50 SS 10T vs Guild Wave 3 Test

[BigHammer]

Wanting to try out some of the new models from wave three, I sat down to a game against a like-minded guild player from our gaming group at Common Ground Games in Stirling. I had been itching to try out the new Shadow Emissary, especially alongside Misaki to see how the Conflux of Thunder performed. My opponent had expressed a desire to use a cavalry-only guild list, or, as he put it, "horsies!". As a result, we ended up picking our crews before flipping strategies and schemes, making this quite the opposite of a scientific experiment.

-----

10T Crew: Misaki (Recalled Training, Misdirection, Stalking Bisento, 5 SS Cache), Yamaziko (Hidden Agenda, Smoke and Shadows), Shadow Emissary (Conflux of Thunder), Sensei Yu (Wandering River Style), 2 Oiran, Shang

-----

Guild Crew: Lucas McCabe (Glowing Sabre, Badge of Speed, Barbs, 6SS), Lone Marshall, Pale Rider, 3 Mounted Guard

-----

As you can see, we were both using proxy models to fill out the gap in our crews, and while my 50mm-mounted Dawn Serpent just about manages to pass for the Shadow Emissary, my opponent's crew were rather more unorthodox. He labelled the translucent blue pony as the Lone Marshall, and the translucent red one as the Pale Rider, with the other three taking the place of the mounted guard.

-----

Deployment: Standard
Strategy: Reckoning
Schemes: Line in the Sand, Protect Territory, Assassinate, Power Ritual, Spring the Trap

-----

Both players chose to reveal Power Ritual, and both (secretly) also chose Assassinate. This game was really going one way from the very start, and that way was messy.
The Guild won the deployment flip and chose for the Thunders to set up first. With one each of the Oiran deploying in the corners to begin the Power Ritual and (hopefully) Shadow Stride away toward their targets, the Guild deployed mostly in one corner, with a single Mounted Guard in the opposite corner for Power Ritual security.

-----

Turn 1

Guild win the initiative flip, and choose to go second. Ten Thunders spend a soulstone for cards.

The Shadow Emissary, still exultant from its transformation, went first, using the Rite of Strength to push Sensei Yu through a small copse of trees and make him fast, before slithering off toward the centre of the table and setting up a Dragons' Scales aura. McCabe is the first of the Guild off the mark, burning a soulstone to Black Flash one of the Mounted Guard, before tossing the Badge of Speed to the Pale Rider, the Glowing Sabre to the Reactivating Mounted Guard, pushing both forward, and then walking up to the corner of the barn, overlooking the centre of the table. Continuing the trend of shoving things around the table, Sensei Yu Airbursts, then Mighty Gusts Misaki forwards, then Airbursts the Shadow Emissary into sight of McCabe. Not wanting to waste the focus he gains, he decides to drop a scheme marker, which Wandering River Style may make useful at some point (spoiler; it doesn't).

Both Mounted Guard in the corners drop scheme markers and walk forward, while the Oiran scheme and attempt (unsuccessfully) to use their smoke bombs to trigger a Shadow Stride, remaining in place for the time being. Shang and the Lone Marshall both walk twice to get into position for next turn. On the flank, the Nimble Pale Rider walks twice into range of the Oiran on the right, and gets a lucky Red Joker on his negative attack flip, hitting her for 4 damage in spite of her hard cover.
Misaki, fed up waiting for her opening, activates and walks into charge range of McCabe, diving in to unleash a pair of Thunder attacks that knock the explorer off his horse and splash a little damage onto the Lone Marshall, her Recalled Training giving her the edge she needs to hit hard. With her spare AP from Fast, she attempts to finish the hapless McCabe, but has run out of high cards and misses with a final Bisento attack. McCabe is down two soulstones and a horse, but has another activation this turn as a result.

The Black Flashed Mounted Guard charges Misaki, bringing the other nearby Guard along for the ride. Depsite Misaki's attempts to Misdirect the attacks, she ends up having to burn a stone to avoid the worst of the damage, suffering one. In response, Yamaziko rushes toward her headstrong student, preparing to help her next turn and bracing her Yari in anticipation of a counter-attack.

McCabe activates again, slowed from his fall, and whips some light damage and slow onto Misaki, but she forces a second attack to deal one damage and slow to the Mounted Guard that has still to reactivate, just in time for it to attack her and miss. Turn one ends with no points scored on either side, and both Masters in a precarious position.

-----

Turn 2

Both crews burn a stone for cards, and Guild win a rather crucial initiative flip.

McCabe, sensing blood, activates first. With a crack of his whip, Misaki is Paralysed and wounded, though she forces McCabe to discard to not hit his own Guard. Out of stones to protect herself, Misaki takes one solid hit from McCabe's sabre, and just when she's poised to avoid the final blow with a 13 in hand, Fate decides that her time is up, and she flips the Black Joker for her final defence flip, and is skewered to death. McCabe quickly loots her body, finding a pair of soulstones the assassin had clearly forgotten she had.

