

 

Lillith was able to kill one of the punk zombies, growing one terror tot to a young nephilim, and the other terror tot grew into a young nephilim by killing another punk zombie with some set up by CCK and my belle lure into a dead doxy pounce.

 

Both teams scored for turf war, so 2:2.

 

TURN 4:

 

Not quite as much death, but still some killing and a lot of movement tricks. Nico players were only able to summon one additional punk zombie instead of the 2-4 models as normal, due to lack of soul stones and high cards in hand.

 

Seamus and CCK killed Phillip. Lillith killed another punk to grow the last young nephilim into a mature nephilim. The terror tot that was still alive was murdered by a punk zombie. Sybelle and the dead doxy moved into position for out flank, but I decided that in doing so I'd hedge my bet on the coming fight going into turn 5, so I used dead doxy's activation to push sybelle towards the outflank position and move her to the battle for turf war--a decision that ultimately cost me outflank but was still arguably the better move in planning for a Turn 6. 

 

The mature nephilim actually managed to heavily Nico with a charge, and did not die to a twin punk zombie charge because my belle was able to lure him away before the second punk charged. Neither of the flesh constructs were able to run away from hazardous terrain because nurse moved and cast the melee only med trigger on one flesh construct, and the other charged the nurse, which kept it in hazardous, but a hands off defense cheat pushed nurse into the outflank zone. 

 

Sybelle walked into the outflank zone, securing position for outflank at the time, which was revealed and could score 3 points.

 

The two doxies pushed themselves, lillith, and seamus into position to remove scheme markers the Nicos dropped using phillip and a punk zombie prior to dying.

 

Other than that, there was a lot of walking around to get ready for turn 5. The last terror tot was killed somewhere in this turn, I think by a Nico decay.

 

Both teams scored for turf war, so 3:3.

 

TURN 5:

 

You'd think by now there wouldn't much left to kill, but when there are two Nicos out, units just keep coming from one side.

 

At this point, I realized that the Nicos were planting scheme markers in funny places, and pointed that out, at which point we discovered that the Nicos player (1 guy, 2 Nicos) thought planted evidence was available. We decided he could attempt to score it, but it was kind of moot because Lillith and Seamus were able to remove all the markers on their activations. 

 

The mature nephilim surprisingly did not die, and was able to kill one Nico, scoring Assassinate for 2 points because the kill was after Turn 4.

 

Realizing that he couldn't win in Turn 6 if I scored outflank, the Nicos player summoned an extra rotten belle and between the two of them pulled my nurse, sybelle, and a dead doxy I was forced to call over (due to activation counts and the fact the second Nico controlled rotten belle was summoned late into the turn). As a result I was denied any points for outflank. 

 

The mature nephilim lived to the end of turn 5, btw, because my belle lured it away from danger. In exchange, my crooked man died  to a punk zombie. First unit lost on turn 5 for Seamus crew, pretty good despite using the terror tots as essentially meat shields.

 

At the end of the turn, both teams scored for turf war, and Alliance scored 2 for Assassinate, with no other points for any other schemes, so the end score was 6:4, Alliance wins.

 

The Nicos player's other scheme was body guard, choosing mortimer. But, mortimer was in his own deployment zone the whole game and never left, so no points for that. He was also far below half wounds, as he had been pulling is spleen out all game to generate the corpse markers for the massive force of punk zombies, belles, flesh constructs, and student of sinew. 

 

End Thoughts:

 

Except for corpse bloat's 0 action, all of my other upgrades were pretty useless, so bad decisions on my part. Sinister Rep would have done a lot more on Seamus as he had multiple opportunities to shoot a second time rather than focus for the hope of a moderate/severe, and I could have been a little more aggressive with him despite seeing assassinate in the pool. Although, I could have engaged in actual melee with Bag O' tools in hand--I had thought about doing so just to render punk zombies insignificant, but I was concerned that purposefully throwing a possible 2/3 VP at the enemy warranted keeping Bag O'Tools as a side tool in case I had to melee and couldn't get the Bored Now trigger.

 

For crew choices, I probably should have dropped crooked man for something else, as he basically just went in for range attacks into poison and stood by for turf war. He went into melee combat one time, I believe. Another belle/dead doxy would have been good, or possibly just more upgrades and a larger cache. It would have allowed me to spend my additional SS on damage prevention/flips (so be more aggressive with Seamus) in addition to ensuring I had the suit for my summons. Crooked man is by no means bad, just he never really got to melee, and his range damage leaves something to be desired. He also never used shafted because I was never able to drop a scheme marker in a decent location for shaft to mean anything other than burn cards.

