Jump to content

Trying my hand at writing - Shenlong vs Nicodem at 50ss


Erorior

Recommended Posts

I love reading battle reports on these forum, and have stalked the report section of the forums frequently. I've wanted to try it out myself, but haven't taken the first step until now. :)

 

This game is actually between two friends of mine, since I thought that I might as well have my full attention upon taking notes for the game the first time around, so I can become efficient enough to transcribe my own games in the future. A final note before we begin is that the only camera I carry is the one in my mobile, so the pictures won't have very high quality. Even getting good shots of the board (and the "action") proved really hard, so bear with me with this first try. I will strive to improve. :P

 

Ten Thunders vs Resurrectionists - 50ss

Deployment: Standard

Strategy: Headhunter

Schemes: Convict labor, Show of Force, Neutralize the Leader, Hunting Party & Frame for Murder

 

With a very murder-intensive scheme pool, these were the crews that were chosen:

 

Ten Thunders (played by Paradigm here on the forums):

Shenlong

- Wandering River Style

Peasant

Shadow Emissary

- Conflux of Dawn

Yamaziko

Yin the Penangalan

- Smoke Grenades

2 Ten Thunders Brothers (From here on named Knife-Bro and Kama-Bro du to their respective weaponry)

Johana

5ss cache

Schemes: Show of Force, Frame for Murder (Yamaziko)

Somewhat of an anti-lure crew in Yin and Yamaziko, perhaps to deny any attempt at "head-fishing" via lures from the ressers.

 

Resurrectionists:

Nicodem

-Corpse Bloat

-Love thy Master

Hayreddin

Izamu the Armor

Chiaki the Niece

Rotten Belle

Crooligan

Yin the Penangalan

Nurse

5ss cache

Schemes: Frame for Murder (Hayreddin), Neutralize the Leader

An efficient "factory-crew" for restoring early summons to peak efficiency before throwing them into the fray.

 

Deployment:

The Ten thunders win the first flip and forces the Resurrectionists to go first.

20160810_150820_zpsdipcysek.jpg

Deployment of the Resurrectionists. From left to right; Crooligan (up by the box), Chiaki, Izamu, Belle, Nicodem, Nurse, Hayreddin, Yin

20160810_150828_zpsv8qucjhw.jpg

Just wanted to show the converted Hayreddin that the resser-player made when Shifting Loyalties was released. A fine speciemen indeed!

20160810_151111_zpsjqib1ugv.jpg

Ten Thunders deployment. From left to right; Kama-bro, Shadow Emissary, Shenlong, Peasant (behind the Tower), Yamaziko, Yin, Johanna and Knife-bro. The emissary is made from Sonni'as avatar, and I just want to point out that the light and my photography-skills are VERY unflattering to it right now since none of the darker parts of the flame seems to be visible in this light. :P 

Turn 1:

Ten Thunders win initiative and have Resurrectionists go first. Shenlong summons a peasant after initiative.

The crooligan activates first and then simply stays behind it's box, waiting for the right time to move.

Yamaziko advances up towards the centre of the table, avoiding LoS to the Belle, and the uses the 0-action Brace.

Nicodem follows, using corpse bloat and a high crow from hand to summon a hanged. He follows by making the Belle fast and walking a bit forward.

The Yin on both sides advance.

Knife-Bro enters the Dance of the Heavens, placing 3" before moving forward along the board. Hayreddin flies out into the street, and Johanna double walks towards the centre of the table.

The nurse takes a walk and puts some sedatives into the Hanged, paralyzing it and healing it to full wounds.

Kama-Bro walks up behind the corner of a nearby building.

Chiaki walks and then promptly removes paralyzed from the Hanged.

The non-slow peasant takes three focus actions (one as a 0-action from Shenlong).

Izamu walks up to the other side of the building which Kama-Bro lurks behind.

The second, slow Peasant gives focused to Shenlong.

The Belle walks twice and manages to draw LoS to Kama-bro behind the corner for a quick lure, after which Kama-bro ends up near the street were the whole resser crew is gathering.

Shenlong activates, takes focus and poison from his 0-action and the uses Mighty Gust to push Yin and the Emissary and gives them fast. He then walks up behind his crew.

