Lost Love 2017 - A pool event

[Adran]

Lost love 5

Pool Event 70 stone pool to compete in  45 ss games of head Hunter, Stake a claim, Squatters rights and Interference
What I took
Master – Marcus
Myranda
Luther the Pascha hare (Blessed of December)
Sabertooth Cerberus
War Wabbit
Jackolope
Performer
Canine remains
Razorspine Rattler
Silurid

Upgrades
Trail of the Gods
Gods Domain
Arcane reservoir
Imbued energies *3
Well rehearsed
Pack Leader
Feral
 

Why
I’d not played for 5 months, so I wanted something easy for me to play, and Marcus fits that for me. Plus in the very first Lost Love I used the Marcus Starter box (Back when Myranda and the cerberus were unplayable due to hand requirements).
Marcus is a tool box, but one of his strengths is his vast hiring pool, so having a very restricted pool is tough on him, so I needed to make sure I carefully constructed what I put in it, to allow me plenty of options during the tournament.
Speaking of Options, Myranda was my first pick because she lets me cheat the pool requirements. I don’t need to select several of the Arcanist Beasts, I can just select her, and then switch to the beast of choice. I generally don’t use Myranda, because I prefer to hire the beast I want and give them an upgrade, which using her to switch doesn’t allow. 
Next I decided I want to field the War Pig, for the reasons of I felt like it. I think it has the potential to be a really strong pick and am always happy to throw my opponents a curveball. The ability to charge for a (1) action is always good. It’s a minion with the potential to make 6 attacks in a turn, and can fully heal on killing something. Of course it has the strong downside that I am going to have very limited control over it due to my inability to ever prevent Set ‘er off. Its probably going to be stuck in an area of the board and both players just have to ignore that area. Although that sounds like a possible use for Interference and Squatters right. So far Its been fielded in two of my Marcus tournament games, and I won both of them, so that s not a bad record. 
I looked at the strategies, and Stake a claim and  head hunter suggested I wanted leap, as a great way to get to a head, or to allow me to move at least 7 form the previously dropped claim marker. 
The Leapers of choice are Silurids, Blessed of December, Cerberus, Gupps and Wind Gamin. I didn’t own any wind gamin so they were out. I normally like Gupps, but they are that little bit to slow to allow me to drop a stake a claim every turn, so they were put to one side. The Cerberus and the Blessed are models that I am likely to consider taking (And also aremy mort common Myranda switches).  The can scheme and they can hit fairly hard. The Cerberus scares most models with its eternal Maul trigger, and the Blessed is very good at scapelling away a large number of support models. 
The other powerful interact ability is don’nt mind me, great to use in head hunter and Squatters rights, as well as several schemes. So I added a performer to the list. She provides several options, (although don’t mind me is the reason she was selected) with the ability to paralyse and move models about. As I start to build up my forces, there seemed so be a minor poison sub theme, and her sip of wine trigger is pretty handy for turning poison into damage. 

The last strategy to look at is interference. So far I’ve taken several expensive models, which probably means I’m not going to be a large crew. I’m probably looking at ways to be able to increase my activation control, and possibly reduce the ease with which my opponent has activation control.  
For this reason I want to add the Jackolope, and then  at least 1 more cheap model. I thought about adding several cheap models but I started making lists with what I had, and found that I probably would only field 1 in the 4 ss range. I looked at steam arachnids, as they are fairly durable and mobile and come with a Df penaly for enemy models. I also looked at molemen and Gupps here. The moleman doesn’t work very well on its own, and I’m not sur I’ll be able to give it something else to support it, so it was dropped. The gupps are less useful at just holding an area. Finally I looked at the canine remains, and due to the apparent poison subtheme that is appearing their (1) ap charge was looking promising. 
I added a Razorspine rattler as a Tough minion, and one which also can disengage pretty much at will thanks to slither and reposition. 