Clearly distraught at the loss of her old student, Yamaziko decides she has had enough of the ungrateful grave-robber, and charges into the melee with her spear's wide blade flashing forward. With two quick blows, and a further intervening from Fate (a Red Joker on a double negative damage flip), McCabe, depsite immediately burning his looted soulstones, falls at the side of Misaki. Yamaziko braces herself for the reply from the Mounted Guard, satisfied that honour has been served.
On the left flank, the Mounted guard spots Shang standing in the open, mourning his master's loss, and takes advantage to nearly shoot the poor creature to death. In the corner, one of the Oiran attempts to Shadow Stride, but fails again.

The Pale Rider attacks the Shadow Emissary, taking a chunk out of its hide before using Revel in Death to push away and scheme for Power Ritual, but the Emissary is having none of it, charging the Rider and causing massive damage, reducing the Rider to a single wound before pushing away itself, laughing at the inevitable death of the Rider. The Lone Marshall attempts to save its unearthly companion using its Trick Shooting to shoot at the nearby Oiran, but she avoids the shot at the last second, and charges the doomed Pale Rider, her first attack putting the beast down. With another AP gained from Yamaziko's Hidden Agenda upgrade, she removes the marker the Pale Rider dropped, undoing its hard work with a mirthless smile.

In the centre, the two Mounted Guard each hit Yamaziko a little, reducing her to half wounds before the end of the turn
Turn two ends, and the Ten Thunders score Reckoning, granting the Emissary a point of the Destined condition.

-----

Turn 3

The Guild spend a stone for cards (leaving two in their cache), and win priority. WIth no stones left, the Thunders have to stick with their hand and the initiative flip.
Continuing their assault, one of the Mounted Guards finishes off Yamaziko, and discards to "Mount up, Rank and File!", boosting the defence of itself, the nearby Guard, and the Lone Marshall. The Shadow Emissary decides to get involved anyway, charging the Guard, causing heavy damage and splashing a little onto the other thanks to Dragon's Breath. The other Guard counter-charges the Emissary, but only causes very light damage.

Further over, Sensei Yu advances on the flanking Guard and Airbursts it toward the table centre, keeping it as far as possible from the table corner. Better late than never, the Lone Marshall uses Trick Shooting again to finish the wounded Oiran before she can activate to run away, massively overkilling her with a Red Joker.
With the Lone Marshall now in a dangerous position to complete the power Ritual, the wounded Shang has one course of action, and charges the veteran Marshall, his claws inflicting some light damage, adding to the few wounds his master caused earlier in the game. Meanwhile, the Mounted Guard that had been blown about charges Sensei Yu and takes half his wounds off him in a flurry of accurate sword blows. Giving up attempting to teleport, the Oiran, still in her deployment zone, walks forward, safer now that her opposing Mounted Guard is busy with Sensei Yu.

With both Yamaziko and an Oiran dealt with, the Guild score Reckoning to draw level at 4-4.

-----

Turn 4

The Guild burn a precious stone to win the initiative flip, which proves decisive.

The Mounted Guard that had been passed the Glowing Sabre earlier finally swings it at the Shadow Emissary, top-decking a pair of Rams to utterly murder the poor creature before its schemes are fully realised. However, Shang continues to surprise by flaying the Lone Marshall to death with a single attack, before retreating to cover.
In the centre, the Mounted Guard chips away at Sensei Yu, who in turn Airbursts the Guard toward him before landing a solid, reeling blow (the Red Joker appearing in yet another damage flip) that slows the Guardsman, but another Mounted Guard charges into Yu to finish him off.

On the flank, the Oiran continues to sprint for the corner, but realises she has begun her flight only a little too late, and with her distraction gone, she knows she will be hounded the whole way.

At the end of turn 4, the Ten Thunders are in bad shape, with only two models left. The Mounted Guard are wounded, but not out, and the Guild score Reckoning again to go 5-4 in the lead.

[The image for the end of Turn 4 is missing, because I'm a numpty. Apologies, it's my first time doing a batrep.]

-----

Turn 5

Despite the Guild burning their last stone, the Ten Thunders win the initiative flip.

Sensing a last-minute reprieve, Shang activates first, runs around the corner to engage a wounded Mounted Guard, attacks, gets his flay trigger, and deals severe damage. Unfortunately for Shang, the Guild player had made a mistake and read the wrong card when asked how many wounds remained on said Guard (he told me three, it was four). With their Armour, four damage wasn't enough to finish the guard (there was another with three wounds left, but they were just outside of Shang's reach from his original position, so we agreed just to let it stand as is, and that I could call him a dirty liar in the battle report, but it was obviously an honest mistake). Shang was still chewing on the hunk of leg meat he had torn off when the grizzled Guardsman put him, finally, out of his misery, before advancing on the corner in order to complete the ritual should there be a next turn.