The Hanged uses Whispers from Beyond on Kama-bro, halving his wounds, and the black joker spoils the second attempt.

The Emissary ends the turn discarding a card for focus, and then removes focus from the Peasant with the 0-action from conflux of Dawn, drawing three cards in the process. It then proceeds to walk forward twice and uses his ca-attack at the hanged, inflicting a severe damage of 6 with the trigger to attack again. The second attack finishes off the unfortunate undead, and the first head is dropped.


This finishes turn 1, with the score (as expected) being 0-0

20160810_154337_zps2jsgw9wx.jpg

Positions at the end of turn one.

 

Turn 2:

Both crews spends a soulstone for cards, and the Resurrectionist wins the initiative.

Izamu charges the now exposed Shadow Emissary and scores one hit which does 4 damage.

The fast 10T Yin double walks forward and manages to put Gnawing Fears on Nicodem. The following Fear Behind the Eyes hits and the Black Joker pops up to spoil the damage flip.

Chiaki walks closer and removes Gnawing Fears from Nicodem.

Kama-bro places 3” with Dance of the Heavens, walks up to Hayreddin and goes defensive in order to tarpit him and preventing him from easily reaching the wounded emissary.

Nicodem summons a punk zombie from the corpse marker dropped by the hanged and proceeds to make it fast. He then attacks 10T-Yin with Decay, but fails to hit. The Punk Zombie then activates via accomplice.

The Punk Zombie flurries at 10T-Yin, inflicting 2 damage due to a miss and a Black Joker on damage. The last attack finishes of the nearby Kama-bro.

Shadow Emissary pushes 10T-Yin and gives her fast, and then misses a shot at Izamu.

Hayreddin charges the emissary and deals 2 damage and a single point of poison.

Yamaziko charges Hayreddin, dealing 3 damage and then takes the Brace 0-action.

The Nurse walks up and picks up a Head marker dropped from poor Kama-bro.

Knife-bro uses Dance of the Heavens to place 3”, and walks up to stand before resser-Yin.

Resser-Yin charges Knife-bro and inflicts 4 damage and 3 poison, and Knife-bro gets defensive from his trigger.

A peasant walks and fails at Provide for the Temple at Shenlong.

The hidden Crooligan interacts to place over the crate and walks up the centerline.

The other peasant walks twice.

The Belle walks forward and tries to lure a peasant who promptly resists her advances. An oath of celibacy perhaps?

Shenlong walks and takes focus+defensive as a 0-action, and then fails to meet the target number in Mighty Gust twice due to unfortunate flips (the control hand was empty after having to cheat a lot in order to keep Yin and the Emissary alive)

Johanna walks forward twice.

 

Resurrectionists score a point for Headhunter while the Ten Thunders score for Show of Force.

 

Resurrectionists 1 - Ten Thunders 1

20160810_162523_zpsqojr77fm.jpg

The grand melee has begun in earnest. End of the 2nd turn.

20160810_170848_zpsjc2ncktw.jpg

Yin and Knife-bro have their own little squabble above the rest.

Turn 3 follows in the next post!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Turn 3:

Both players uses a soulstone for cards and the ressers win initiative after spending a soulstone to reflip. Shenlong uses his after-initiative-0-action to swap to Low River style

Nicodem begins again by walking forward and then summons another punk zombie (using a stone for the crow), and proceeds to give it fast. He then accomplices it off towards sharp destruction.

The Punk Zombie walks up to Yin (not charging because of Yamaziko’s braced spear), and flurries with the intent of killing the Ten Thunder’s only upgrade-carrier for show of force. It inflicts 2 damage due to more jokers (the red for Yin and the black for the punk zombie). So far, the Black joker has negated one attack each turn for the poor undead.

Shenlong takes his 0-action for focus+defensive and then proceeds to heal 4 damage on Yin and 6 on the emissary due to multiple uses of Stones on the River and burning his Defensive-condition in the process.

Izamu repeatedly swings at the newly healed Emissary and inflicts 8 damage on the creature.