 

I probably should have summoned a belle into a dead doxy and lastly a dead doxy rather than summon the belle in the middle of my three summons--the earlier lure would have been more useful in manipulating enemy units rather than pushing my units around, as I usually didn't capitalize on moving dead doxy much and just pushing the others around. If I had started with an extra belle instead of crooked man, I would've stuck with doxy, belle, doxy, but not having the lure earlier prevented me from being able to draw enemies into lillith and seamus engagement earlier, which mean seamus and lillith spent some APs walking/casting to get them in proper range. 

 

Please comment and critique!

[Fetid Strumpet]

As you mentioned, given your scheme and strat pool, the Bag O' Tools was't a good choice for Seamus unless you were going for Assassinate.

 

Given your scheme pool and strat pool, and the knowledge that you were facing Ressers, I think the Crooked man was also a mistake.

 

Sybil should almost never be given Decaying Aura. Decaying Aura is a very powerful upgrade, but you must build your list to take advantage of it. A good target for it almost universally has the ability to put out 3 attacks in some way, or has massive dmg potential. Sybelle has neither. I feel you would have been better putting the Decaying Aura on Seamus and gone for Assassinate on Nicodem. Then used a combination of Bag O' Tools strikes, buffed or not from the nurse, and Red Chapel Killer to get into Nicodem from the start.

 

In general I tend to find you almost always only want to put corpse bloat on something that can heal.

 

I'm also not certain that tangling with the Flesh Constructs was the best use of AP. I don't find them all that threatening, and they are massive AP sinks. For the same amount of AP you could most likely have killed or almost killed a Nicodem, who were better targets I feel.

 

As I said, I wouldn't have hired a Crooked man. One model I would have seriously considered and its one that almost becomes auto-take when Seamus Faces Ressers, is Chiaki. Seamus absolutely relies on his ability to heal to function against a good opponent. Reassures can hire, and some, more importantly can hire, the Hanged. A Hanged getting it's attack off on Seamus even once can spell absolute disaster for him. Chiaki has a ranged 0 action that does dmg, targets wp, and makes models not count for VP. She can more importantly remove conditions if required. In addition with her upgrade she can become a slow dealing cannon. That's less important without sinister reputation as she only has Ca 5 on her attacks though.

 

I know I don't rate Hanged Highly, but I might have considered one the instant Ressers were announced as the opponent. A common factor among almost all resser masters is that they rely to a greater or lesser extent on healing to stay alive. If they don't bring condition removal they are one of the only factions that you are almost guaranteed to get good use of the no healing part of the condition. Nicodem hates not being able to use Chime of Sorrow if necessary.

 

A Doxy to get a Bag O' Tools Seamus into Position could also have been a consideration. 

 

These are just totally impartial examinations from a game I didn't witness so take them all with a grain of salt. Thanks for posting.

[benjoewoo]

Hmmm, never considered using Chiaki, but I don't own her either :\. Do you haz a spare?  I'll try picking her up individually or just proxy for now--I don't want to play Yan Lo. Unfortunately that makes it harder to get her. Y u suggest so many great models?! My wallet will shrink.

 

Yeah, a lot of beginner's mistakes. I chose crooked man for the option to drop a scheme marker offensively  and shaft it, and to have a melee figure in case the Nico hordes made it through the Lillith player. It was a bad call, and same with Bag O' Tools. It didn't do work, just like decaying aura.

 

I don't regret taking corpse bloat, because it gave me the model numbers to keep up in activations with the Nico player as the game went on--we'd kill some models, which were replaced for essentially only loss of distance and not AP, but I was able to summon extra models in the breathing moments to allow for me to make up for my partner's lack of activations later in the game.

 

I don't normally like to kill flesh constructs either, but I felt I needed to in this case to set up tater tot growths and to force the Nico player to commit more resources for turf war--he had to move punk zombies to the turf war marker instead of just charging where he pleased, allowing me to keep my units spread out for the most part.

 

If my partner wasn't playing Lillith the pokemon breeder, I don't think I would've committed on the flesh constructs and tried to move around to pressure a Nico model directly.