Upgrades. 
I honestly think the Marcus Limited upgrades are 2 of the strongest upgrades that exist. Marcus on the card is possibly slightly underpowered, but with the upgrades is certainly not. They are both tempting, and have different uses, so I’ll take them both. TheWalk/damage/Melee expert looks the more powerful one, but sometimes you want the regen and +df if you want to hold ground, and the 1ap charge can almost make him as mobile and typically gets him as many attacks as the other upgrade can, but lower damaging. 
Probably my most taken upgrade is Arcane Reservoir. I like the extra card, especially when I want to discard 1 or 2 cards to power up Marcus. I’m sticking with that here. 
I’ve picked Pack leader because I have a high number of beasts, and getting free attacks with them is pretty good. It lead to me selecting Feral instincts as it’s a good wp based attack to let me get the Pack leader off. I would probably only take it for that reason, but once I have it, its nice to spread Beast around a little to help protect Marcus in a fight. 
Imbued Energies is always a good spend, and I often take as many as I can. The way things are in this pool I’ve bough 3 to fill up my poi9nts. 
Well Rehersed is a new upgrade that allows a living model to not die. This is most likely to be the upgrade holder, as its enforcer only, but an enforcer standing near Marcus or Myranda can lose it to keep them alive. I’ve not really used it yet, but it looks to be an interesting option. 

Whilst I could have squeezed in an extra 4 ss model into the pool, at the cost of well rehersed, Feral instincts and 2 Imbued energies, I was more likely to select the upgrades than the second 4 ss minion.  

Game 1
Close deployment head hunter Vs Zipp (Danny Von Woozle) (Accusation, inspection, Claim Jump, dig their graves, set up?) )
My crew
Marcus (arcane Resevoir, Gods domain, Pack leader)
War Wabbit
Myranda (imbued energies)
Canine remains
Jackolope 
Performer
Luther 
(Took Accusation and Inspection)

Zipp (took Accusation and set up)m
Taxidermist
Earl
Lightening bug
Burt 
Merris
Francois
Stuffed Pig

The board was the Plasticraft hut and walkways across the middle of the board with small pools, clumps of bushes and rock formations around the outside. 
I deployed my War Wabbit on the far right with a canine remains near, but behind a rock formation. 
Performer and Myranda on the left with Marcus, Lutehr and the Jackolope in the middle. 
Merris, Stuffed pig, Zipp and Earl were in the middle, Frank and Burt just to my left, and The taxidermist and lighterning bug. 
Turn 1 saw Zipp pull Myranda into his deployment zone, the Jackolope and stuffed pig clash pointlessly in the middle of the board, the taxidermist keep clear of the 13” threat of the Wabbit, merris pull up scheme markers and Frank fail to hurt Myranda after Zipp brough her forward. I tried being clever and moved the Canine remains up in such away that the Wabbit had to charge it, but could hopefully them be able to charge onto the Taxidermist. I sort of got it to work, but not as well as I should have, and the dog died, but the Wabbit did at least get into the taxidermist and Bug. 

Turn 2 I lost iniative and Zipp did a number on Myranda and then also killed the performer. Marcus retaliated by charging the taxidermist, beasting him, danzees chanting him, using the bonus attacks from smell fear for the taxidermist and the Lightening bug to die (thanks to the War Wabbit), hiting Burt and then managing to stop Francois from being able to charge or take ml actions. 
This put huge dents in both our plans. Merris took the opportunity of an activated Marcus to complete the surrounding of him with scheme markers, but Luther was able to remove one of them. 
We both also picked up a head. I think I had something  of mine accused as well (probably Marcus by Burt, and I think the rabbit killed Burt and then charged Fanck)), so the score was 4-1 after the second turn but carnage had reigned. 

Turn 3 saw the death of Merris and burt, I managed to grab a head and then Marcus and Luther split to the two edges for inspection. Zipp ran for cover with earl.  Turn 4 was similar with the war rabbit having nothing to do but pick up another head, and earl and Zipp beign to far for me to make an accusation.  
End score 5-5. 