The Emissary responds by discarding a card for focus and kills the nurse in a single mighty gust of killing winds. It then removes the focus-condition from Shenlong to draw 2 cards and pushes Yin again and gives her fast.

Hayreddin, being very interested in the life force of a creature like the Emissary, then proceeds to kill the creature with the trigger for extra vitality. He then burns some vitality to swing at Yamaziko which misses.

A peasant double walks forward to engage the punk zombies, therefore blocking their charges towards Yin.

The crooligan pick up another head marker.

Yamaziko uses her nimble to walk within Hayreddin’s engagement range and to position herself further into any charge-lanes towards Yin. She swings twice at a Punk Zombie, dealing 3 damage with the single hit. She then braces her spear again.

The Belle lures a Punk Zombie to try to enabling a position where it could charge at Yin.

The second peasant walks twice towards the action.

Resser-Yin flies around Knife-bro and swings at him

 

Resurrectionists score a point for Headhunter while the Ten Thunders score for Show of Force.

 

Resurrectionists 2 - Ten Thunders 2

 

20160810_170841_zpstnuzqq3e.jpg

Out goes the emissariy, in comes the peasants! End of turn 3.

Turn 4:

Ten Thunders wins the initiative and Shenlong takes focus+burning as his 0-action.

First up is a peasant, who walks once to engage a whole bunch of the shambling dead. He tries to whack his broom into a Punk Zombie on HtK, but misses.

Nicodem follows, using corpse bloat (apparently, this man has more spleens than he need) and summons a punk zombie of it. However, there is nowhere to place it so that it won’t begin engaged with the brave peasant so it joins its two brethren who surround the brave, broom-wielding farmer. Nicodem then gives the newly summoned Punk fast, and does the same to Izamu.

A wounded punk accomplices and hits the peasant twice, shredding it to small pieces with his sharp blades and therefore gifting a soulstone to Shenlong.

The other peasant, apparently not dissuaded by his fellow’s fate, double walks into the same spot, engaging the whole front-line of the undead.

The summoned Punk Zombie activates, promptly kills the peasant with two swings and walks forward with his last ap.

Yamaziko uses her nimble walk to further engage the advancing zombies. She tries to hit a zombie on HtK twice, but misses as Nicodem’s unholy mastery enables it to dodge. She then braces again.

Izamu, who has grown tired of peasants and old ladies, takes Yamazikos spear to his armored bulk as he charges her. He misses the first strike and the black joker pops up yet again on the second damage flip. The two following attacks land however, and sends Yamaziko into a much needed retirement. The Ten Thunders gain 1 point for Frame for Murder.

Knife-bro uses Dance of the Heavens to place 3”, escaping resser-Yin and lands next to the summoned Punk Zombie. He stabs it once for 1 damage then goes defensive.

The last Punk Zombie charges the defensive Knife-bro and decapitates the poor thug, who were down to his last two wounds due to Yin’s poison.

Johanna, who’s eager to finally get into the fray, takes focus as a 0-action from Shenlong’s aura then charges Izamu and does 3 damage after armor.

The crooligan, happy that the whirling blades of the Punk Zombies hinder the enemies from reaching it, walk up to another head and picks it up.

10T-Yin hits Hayreddin once, doing 2 damage end 1 point of poison, then focuses and tries to put Gnawing Fears on resser-Yin but fails.

Resser Yin, apparently unnerved by this mirror image, fails to charge 10T-Yin to to a black joker on terrifying (the deck had been reshuffled by this point due to the amount of positive flips from the fighting Punk Zombies). This ensures a final point for Show of Force for the Ten Thunders.

Shenlong uses Mighty Gust to push Hayreddin and give him slow. He then decides to leave his incompetent minions behind and promptly double walks away from the towards his own board edge (as the player, after reviewing the schemes again, came to the conclusion that one of the only reasonable scheme left that wouldn’t have been revealed yet would be neutralize the leader).

Hayreddin spends some vitality to heal himself, and then he hits Johanna with his staff for 3 damage.

Chiaki double walks forward and uses her 0-action to deal 2 damage to Johanna and to gain a point of chi.

The Belle double walks forward in the hopes of luring Shenlong back on the following turn.

