Cath Learns Malifaux

[Cathaidan]

Since the Open Beta Forums have closed and the one Battle Report that I put up there has disappeared into the aether, I figured I would make a thread here to put up my battle reports (or at least the highlights) and the things I have learned, mistakes I've made, etc.  Anything listed in bold will me from me, italics will be my opponent.

Game 1 - Lady J vs. Seamus

This game was played back in April, so my memories of it are faded at best.  

Strat:  Reckoning                          Deployment:  Flank

Schemes: Outflank, Search the Ruins, Vendetta, and I don't remember.

Crews:

Lady J, Judge (LLC), Jury, Death Marshal Recruiter x2, Death Marshal x2, Domodores de Cadaveres, Scales of Justice

Seamus, Bette, Sybelle, Dead Dandy, Doxy x2, Rotten Belle x2, Kopycat Killer (I don't remember what else)

Turn 1 -    Both sides were positioning with the Marshals splitting into two groups, one moving towards the middle of the board and one moving towards the right table corner.  Red Chapel used their movement tricks to push farther forward and claim the middle of the board while Bette and a Belle move towards the left table corner.

Turn 2 - Lady J breaks away from the group heading towards the middle to take a swipe at Bette and she buries to reduce the damage.  Red Chapel pulls the Dom out of position and into the middle of the board.  The Dom does manage to plink a single point of damage onto Sybelle which takes her below half to score on Vendetta before it is brought down.  Seamus uses his movement shenanigans to jump towards the right corner of the board and toss some damage onto the Jury.

Turn 3 - Lady J kills the Rotten Bell that had been moving with Bette on the left side of the board before leaping into the corner and out of LoS of all of Red Chapel.  A Death Marshal manages to Pinebox Seamus, wounds Bette, and then the Jury activates handing out damage all around.  Seamus pops back up and destroys the offending Death Marshal before jumping back into the middle of the board and handing out more damage.  Red Chapel manages to pull both Death Marshal Recuiters out of position in the middle of the board before killing them.  The Judge collapses into the right side of the middle of the board scrum and begins to make his presence known as damage starts to be evenly distributed across Belles, Doxies, and the Dandy.  Lady J and Jury score Outflank, while Red Chapel scores Search the Ruins.  Both sides pick up Reckoning points.

Turn 4 - The blood bath.  There was a great deal of positioning crazy that happened in this turn, and I do not remember the order at all.  At the end of Turn 4, Lady J has killed Seamus, the Judge and a Death Marshal have brought down a Belle, a Doxy, and the Dandy.  Bette has resurfaced and is bounding around in my deployment dropping scheme markers and learning not to deal damage to the Scales of Justice.  The Scales have continued their slow crawl towards the left table corner now sitting on a single wound.  The Jury remains on the right table corner, sitting on a single wound herself.  The Marshals score on Reckoning, but Red Chapel does not.

Turn 5 - Dead but victorious.  Red Chapel continues its clean up in the middle of the board, and at the end of the turn only Bette and Sybelle are left standing in the middle of the board.  Every Marshal, including Lady J, has been killed except for the Scales of Justice on the left table corner and the Jury on the right table corner.  Red Chapel makes a last turn hail mary pass to drop the Jury, but a cheated 13 for defense on the first action and a soulstone to reduce damage on the second action meant that the Jury was still standing.  The Marshals score on Reckoning and Outflank, Red Chapel scores on Reckoning and Search the Ruins.

 

Final Result:  Marshals win by a single VP  

 

Post Game Wrap Up

We completely misread Reckoning, and so all of the scoring from that strategy was done wrong.  We were playing that you had to drop more models than you had on a round in which you had scored, not more models than VP earned.  Additionally, Red Chapel scored the first Search the Ruins with 2 scheme markers on opposite sides of the same piece of a terrain because we didn't read closely enough.  Which means that Red Chapel's first Search the Ruins shouldn't have counted, but it should have earned Reckoning in Turn 4, so that's a wash.  