Game 2
Stake a claim (Standard) Vs Tom with Nicodem
(Claim Jump, Frame for Murder, Dig their graves, Hidden trap, search the ruins)
Board was a maze of sunken river beads with bridges across (and some trees). The river beds were only Ht 1 down, so there was a lot of LOS, but also lots of cover and we played the whole river bed as severe (I’m sure something ended up penalised by moving through severe terrain). 
My Crew
Marcus (arcane Resevoir, Gods domain)
Myranda, 
Silurid
Luther
Jackolope
Rattler
Canine remains
Performer
(Frame for murder Silurid and Search the ruins)

Nicodem
Mortimer
Carrion emissary
Dead Rider
Vulture
(there must have been something else, I’m just not sure what)
(frame for Murder Carrion emissary and search the ruins)
Nicodem the vulture and Mortimer were in the middle, the carrion was on 1 side and the dead rider on the other. I put the silurid opposite the carrion emissary, Luther opposite the dead rider and everything else in the middle. 

Turn 1 saw Nicodem summon a hanged and a necropunk, the carrion emissary try and move in to the middle and kill my jackolope. 
My performer got to the edge of the ruin area, Myranda nad the canine remains were alos on the edge of it on the dead riders side, and Marcus went and engaged the summoned hanged. The silurid did what they do and was ready to claim drop

Turn 2 saw the necropunk drop a claim marker on my half, but then die to poison thanks to my Rattler. Marcus killed the hanged and smashed the carrion emissary. Nicodem summoned another necropunk and a hanged. 
The dead rider managed to charge Myranda but left her on 1 wound. She made Marcus kill the carrion emissary and turned into a Cerberus, who proceded to destroy the dead rider in 1 AP thanks to the maul trigger. Silurid dropped a claim and Luther dropped a second Claim . 
Dog moved to be near enough to Marcus to take the hit if needed. 
I scored 1 for stake a claim
Turn 3 Marcus killed the carrion emissary to stop more zombie summoning, and it was revealed as the frame for murder. Silurid charges Nicodem and Mortimer, not hitting all that much, but unfortuantly, mortimers return attacks were too poor to kill me. The performer called in the Necropunk and paralysed it. She then hit it adding some poison and damage. My Canine remains then dropped a scheme marker and charged the necropunk, putting it on its hard to wound. 
The paralysed Necropunk, then activated and healed 2 wounds. 
Nicodem summons in a hanged and a punk zombie. The hanged ½ wounded the Cerberus, so no more 3 headed fun. At the end of turn I had 4 claim markers to Nicodems 1, completely putting the stratergy to me, and making it pointless for him to try (I’m not even sure he could have lowered the number on his side by cunning dropping some himself due to how spread out they were).  This put the score 2-3 to Nico

Turn 4, I started by using the silurid to attack Nico and managed to get him to kill me in return with Mortimer, scoring me 2 points. Nico summoned punk zombies to occupy Marcus, and they were able to kill him. The hanged was able to remove one of my scheme markers for Search the ruins, and drop one of his own.  
I was able to kill the Necropunk at last. 
End of the turn score was 5-3.

Turn 5, I had a choice to make. I could try and score search the ruins with my performer, or I could play safe, and blow up his 2 scheme markers that were in place for it, with two models potentially in range to drop a third. Nothing else I had could garentee beign able to drop the markers, and if I didn’t start with the Performer, she might die, so I took the easy option, and blew up his two markers. I think it was the right choice, nothing else on my crew was able to get my third marker down as it turned out, so we ended it there, 6-3. 