 

At the end of the turn, Hayreddin suffer a point of damage, and the following black blood finishes off a poor Punk Zombie nearby.

 

Resurrectionists score a point for Headhunter while the Ten Thunders score for Show of Force and a point for Frame for Murder.

 

.Resurrectionists 3 - Ten Thunders 4


20160810_175703_zpsoudt6dfr.jpg

Wow. Much photo. Such blur. :P As you can (or probably can't) see, the melee moves slowly through the intersection. It's currently the end of the 4th turn and Shenlong has discarded his "incompetent" minions to do important dragon-business elsewhere.

 

Turn 5:

Ressers uses a stone for cards and the Ten Thunders wins the initiative.

10T-Yin puts Gnawing fears on the belle, flies into the fray and finishes off another Punk Zombie with her Ca-attack.

The crooligan walk again and picks up the last head needed to score full points on the strategy.

Johanna flurries on Izamu, hitting him repeatedly with her hammer. This proves to be enough, but the raging armor does 5 damage in return as he goes down.

Nicodem discards corpse markers with Chime of Sorrow and heals himself while he draw three cards. He then gives fast to the Belle and the remaining Punk Zombie and walks once.

Shenlong changes to High River style and walks further away.

The last Punk Zombie flurries at 10T-Yin and kills her with a hit followed by a red joker on damage.

Chiaki removes Gnawing Fears from the Belle and finishes off Johanna with her 0-action.

The Belle walks once to get in range to Shenlong and lures twice. Both times the Ten Thunders uses high cards and increases the duel total by suffering damage from the ability granted by High River style. Shenlong manages the damage carefully and remains above half wounds after the ordeal, which led to him not being lured back into the melee.

Resser Yin moves towards Shenlong in case of a turn six.

 

Resurrectionists score a point of headhunter and the game ends.

 

Unfortunately the last Picture was even blurrier than the last, so you'll have to to without it I'm afraid... :( 

 

Final score:

Resurrectionists 4 - Ten Thunders 4

 

This game felt all about denial; denying points, denying moves, denying charges etc. Almost all action took place at a single street crossing, so there weren’t much movement on the rest of the board. In the end, it was hardly contested draw. There was a lot of thinking time from both players, and at times the tension felt like that of a game of chess.


I chose to take the “include everything-approach” to his report. It’s a lot of text, but a lot of detail. I’m not sure that it’s the best though, and aim to try out more narrative or summarized reports the next time. Thoughts and comments are appreciated, as are advice on how to perform enough note-keeping during my own matches as to get the needed info but not slow the game down too much.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very nicely written! I think transcribing each activation in this much detail enables a much higher degree of understanding of how both players where thinking when it comes to strategy/scheme choices and crew buidling, as well as priorities during the action. I'd love to see more reports like this. Oh, and in case those of you reading this report have questions/suggestions concerning my (the 10T player) way of playing I'd be happy to discuss them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
 

Very nicely written! I think transcribing each activation in this much detail enables a much higher degree of understanding of how both players where thinking when it comes to strategy/scheme choices and crew buidling, as well as priorities during the action. I'd love to see more reports like this. Oh, and in case those of you reading this report have questions/suggestions concerning my (the 10T player) way of playing I'd be happy to discuss them!

Purely based on the schemes and not looking at his list (hindsight yada yada) I'd say Yamaziko isn't exactly needed, Johan is a bit redundant when all his tricks can be done by Shenlong and I'd bring a sniper to lay down pressure and make room for a bigger beater like Ototo or Izamu who benefit hugely from all the pushes and whose huge engagement ranges block interact actions. Or maybe make room for Tannen and Graves, who  together would fulfil a similar niche. And if you're playing the Emissary I'd definitely bring a Low River Monk, if not you'd be better off with Yu. And while playing Ressers if you can make room for Kang that's always fun. Also smoke grenades on Yin is really redundant.

So I'd go for...

Shenlong 2 Cache

- Wandering River Style 2 SS

Peasant 2 SS

Sensei Yu 9 SS

-Journeyman 2 SS

Graves 8 SS

Recalled Training 1 SS

Tannen 6 SS

Kang 9 SS

- Smoke Grenades 1 SS

Sidir 9 SS

-Promises Made 1 SS

 

With Show of Force and Hunting Party (The scheme is Headhunter anyways and they're playing Resser).

