Osaka BatRep: Perdita vs. Viktorias – Devil’s Right Hand (50ss Headhunter)

[Eastern Effigy]

Alright, been a while. Our group can only get together so often unfortunately. Also, unfortunately due to a phone breaking soon after the game, no photos from it survived, but hopefully it’s still enjoyable to read.  Bonus points if you can catch the Johnny Cash references.

The guild player is relatively new and the Outcast player is more experienced, but this is their first real game with Outcasts.

 

Corner Deployment

Strategy: Headhunter

 

Guild List: 7 Members, 2 Soulstones

Schemes: Inspection and Frame for Murder (Dr. Grimwell)

Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting, Os Veo, Aural Ancestral), Francisco Ortega (Wade In), Dr. Grimwell (Research Grant) [Sucker], Santiago Ortega (Diestro), 2 Death Marshals, Enslaved Nephilim

 

[Will add photo of Guild crew if player sends photo]

 

Outcast List: 8 Members, 3 Soulstones

Schemes: Inspection and Claim Jump

 Viktoria of Ashes (Sisters in Spirit, Survivalist, Synchronized Slaying), Victoria of Blood (Oathkeeper), Student of Conflict, Sue (Return Fire), Carver [as Killjoy], 3 Ronin

 

 

Devil’s Right Hand

The new frost crunches under the boot of the man, the boot and the rest of his cloths as dark black as the new snow is white.  He shifts the weight of his guitar to a new spot on his shoulder while surveying the landscape.  He had been hunting this land for a couple months now with the twins.  It was now all one shade: white, but it had been many vibrant colors a few days ago: yellow grain fields and red and orange trees standing stark against a blue autumn sky。

But there was another red as well.  The harvest went ungathered, the farms abandoned, as night after night, another living person was turned into a nightmare pile of flesh and blood.

Something had made this hamlet its territory.  It came in the night and dragged its bloody prey into the fields.  For months he and the sisters had hunted it. No luck.  Now the autumn sorrow had passed and the cold wind blows over bare trees and with the harvest gone and the fields empty, they may have missed their prey altogether.

Now there was a new hunt though.  The Ortega family had been dispatched to the area.  Seems the people started wondering if there really was a devil in these fields or if perhaps it were a human cause.  Human like the man in black. Like the twins.

The man in black saw the sisters and their band, a crew of rough women who found discipline and purpose under the twin’s guidance, for which the man respected them.  But they had done something in the fields last night before the snows, something they hadn’t told the man.  They probably know he wouldn’t approve, would have tried to stop them.  But here they all were, ready to stand against the will of the Guild.

“You sure you want to do this? We can still leave the guild’s territory.” says the man.

One of the sisters, he couldn’t be sure which, never could’ve, steps up and tells him “This is our territory, not the Guild’s.  We hunted on it. We worked it.  We provided for it’s people.”

There was a hardness in her.  Grit.  They all had it.  But today they had something else, something harder.  Usually the sisters were confident and brave in battle, but today there was a kind of surety, a certainty that someone was going to die.

“What have you done?” he says. “You done something, and you’re gonna have the devil to pay for it, aren’t you?”

She looks down at his guitar, a black metal thing with a demonic fresco.  It started to get hot and glow blue, sensing the coming of death.

“You just worry about your devil, we will worry about ours.” She says as the across the field, gunmen can be seen scouting and taking up their firing positions.

 

Setup

The board is an icy wasteland with ice walls and pillars standing all around. Lots of hard cover blocking terrain.

The Ortegas set up in the Northwest corner with a death marshal and Santiago facing the south, Dr. Grimwell and the other Death Marshal are facing the east, and the Franky, Perdita, and the Nephilim are positioned near the middle edge of the quarter circle.

The Viktorias set up with two Ronin facing the west, the other Ronin and Sue to the north, and the Viktorias and Student of conflict at the center edge, ready to slingshot wherever needed.

 

Turn 1

Outcast win Initiative, force Guild to go first

Death Marshal double walks towards the southwest corner.

Ronin double walks towards the northeast corner.

The other Death Marshal double also double walks towards the northeast corner.

Sue double walks to the northeast corner, and does Man in Black for good measure.

Santiago double walks towards the southwest taking partial cover behind a large wall of ice.