Game 3
Squatters Rights (corner) vs Tom (Hamilin)
Claim Jump, Accusation, Leave your mark, Covert Breakthrough Hunting party (Both took claim jump and Hunting party)
I took
Marcus (arcane Resevoir, Gods domain)
Blessed (well rehersed)
Myranda (imbued energies)
Cerberus
Rattler
Performer
Jackolope

Hamilin 
Ashes and dust
Hans (scout the field)
Stolen, 
Obdient Wretch
2 winged plagued
2 rats

I forced Hamlin to set up in a corner with a ruined building with a lot of severe terrain. It did mena that several of my forces were also forced to be in severe terrain, but I didn’t really care. I set up Myranda and the Cerberus on 1 flank, the performer and the rattler on the other flank, and Marcus, Jackolop and Luther in the middle to cover where required. 

Turn 1 I went and moved my forces up, Cerberus towards the far left, Myranda towards middle left, blessed towards middle rignt and both rattler and performer towards far right. I then walked Marcus forward and was able to Alpha the blessed to claim the middle right and middle squats.  During this time Hamlin did Hamlin things, so after I had finished the rat catcher reactivated one of the plagues, who went and ws able to steal a squat marker. Hamlin obeyed Hans to shoot Luther, and then  obeyed Ashes to walk towards it. Ashes then  charged and made me pop well rehersed on his third attack, and Hans activation was then able to kill Luther. 
Turn 2. Marcus went to kill off the winged plague on the squat marker with the hop to reclaim it himself. Unfortunately he failed to kill him, despite 4 minimum damage and 3attacks!
The other winged plague went and grabbed the mid left squat marker, and Myranda charged it,. Hans focus’d and shot the performer (ignoring her manipulative) but I was able to cheat it down to a negative flip, so he failed to kill her. Ashes instead had to hunt down the jackolope to score hunting party. The Rattler went and cl;aimed the far right squat, and the performer went over there and hid behind a large rock. The inevitable Rat kings and rat catcher form the first turn were able to get 2 scheme markers down for Claim jump. 
My Cerberus reached the last squat and claimed it, worrying that I’d lose the middle one, which did happen. 
End of turn 2, I had 2 squat markers and hunting party, Hamlin had hunting party, 3 squat marker and claim jump.
 2-3
Turn 3. 
Hans killed off the performer, allowing me to re-activate the rattler, who double walked, anmd then slithered after Hans, enaggign him and hurting him, despite him being in the no charge bubble. 
Marcus was able to kill the winged plague, re-claim the squat and charge into the fight killing a rat catcher. Ashes an dust went after Myranda, and on his last attack I cheated the red joker in to make him miss, leaving her on 4 wounds. I should have instead taken the hit on a negative flip, and soulstoned if he got moderate, as I’d survive weak, and what I probably should have done with her was transform. But because I spent the red joker on her living, I didn’t transform instead I went and hit a rat king. I then was able to drop 2 claim markers with the Cerberus get me Claim jump.
Hamlin came over top the main fight, and I can’t remeber much of what the rest of the crew did, but he kept 2 squat markers, and I kept 3. 
I scored Squat and Claim jump, he scored Squat, and hunting party. (4-5)
Turn 4
Ashes was able to kill Myranda, so she wasn’t able to transform. In return Marcus killed Hamlin, and engaged most of the rest of his models near the middle. My Jackolope came back and escaped from Ashes, but I think was killed by a rat king. Rattler wasn’t able to kill hans, and he was able to disengage, and hit me. The Cerberus had to do Claim jump by himself again. 
I scored Claim jump and Squat, he scored squat (6-6)
Turn 5. Hans failed to kill the rattler. Marcus killed the last rat catcher, but I didn’t put him in a place where he could engage Ashes and Dust, or he could steal a squat. Some clever shenanigans allowed the rat king to escape and kill the rattler, but I then put the jackolop down, and still denied the last hunting party points. 
My Cerberus didn’t havce the carsd to leap in hand, and failed to do so on top deck so it couldn’t engage Ashes and dust, or kill off one of the minions that were within leap and charge range. Ashes went and dropped 2 markers for Claim jump
Final score 1 got squatters, and he scored squatters and claim jump
7-8
I only scored 1 hunting party point against a rat crew is pretty impressive. We also finished the 5 turns about 20 minutes faster than any other players, because my opponent knew his early turns well, (and I knew mine well enough to not be relying on his turn to think). We were able to show that games against the rat engine aren’t automatically slow. I think I lost sight of the goal a few times and threw a way a couple of points, but the whole thing was neck and neck as we went on with us both thinking the other was in a stronger position. I felt that the loss of Luther on turn 1 hampered me, but it put a huge pressure on him to have to bring stuff out to face me, and already have to try and take away my markers, meaning my two edges were left untroubled, and if I’d managed to keep focus, I might have managed to get a third claim jump, and not relegate the Cerberus to double interact duty to score the 2 I did. (and if I hadn’t wasted the red joker on Myranda then I would have had another enforcer in a position to kill minions for hunting party).