 

Move to occupy the center of the board, if your opponent refuses to engage use Yu's pushes to drag them in, position Tannen annoyingly near killy guys and bore people who you either dont want near or away (could actually go for Frame for Murder depending on their list) and be aggressively in their face with one Peasant standing next to a huge beater giving it focus or defensive at all times waiting to be killed and the other hogging Shen and Sidir.  All these beaters have 0's they can spare so they can focus up a lot, and with Sidir and Kang shooting out you force your opponent to close in, while Shen and Yu make sure everybody stays healed up and where they need to be. I might've gives Graves Smoke Grenades and Kang Hard Worker because the promises and Kang's aura should provide plenty of :+fate that you might not even need RT but...

 

Now to read the game =w= Ill report back~

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Tokapondora

You propose an interesting play style that is very different from my own. I'll comment on some of the things you write:

Concerning Yamaziko, I almost always find her contributing well against Ressers. First of all I always assume I'll be up against Belles, and her being Stubborn lets me use her to block the movement of my other models in case they are lured. I pick both Yamaziko and Yin and place them together near blocking terrain while not leaving enough space for a 30mm base to pass between. That way the Belles can try to lure my other models, but they will simply walk sideways or stop right by Yamaziko and Yin. If they want to Lure Yin or Yamaziko they are likely just wasting AP, since they either won't hit because of :-fate or if they focus the still only coax a 4" move from them. Also Yamazikos minimum damage of 3 plus Brace tends to give her amazing damage output against Ressers with HtW, especially for a 7ss model.

I like Smoke Grenades on Yin because it makes her go from being annoying to hit to nearly impossible. In this particular match I didn't need it much, since few enemy models had ranged attacks, but it still gave me max points on Show of Force. I could have had some other upgrade instead, but I've found them to usually contribute even less on Yin. Now that wave 4 is out I might put Equality on her instead.

I picked three models with condition removal because none of them really sacrifice anything for two reasons. First of all, having a measure of redundancy is always nice against Ressers who tend to dish out tons of conditions. That way I won't have to be as careful about activation orders. I hate it when I really need condition removal because a Nurse has made two beaters completely useless, only to have already used the model which had condition removal. Also, Johan is great in terms of damage output for his cost, so he would likely be worth it even if he didn't have condition removal at all.

I haven't used Low River Monks up til now for two reasons mainly. Firstly they just didn't seem to contribute anything that Chiaki or Johan wouldn't do better in most matches, and if I wanted something for 4SS I would get the Effigy instead. Their ability to get Focus +3 for card draw via the Emissary is nice, but a Peasant has been able to do the same thing (only without being able to move as well) so I went with that instead. With the new upgrade from Wave 4 Low River Monks suddenly seem much better, so I'm finally planning to buy them. And with that, I will definately use them quite often.

I like both Graves and Tannen and often use them. In this particular match I opted against them simply because I thought Yin, Yamaziko and the Emissary would contribute more to the strategy I had in mind. This is mainly due to my not needing Graves' pushes in a Shenlong crew. Tannen's anti-cheat aura is great, but I felt Yamaziko would provide sufficient defensive control with her Brace, while also having much better damage output and mobility than Tannen.

Kang is incredible against Ressers, but I left him out this time because so many of my models already had high minimum damage and hardly needed the :+fate. The high prevalence of HtW typically means I would need both the aura and some other source of :+fate on damage to be able get cheatable damage. I simply didn't bother this time because it would require me to spend resources on either Focus or Recalled Training to get full use of Kang's aura, and I wanted the resources elsewhere.

As for Sensei Yu, I almost never use him with Shenlong. I find I get enough pushes with Shenlong and the Emissary. Having Yu to handle pushes would let Shenlong be more offensive, but I would rather have Shenlong offer superior support while spending the SS Yu would cost on getting another big beater.

All in all, you offer good suggestions and I'm sure your list also would've worked well. I will be sure to try something like it so I can compare it's pros and cons compared to my usual style more accurately. Thanks for the feedback!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information