Ronin double walks towards the southwest corner.

Dr. Grimwell triple walks to circle around to the eastern side of the board approaching Sue.

Student of Conflict walks and Pulls Viktoria of Ashes to her through Sisters in Spirit.

Franky double walks to the Southwest and does finesse.

Viktoria of Ashes does Sisters in Spirit to Viktoria of Blood, walks, and pulls Viktoria of Blood again.

Viktoria of Blood Accomplices and discards Oathkeeper to walk, and charge Santiago and kills him in three strikes.

Enslaved Nephilim walks and pushes Perdita.

Perdita activates and charges Viktoria of Blood, killing her.  Carver unburies itself.  Perdita then attacks Carver for one hit.

Carver gorges back to full health and attacks Perdita twice.  Perdita barely manages to cheat high enough to avoid both attacks.

 

 

In practiced form, the sister’s apprentices spread out to flank the approach.  The twins themselves made straight up though the middle with their protégé, a child they took under their wing recently.

The man in black follows behind one of the young sword fighting women as she covers their right flank.  He sees one of the Guild’s ghostly riders, the Death Marshals, making a beeline for her. If there was ever any sign the Guild was chasing the devil’s herd, it was those flaming skulled lawmen.  There also seems to be some psychopath with a chainsaw heading that way, so he keeps up to make sure she was covered.

The twins spotted a gunman hiding behind a nearby wall. He probably thought he was covered, but he didn’t know just how fast those ladies could sprint.  Before he can set his gun firing, one of them, the twin with the double swords was on him and cut him in half before he knew what was happening.

The man in black recognized the man from his nights drinking tequila in the city. Santiago if he recalled.  He also recognized the man’s sister, a much more dangerous gun-woman, moving in on the twin.

Sure enough, a couple expert shots from here and the girl went down bleeding.  Then the man in black saw what he was afraid he would see.  They had went and made a deal with the devil and the devil came.

Perdita Ortega jumped back out of the way as the blood on the snow started to smoke and burst into flame as the devil, the butcher, the Carver twisted and writhed out of the hellfire.

It tested its rusty shears and the candlelight of its flickering, Jack-o-Lantern eyes levelled on Perdita.

 

 

Turn 2

Guild win initiative and go first.

Enslaved Nephilim walks and pushes Perdita out of Carvers threat range (the player never fought it before and didn’t know about the 1 AP charge.)

Carver charges Perdita for 1 AP and uses all of it’s 3 attacks on Perdita.  Thanks to some skilled cheating and a Df of 7, Carver misses ALL THREE TIMES!!!!

Perdita attacks Carver back, hitting with a Red Joker for 8 damage on the first attack, 3 damage for the second, and 0 for the last because of the Black Joker. She takes 2dg from Black Blood.  Carver has 1 wound remaining.

Viktoria of Ashes double walks and picks up Santiago’s head.

Death Marshal walks up to Carver and attacks, finishing him off.  He and Perdita both take one more damage from Black Blood.

A Ronin double walks to the northeast corner.

Death Marshal double walks to northeast corner as well, but not quite in engagement range with the Ronin.

Ronin double walks to southwest corner.

Dr. Grimwell triple walks to engage Sue.

Sue shoots Dr. Grimwell twice, hitting once for 3 damage.  Fails to cast Ring of Fire.

Franky double walks.

End of Turn 2: Outcasts 2 (Headhunter and Inspection) Guild 1 (Inspection)

 

The man in black watches in with equal parts awe and disgust as the scarecrow shambles towards the Ortegas.  He believed he knew the twins, knew them better to value their souls more than this.

The carver moved forward with glee, if it can feel anything.  The man in black supposed it could based on the sound of laughter ringing in his ear echoing from the hollows of the things Jack-o-Lantern.  Soon its laughter changed to growls of frustration as it’s would be victim agily sidesteps its shears thrusts.

The man knew the Ortega’s reputations, that they were skilled in hunting these devils.  He reasoned then that maybe that’s why the Guild sent them, for the Carver, not for them.  Too late now either way he reckons.