Game 4 Interference Vs Richard (molly) Standard deployment, Claim jump Eliminate the leadership, Leave your mark, recover evidence and last stand. 
I took
Marcus, (arcane Resevoir, Gods domain)
Jacolop
WarWabbit, 
Myranda
Performer
Silurid
Rattler
I decided I wasn’t going to do last stand, and Eliminate against Molly is hard if he tries to stop me, so it was 2 from the others, and in the end I decided I wanted to try recover evidence, and that Claim jump was probably easier than leave your mark. It was the same board that I used in Game 2. 

Vs
Molly 
Philip and the nanny,
Sybelle
3 necropunks
2 cruligans. 
(Claim jump, leave your mark)

The necropunk and Philip did their turn 1 card drawing stuff, and then the remaining necro punks ran forward to start schemeing. The Cruligans went to good spots to drop markers next turn. I advanced a bit more slowly, glad to see so much rush towards me. 
Sybelle called Molly and molly was then able to bring in 2 punk zombies around Myranda, the performer and Marcus (Although only the performer was in black blood range. Due to some lucky flips, only Myranda took damage. I brought in my silurid and killed a Zombie, but the black blood splashed over the performer and the silurid. 

Turn 2 I announced recover evidence, and since all but 2 of his crew was in my half I was able to get 3 evidence markers fairly close to my forces. We both dropped several markers need the middle line, but I started removing cruligans and necropunks pretty quickly, and threatened molly so he ran her back towards his half to try and keep her safe and to make sure her scored interference. 
Once she had left I was able to remove the final zombie in my area without the black blood risk. Mt forces pushed on but his last surviving necropunk stops my scoring claim jump. 
He scores claim jump and his summons were enough to stop me scoring interference. I do collect 2 bits of evidence. Score 2-2
Turn 3 sees me push him further back and Marcus is able to engage Philip and the necropunk at the back. Molly summons 3 belles to help protect her, but I engage them all with a rattler to deny them scoring. I score the last needed bit of evidence, claim jump and interference, he scores nothing. 
Turn 4 sees my Wabbit charge off and kill Philip. I kill off the belles and he tried to get molly somewhere to be able to do stuff, btu doesn’t have the hand to summon much. I score interference and claim jump, and due to the Wabbit leaving behind an enemy scheme marker he gets to score leave your mark.
At this point he feels he can’t stop my last 2 points, and can’t score himself, so at the end of a long day we call it there 9-3. 

The day ended with me on 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, which placed me 15th out of 45. 
Overall I was happy with my crew selection. I probably would have preferred a wind gamin over the canine remains, but I didn’t own any at the time., and the Canine remains was about as useful as a arachnid would have been. My War Rabbit did suffer from some problems due to its uncontrollability, but was a decent choice in the 2 games it was played in. (It would have been a large liability in the Corner deployment for squatters, as well as a questionable choice with hunting party in the pool. It would probably have done ok in the stake a claim game, but didn’t help me put the pressure on the claim markers) So its now 3 wins and a draw from its 4 tournament outings for me. 
I did use every model in the pool, so I think that was well planned. I never took Trail of the gods, or Feral. And I never took more than 2 imbued energies, but I don’t think I had much better options to put in. 
 