Being pulled out of position by yourself is an invitation to a blender, but both Lady J and the Judge managed to handle it quite well and give as good as they got.  I need to remember that Lead Lined Coat allows me to not move unless I want to move.  This could have potentially kept the Judge in the middle of the board and dealing more damage for a longer period of time.  Lady J is very capable in combat, and chasing after Bette seemed like a decent choice for her in the broad scheme of things, but having her so isolated from everything else was not a good choice.  Domodores are interesting, and potentially very powerful, but they are very squishy for their cost.  The Judge isn't just great for card draw, the damage output there can be impressive if he (she now) is in the middle of a scrum and can get quick reflexes triggering.

 

Game 2 - Lady J vs. Brewmaster  

Strat:  Cursed Idols                          Deployment:  Standard

Schemes:  Assassinate, Harness the Ley Line, and I don't remember.

Crews:

Lady J (LLC), Judge (LLC), Jury, Death Marshal Recruiter, Death Marshal x3, Scales of Justice

Brewmaster, Popcorn, Fingers, Whiskey Golem, Cooper, Moon Shinobi x2, Whiskey Gamin, Wesley

Turn 1 -    Both sides were positioning with the Marshals splitting into two groups, one moving towards the middle of the board and one moving towards the idol that spawned 8" in from my right side.  Tri-Chi sent the 2 Shinobi with the Gamin towards the same Idol while Fingers broke off from the main clump to hide in terrain on my left side.

Turn 2 - The Death Marshals advancing on the right side of the board begin engaging the Shinobi and pushing the Idol onto the Tri-Chi side of the table, but only a single actions succeeds against the Shinobi or Gamin, leading to a single buried Shinobi.  The Judge begins to engage the gremlins in the middle of the board along with Lady J, but Lady J is pulled out of position due to a large poison stack on her until she is facing the Whiskey Golem, the Brew Master, and Popcorn Turner by herself.  (Remember when I said I need to remember Lead Lined Coat means you can choose not to be moved...  I didn't remember...)  A good old fashioned curb stomping ensues where Lady J manages to stack some damage onto the Whiskey Golem and the Brewmaster, but is them murdered in an drunken rampage.

Turn 3 - The Death Marshals manage to drop one of the Shinobi and bury the Gamin, while pushing a second idel onto the Tri-Chi's side of the board.  Meanwhile, in the middle of the board, the Brewmaster, Whiskey Golem, Popcorn, and Cooper manage to drop the Death Marshal Recruiter and a Death Marshal before dog piling onto the Judge and bringing him down as a combination of poison tricks for damage, severe and moderate damage off of negative damage flips, weak flips while stoning for damage, and generally being now isolated in the middle of the board and facing off against too many enemy models takes its toll.  The Brewmaster then kicks the Idol that spawned in the middle of the board onto my side of the table.  During the end phase poison ticks kill off another Death Marshal.

 

Final Result:  Marshals concede defeat at the end of Turn 3.  With only the Scales of Justice sitting on a single wound, the Jury sitting at half health, and a Single Death Marshal at half health on the table and having only managed to kill a single Shinobi, put 3 damage onto a Gamin, put 5 damage onto Brewmaster, and 4 damage onto the Whiskey Golem, and the Brewmaster had been healing damage for 2 Turns, the Brewmaster was going to have 2 Turns to do whatever he wanted to earn VP while I could do little to respond.  I would end the game with, at most, 5 VP.  Brewmaster was sitting on 4 VP and had enough AP to earn at least 2 VP in turn 4.

 

Post Game Wrap Up

Being pulled out of position by yourself is still an invitation to a blender, and nobody handled it well this game.  I did not learn my lesson from Game 1 and allowed people that had the Lead Lined Coat equipped to be moved out of position.  While putting people in a Pine Box is fun, it isn't a reliable tactic to use, even against gremlins, and the Death Marshals' triggers on their pistols but not their sword means that sitting back and throwing damage with them and then jumping in to finish off a wounded target is smarter than just going full Leroy Jenkins into the enemy.  Lastly, while Lady J and the Judge do want to get into someone's face and start ripping things apart, they need some kind of screening for a few turns prior to diving into the fray.  There's nothing wrong with a slow advance towards your opponent while tossing out damage.  Lastly, if an opponent isolates one of their models, send something to deal with it.  While Lady J herself is a bad choice to go chasing down a model in the corner of the board, ignoring it and planning on coming back later for clean up is not a wise idea.  The Marshals need to clear off that piece, get ahead in a model count, and stack up the bodies.  Not try and weather the storm of what your opponent is doing while scoring points.