With a sound like a lightning strike, Perdita unloads a perfect shot just as the thing bends forward to lung again.  It’s the sound of the scarecrow’s pole splintering into hundreds of pieces.  The thing’s arms go limp, its chest and head lolls back and forth.  Perdita kicks the flailing thing, like a puppet that had its strings cut, and it falls straight over.  She and one of her Marshals unload several rounds into its body.

Meanwhile, the madman had caught up to the man in black.  He has no idea why a group of hardened gunfighters would keep a loose cannon like this with them, but he doesn’t much care.  He unloads into the gibbering fool, but he keeps coming.

 

Turn 3

Death Marshal walks and picks up Viktoria of Blood’s head.

Viktoria of Ashes charges Perdita and hits her once and Whirlwinds into the Death Marshal for 3 damage each. Picks up Carver’s head.

Perdita attacks Viktoria of blood, missing with the first attack, hitting for 3 damage on the second, but a soulstone prevents all 3 damage, and the third attack hits for 3 damage.

Sue shoots Dr. Grimwell again for another 3 damage, and also successfully casts Ring of Fire.

Dr. Grimwell fails to Lobotomize Sue, tries to run away Sue succeeds on disengaging strike, so Dr. Grimwell gains 3 Burning condition.

Ronin in northeast corner drops a scheme marker on the center line and walks to engage the Death Marshal to prevent him from denying Claim Jump.

Enslaved Nephilim pushes Franky into base with the Death Marshal and next to Viktoria of Ashes.

Student of Conflict double walks and attacks the Death Marshal with her Melee Expert attack managing to deal 3 damage to the Death Marshal, killing it.

Francisco discards for Flurry, attacking Viktoria of Ashes three times, hitting twice for 7+ damage, but she survives thanks to Hard to Kill from the Survivalist Upgrade.

Ronin double walks directly on top of Death Marshal’s head.

Death Marshal in the northeast corner Pine Boxes the Ronin and moves onto the scheme marker, denying Claim Jump this turn.

Ronin in the Southwest corner drops scheme marker and goes defensive.

End of Turn 3: Outcasts 4 (Headhunter and Inspection) Guild 3 (Headhunter and Inspection)

 

At this point, what happens next is critical.  Viktoria of Ashes is down to one wound and is surrounded by Perdita, Fransico, and the Enslaved Nephilim.  If she goes down, they have free range to attack the Ronin who are crucial for finishing the strategy and schemes for the Outcasts.

But if Viktoria can steal the initiative...

 

One of those hellish lawmen, after finishing off the devil creature, bends down and takes the head of the fallen sister.  Well, her twin was having none of that and ran into it and the leader Ortega. Swiping and cutting them.  The man in black sees this.  He also sees her make a downward strike, severing the Jack-o-lantern of the devil, but the man can’t figure why.

To his right, he sees the wave woman he had been escorting make her stand against the dead lawman.  She stood defiant, as if to say that this was their territory, not his.

The marshal grabbed her and shoved her into his coffin and sealed it with his black magics.  So much for that.

The man turns his attention back to the hacksaw wielder.  He goes after the man again, but the man steps aside carefully.  The man unloads a round of his Colt 45 into the maniac. 

As if it can sense the blood, the blue glow of the man’s guitar ignites.  Suddenly the man and the maniac are surrounded by a blue ring of fire.  It doesn’t touch the man, but his gibbering rival starts screaming as the hellfire finds its own.

Over on the other side of the field, the man watches as Francisco Ortega, another of Perdita’s brothers sneaks up with the aid of one of the Ortega’s pet demons.  He stabs the twin several times, her blood pouring out. 

The Ortegas and their demon close in to finish her.

 

Turn 4

 

Outcasts Win Initiative

 

Viktoria of Ashes attacks the Enslaved Nephilim, cheating a Mask card to Whirlwind. The Enslaved Nephilim takes 3 damage, Franky takes 9 damage from the Red Joker, but survives from Hard to Kill, and Perdita takes the last 4 health and dies. Viktoria’s second and third attacks finish off the Nephilim and Francisco.

Dr. Grimwell lobotomizes Sue for 4 damage.  Sue’s return fire trigger misses and he then disengages.

Sue tries shooting Dr. Grimwell twice, misses both times.

The Death Marshal in the northeast corner walks and picks up the scheme marker.

Ronin picks up the head she was standing on and walks away.