 

[Math Mathonwy]

Good report, thank you for taking the time to post it! And a good showing after a hiatus as well! Your only loss was against a tough list (and apparently a well-versed player at the helm) at a minimal margin.

Had the first game gone to round five, do you think you could've won it?

Just to show that I read it all with thought, it looks like Marcus killed the Carrion Emissary on turns two and three

Oh, and that Molly list was strange - super minimal killing power!

[Argentbadger]

Thanks for sharing the interesting battle report.  I'd have to agree that Marcus with such a small hiring pool really reduces his (supposed) effectiveness, but you seemed to make it work.  And, of course, Marcus is such a strong master that I guess you could do pretty well even with a fixed crew if needed.

I was especially interested in your use of the War Pig / Wabbit.  I had thought that you might find it really hard to use, but your tactic of putting it out on a flank and leaving it as a 'mine' to the other crew to trigger worked well.  Hog Whisperers are mercenaries too, so in theory you could get a bit of control over your pigs if you were desperate for it.

[Adran]

Cheers for reading, and sorry for the slight confusions on reading. 

The first game, I think could have gone eitehr way on the 5th Turn. I could probably have scored inspection or head hunter, but it would have been hard to score both. It was almost impossible for me to score accusation. Zipp could have potentially scored head hunter. I could deny accusation relatively easily, since I could activate any model that was near to Earl before he went. 

I can't remember when I killed the emissary any more. It was probably turn 3, and Myranda just made marcus hit it again, but fail to kill it. I tiunk I ought to make notes during the games. 

The Hamlin game was very close, and I thought I had blown it twice, so to be so close was very satisfying. I think my opponent probably had a few of those moments himself (forgetting to try and summon a stolen when he bought Hamlin out to play for example was a big error on his part) so the result was probably fair. 

I think the Molly player was very tired, and just used his stake a claim list from earlier in the day. It started well, but couldn't replace his loses, and when Molly Retreated to live freeign up some of my crew from Black blood issues, I had it sorted. 

 

I think I'm probably one of the biggest War pig fans, and am happy to try and get it see more use. Marcus is not the natural pig leader, due to the uncontrollablity, but when I use him he does come with a pretty mobile crew, meaning that a lot of the time, I can get the pig out of my deployment safely. Having thought about it, the first game I should have used the Jackolop when I used the Canine remains as pig bait, and that gives the potential for quite a dangerous first turn, especially if you use alpha on it to give it an unexpected threat range. Both games here it cleared out a large area around it of everything, eitehr buy killign, or them just running away for safety. Its never going to fit all boards and missions, but its a fairly durable minion that can put out a huge amount of damage per turn if needed. I'm tempted to try gremlins seriously this year  (well as seriously as you can do gremlins), and I can see it making a lot of lists. Especially as I'll then be able to use 1 pig against the world. 

I own a hog whisperer, but I can't see me paying the merc tax unless I run multiple pigs (although the possibility for a war pig to activate 3 times on the first turn could be pretty funny in some games). It certainly wasn't good enough to make my pool here. It has a place in Gremlins pig lists I expect, but those are quite rarely seen. 

 

I am hoping to make more events this year, and to write up reports. I'm too much of a luddite to get photos working, but will try to make the reports more readable and clear. Part of the reason I've not done any for a while is because I've been posting poor results, often due to silly mistakes and carelessness, and a side effect of that is I can't really remember the games as well, because I've not been focusing on them  as much. Hopefully as I post more results, I'll concentrate more. 

 

[Nikodemus]

Looking forward to more. I like to think of myself as a picture junkie but this was very easy to follow.