On the flank, the Slowed Guard attemps to chase the Oiran, but can't get anywhere near to stop her, and she walks into position to complete the power ritual next turn as well. The final Mounted Guard spurs his horse toward the left corner, his objective in sight but just out of reach.
With no points scored for the strategy, the game ends. Both crews score one VP for their incomplete Power Rituals, and the Guild win 6-5.

-----

This was a fun, and funny, game for both players. My own Fate Deck was having a good laugh at me, leaving it to the last second to guarantee Misaki's death before she could be healed by Shang or pushed to safety by Sensei Yu (but more likely punishing me for bad positioning in turn one and not using Bisento on the Stalked McCabe in order to drain his resources further before the final attack). Shang did his usual thing of completely surprising everyone and murdering stuff far beyond his weight category (and it really should have been two things, were my opponent not a filthy liar - er, sorry, had my opponent not made a slight error), and got me five turns of Rush of Magic into the bargain. Sensei Yu was underutilised, as he could very easily have sprinted to a far corner to score Power Ritual earlier on rather than engaging the Mounted Guard (something the Oiran would have been better suited to do with her No WItnesses Trigger), and while the Oiran on the right punched well above her weight and defended the corner with grace, her partner on the left wasted 3 AP trying to Shadow Stride that would have secured me the 2VP I needed to win had she just walked instead.

Most importantly for the report, though, the Shadow Emissary was pretty solid. Despite never getting the opportunity to generate more AP for Misaki, it did a great job of tangling it up with some of the Guild's tougher pieces (taking 9 wounds off of the Pale Rider in turn two was definitely its best moment), but without Misaki to really dish out the hurt, I feel like it was fighting a losing battle. Its attack action is fantastic, though, and well worth cheating in a high mask in order to get more of them. In hindsight, I might not take it in Reckoning personally, since I often struggle to get more than one or two points from the strategy, which limits how effective its Destined condition could ever be, though the ability to generate more AP for Misaki might make scoring Reckoning easier. I'll need to test with less silly decisions on my part to see if that can work in future.

From the point of view of the Guild, the Mounted Guard are really, really good. Their massive charge range, Ml 6, Critical strike trigger and ability to swarm a target to get even more movement out of them mean that you will have a hard-hitting, tough minion just about wherever you need them, and with McCabe around with his Badge of Speed, etc, they become very dangerous indeed, while still being cheap and fast enough to run schemes as well. All that and a point of armour. This was also my first game against the Pale Rider and the Lone Marshall, and while the former was pretty much what I've come to expect from the Riders (full of tricks and best dealt with early), the Lone Marshall was a nasty surprise. Trick Shooting is a fantastic ability that leaves the Thunders' own Samurai staring aghast at their Run Through ability, wishing it was nearly as good, and it's fast and tough to boot, and with the Mounted Guard to pull it along is also a very mobile piece indeed. It's obviously not a Wave 3 piece, though, so I wont bother rehashing what a lot of folk might already know.

-----

My Guild opponent and I will be playing again this coming Tuesday, and will be allowing Wave 3 models again, so I look forward to trying a few new things again. With a Nythera/Shifting Loyalties campaign starting soon at Common Ground Games as well, I'm very much looking forward to getting to play more of the Wave 3 content!

[Bengt]

 

In Malifaux, bad things happen friendship is magic!

Interesting read.

[Argentbadger]

Awesome report!  Did the Emissary work as well with Misaki as you'd hoped?  Or do you think that waiting another turn to pull the trigger on the Misaki missile might have worked better?

[BigHammer]

Awesome report!  Did the Emissary work as well with Misaki as you'd hoped?  Or do you think that waiting another turn to pull the trigger on the Misaki missile might have worked better?

Oh yes, definitely more of a turn 2 thing when the table has so much large terrain on it (or perhaps in general). That black joker was a gentle reminder that I had gone in early and headstrong, more than a simple bit of bad luck. A turn two charge could have been against the Mounted Guard, who don't have two lives, in order to generate at least another AP. I'll be trying it again, I think, with a bit more caution.

My main worry for the Emissary wasn't really that it wouldn't work well with Misaki; she doesn't need to change her style of play at all to accomodate it, and gets rewarded with additional AP for succeeding. If anything, keeping her in its aura is a nice way of reminding yourself not to overextend, something a lot of us Misaki players are guilty of. Instead, I was worried that I would be sinking 10SS into a model that wouldn't accomplish much itself, which clearly turned out to be wrong. Even without leveraging as much out of it as I might have, it still proved to be a deadly attacking model. Considering its attack is also range 7 (without projectile!), I think it should fit very well with a lot of 10T crews in place of any other beatstick model, all the while granting the respective master its unique bonuses. I can see it being utterly filthy with Shenlong, who can really make the most of all the condition bonuses. Something else for me to try out in future