The other one stays in the pine box.

Student of Conflict walks and uses Sisters in Spirit to pull Viktoria of Ashes.

End of Turn 4: Outcasts 6 (Headhunter and Claim Jump) Guild 4 (Inspection)

 

The Ortega’s have sword woman surrounded and outnumbered.  Unfortunately, for them, this is not a tight situation for her – this is her life.  She is used to fighting on barely anything and against greater odds.

Keeping both Ortega’s to her front flanks, she stabs behind her, impaling the imp they brought.  The Ortega’s move in to finish her, but the sword woman steps forward to them and cuts her way out of the demon and straight into Fransciso’s gut, and then with a primal scream rips it out and straight up into the sister Ortega.

Ripping her sword free again, she then goes in and takes two more swings on the man and their demon.  At the same time, her young student has run up and stabbed the nearby Death Marshal in the back.

In only a few seconds, the woman and her child student are standing alone on a field of bodies.

Meanwhile, the man in black is holding back the insane doctor.  The doc manages to drive the chainsaw down into the man’s side, soaking his cloths into a different shade of black.  Suddenly the madman is off running away though as he sees the guitar glow blue again.  He would rather not suffer the fires again.  The man sends a few bullets after him as well, just as encouragement.

 

 

Turn 5

Wrap up summary.  Guild wins initiative and Dr. Grimwell charges Sue, but Sue survives thanks to Hard to Kill.  The Outcast player realizes that Dr. Grimwell is probably the sucker and doesn’t do anything to try to eliminate him.  The Ronin breaks out of the pine box and fights the Death Marshal, but nothing happens between them.  The two ronin and Viktoria pick up heads, place claim markers, and sit in the corner for inspection as they are much too far away to get to Dr. Grimwell or the last Death Marshal.

Final total: Outcasts 9 (Headhunter, Claim Jump, and Inspection) Guild 4

 

The any sane man would properly run away from bullets, but this madman seems to think them an invitation. He charges in machine saw a blazing and rips straight for the man’s head.  Nearly scalps him, and it flings away the man in black’s hat, but he’s not that easy to kill.

It dawns on the man that the doctor is probably not an asset to the Guild.  Probably he was once, but now he’s a liability and they sent him here to get rid of him.  Probably an offering to the devil of the fields even.  Well, that doesn’t sit well with the man in black, so he whacks the doc in the temple with his colt.  The doc will live and the guild will have to deal with him themselves.  The man in black won’t be their hangman.

To the right, he sees the woman rip her way out of the coffin and starts striking at the Marshal.  Looks like no grave can keep her body down.  The dead lawman starts to retreat away.  The man calls after him and he tells him to “go tell your masters, those long tongued liars, those midnight riders, ramblers and gamblers and backbiters, tell ‘em their all gonna get cut down.  Sooner or later, they’ll all be cut down.”

The man walks towards the woman.  She looks at her fallen sister.  She holds her sword in one hand and the Jack-o-Lantern in the other.  The devil of the fields here will no longer stalk and murder, it drank it’s last blood.  The sisters planned this.  They couldn’t hunt it in its fields so they made a deal, they did what they needed to bring it out and finish it. They knew this was the only way.

They only had the devil to pay.

 

 

This was a very fun game.

The Guild player had expected the Doc to go down faster which he usually does, but he didn’t this time.  The Outcast player also considered the Frame for Murder scheme with the Viktoria of Blood as the Sucker, but wanted more practice with Claim Jump and also the idea of one of the twins framing the other didn’t sit well with them storywise.  Obviously it’s a good strategy as it could have netted 3 points first turn.

Killjoy was the biggest wiff ever.  First time for the Outcast player and they were surprised at how little the monster actually did.  Df 7 is hard to hit.

Kudos to the Student of Conflict for actually killing something with her practice sword.

Those whirlwinds by the Viktorias can really clear the field. 

Thanks for reading, let us know any thoughts or comments.

[Nikodemus]

Sounds like Carver managed to prune Perdita's hand a few times, that's something.

[Mutter]

Cool report, thanks for the effort. Very enjoyable to read, and easy to follow ...

It's especially interesting for me because I'm roping in a new player, and our next game is gonna be Perdita vs. Viks in ... Headhunter.