First guild game in a long time......got absolutely belted.....(Ortega vs Misaki)

[CapnBloodbeard]

First guild game on a long, long time (since my intro game). Was looking forward to some shooty death goodness. Ran perdita, enslaved nephilim, Frank, nino, and guardian (never used it, wanted to try it out). Against misaki with sidir and a bunch of minions, I ran protect territory and alits, entourage and vendetta and bodyguard were on the table. Somehow I only had perdita (on one wound) and guardian left after turn 2, and they died very quickly into turn 3. Unbelievable. Disappointingly, I didn't kill a single model. I kid you not. Dita couldn't even land a shot until her last activation but couldn't kill misaki. It was one of those games where you think 'how did I do SO badly?'

I copped a bit from blasts, and nephilim bled all over dita. I don't think my crew choice was great, but that still doesn't fully explain losing my models so soon, I don't think. My card usage may have let me down, I think I'm prioritizing the wrong things. For instance, I cheated 2 cards early in turn 2 to prevent Frank and Dita getting slow, and dropped my other 2 strong cards in early duels, meaning that for much of Turn 2 I couldn't cheat in defence.  I find I often have games where the opponent always seems to flip better and cheat higher than me....

Main reason I took Guardian was to try him out as a tar pit, but he didn't end up getting far enough of my other models to really do that.  So, I ended up with Guardian buffing Dita and Frank buffing Nino.  ended up with a bunch in the middle.  It's possible that I should have pushed the Ortegas out on the flanks and just let Guardian try to waste the enemy's AP in the middle, Ortegas taking shots into the scrum and hopefully staying out of Misaki's Stalking Bisento range.

But the flipping...man, my deck was cursed and his was enchanted.

 

I know my scheme choice was poor (didn't have the units to drop that many scheme markers, should have chosen Vendetta given I had Nino), but schemes didn't come into it.  I copped a bit from blasts by being bunched up, but still.....

Edited September 12, 2015 by CapnBloodbeard

[flip_my_joker]

Ortegas suffer from being grouped as they synergy so well. Nino should have been wellout of harms way on a flank or somewhere useful. 

Sounds like you went for a straight out fight rather than concentrate on the schemes & strats. Winning sometimes means losing models. If it gives you vps then it doesn't matter. 

Dita is imo the strongest guild master by a mile. Frank should be using el-mayor on her every turn. But you can't help bad hands and bad flips. Games like that happen. Chalk it up as experience & play another few games with Dita. See how it goes 

[CapnBloodbeard]

In terms of position...I deployed second.

From my end, Misaki was in the top left corner, and the rest of the models more or less in the middle, with a Katanaka sniper in a forest sort of on the right.  There were forests (severe terrain) on both sides, and almost a rough circle of houses and fences around the middle, and right in the centre there was a large object, Ht 1, blocking, with a Ht2 section.  I had Nino in the middle with LOS over most of the markers for Squatters Rights, but then I positioned the rest of my models in the middle anyway.  

I wonder if I should have Nino down in the back left corner to pick off scheme runners, Dita, Frank and Nephilim on the far, far right and Guardian running up the middle to tie up a few models for a couple of turns.  Then at least they would have been in a position to start dropping markers or claiming squatters rights too.

Turn 2 onwards, basically they were bunched up on one side of the Ht 1 object and I was on the other.  Despite Bullet bending Dita couldn't hit anybody, frank was shooting blanks, and Nino just doesn't have the Sh or Dg to do much damage (I had him picking off the henchman, but he'd just heal back up - maybe he should have been picking off minions)

[Dirial]

I don't agree that Francisco should use El Mayor on Dita every turn.... and I wonder why you played such a small crew, as games get increasingly unbalanced the smaller the game. Bad flips and losses of models are way harder on the game. My advice would be to play 50SS and do the game again. You certainly didn't take underpowered models.

Also, I can hardly read the OP. Black on black doesn't make for good readability.

[CapnBloodbeard]

No idea how the black on black happened.  Fixed now.

It was a 40SS game, the rest was on upgrades.  i probably would have been better off sacrificing an upgrade, adding, say, a death marshall and run fewer SS.

[Dirial]

You blew 9 SS for upgrades? Definitely too much in a 40SS game.

[CapnBloodbeard]

I actually never thought about upgrades vs game size.  Thanks for the tip!!  that's why I posted

[Myyrä]

Actually you should pretty much never spend 9ss on upgrades when playing Guild.

[Dirial]

Yeah, probably not.

[CapnBloodbeard]

Why so?

[Myyrä]

Why so?

There aren't enough good upgrades most of the time.

[zFiend]

Actually you should pretty much never spend 9ss on upgrades when playing Guild.

Yeah no.. I agree. There aren't enough good upgrades in Guild to justify spending 9ss in upgrades alone. That SS can be spent on models instead which bring much a greater impact on the game. 

[Rurouni Benshin]

Yeah, Guild in particular doesn't have great general upgrades.  Most of the Masters rely more on their individual ones, especially with Perdita.  She has a couple of auto-includes, with 1 slot to spare depending on who you're facing, and if you take Francisco, "Wade In" is pretty good.  Santiago with "Hair Trigger" is pretty good too, but beyond that, most of the Ortega upgrades are very situational.  If anything, you're better off adding to your soulstone pool.  Perdita is tough, but she's only got 10 Wds too.

[CapnBloodbeard]

I had 7 SS in my pool, but to be honest I probably should have reduced damage a lot more, I kept forgetting about it.

What auto includes do you consider for Perdita (aside from the one that includes Bullet Bending)?

Misaki is a tough one to deal with too.  Blasts from range and a melee beatstick (that and she just seemed to have constant freaking positive flips and neutral damage flips, somehow.....).  Made me realise that Perdita really doesn't want to get into melee.  Sure, she gets a ram in melee, but that's not uber-exciting, and it means that her defensive triggers all go out the window, so I think she really wants to hang right back.

I still feel like my Guardian has a purpose, maybe he should run up front alone and buff his own defence if I'm going to use him for blocking / tarpit.  I think I'm going to have to spend some money on minions though, give my crew a bit more versatility.

 

Running out of cards really killed me, but I'm not too good at figuring out when I should burn a card on attack (whether it's flurry, how important it is to cheat to stop slow, or just to cheat an attack flip), and when I should hold onto it, let the attack fail and just hope for defence.  

 

 

[Rurouni Benshin]

Against Misaki, your best bet against her is gang tactics, which Perdita & Co. are pretty good at.  Francisco and Perdita Companion'ing together in melee against her will definitely put her on edge, even with her on Df when she's out of Soulstones.  As a Misaki player myself, I know that I tend to spend my Soulstones a bit more liberally, and once she's out of Soulstones, keeping her alive is all dependent on how soon you can get Shang in range to heal her.  Frank and Dita going at her in a chain activation should be enough, but obviously that requires both to be alive when she's engaged with you.

As for upgrades, I like "Aura Ancestral" a lot.  For only 1 SS, all your other "Family" members get +2 Wp, and "See the Unseen" makes her immune to Horror Duels and Manipulative.  Well worth 1 SS, IMHO.