 

[Cathaidan]

Game 3 - Perdita vs. Lynch 

Strat:  Cursed Idols                          Deployment:  Standard

Schemes:  Assassinate and search the Ruins.  (We both ended up taking the same schemes)

Crews: 

Perdita, Francisco, Santiago (LLC), Nino, Papa Loco, Monster Hunters x2, Enslaved Nephalim

Lynch, Graves, Beckoner, Illuminated, Gwyneth, Kitty, Tannen, Huggy

 

Turn 1 -    Standard Turn 1 positioning craziness.  Cursed Idol spawned on my right side table edge.  His illuminated and I believe it was Kitty were moving down the right hand side of the table while the rest of his pieces which were fairly evenly distributed across his deployment begin to bunch together and advance towards a bottleneck of terrain in the middle of the board.  Almost all of the Family were able to concentrate, gain focus, and advance forward with Papa Loco and the Enslaved Neph moving to meet the Illuminated and Kitty, the two Monster Hunters moving up uncontested on my left, and the rest of the family moving forward in the middle towards the bottleneck.  (Numerous positioning errors were made on my part, but they will be listed below.)

Turn 2 - The blood bath begins.  2nd Cursed Idol spawns 8" from my right side table edge.  The Illuminated moves forward and tosses the 1st idol onto my table edge.  Papa Loco tosses a stick of dynamite at the Illunimated, and deals some damage to him.  The Family moves forward towards the bottle neck and begins laying down a heavy stream of bullets that kills Gwyneth and the Beckoner.  Meanwhile Lynch and Graves close the distance to the family, and brilliance tokens begin to flood onto the family.  Lynch ends up being plinked at for some minor damage a few times, but is generally sitting pretty.  The Monster Hunters continue their push up the left side of the board, taking pot shots and dropping scheme markers as they advance.  Lynch games a VP from Cursed Idols.

Turn 3 - The blood bath continues.  3rd Cursed Idol spawns next to the 2nd cursed idol.  The Illuminated and Kitty charge Papa Loco to keep him away from the cursed idol in front of him.  Kitty then does movement shenanigans to jump back and kick the 2nd Cursed Idol onto my side of the table.  The Monster Hunters on the left side of the board continue to bounce around and drop scheme markers un-molested.  The blood bath in the middle of the board hits a frantic pace that involves plenty of screaming, yelling, and general ugliness.  I don't remember the exact order of things because my note taking during games is shit, but at the end of the turn Lynch is down to 5 wounds left, Tannen has 4 wounds left, I believe Huggy was hit once.  On the other side of things, Nino has been killed, Santiago is sitting on 2 wounds left, Francisco is sitting on 3 wounds left, Perdita only has 3 wounds left.  Graves and Huggy are engaging on Perdita and Santiago.  Francisco and Lynch are chasing, pushing, and otherwise engaging on each other in the middle of covering terrain.  Lynch and Perdita score on Search the Ruins and Assassinate.  Lynch scores cursed idols again.

Turn 4 - Perdita concedes before the turn ends.  4th Cursed Idol spawns 8" from my left side table edge.  The Monster Hunters continue their unhindered bouncing around on the table to drop scheme markers and kick the cursed idol on this side onto Lynch's table half.  In the middle nothing goes right for the Family.  With a minimum of 3 brilliance tokens on every piece except Perdita, this turn saw Santiago and Perdita killed.  Francisco was left at 1 wound, still engaged with Lynch.  The Illuminated fighting Papa Loco was healed up to full.  Graves and Huggy were beginning to circle behind the Monster Hunters and trap them.

  

Final Result:  I conceded this game during Turn 4.  It was obvious that Kitty would be able to advance the idol she was next to in that turn, scoring him a 3rd point for Cursed Idols.  Additionally, Francisco by himself could not stop Lynch, Graves, and Tannen from placing scheme markers on turn 5, allowing Lynch to score the second point from search the Ruins.  And with Perdita killed, Lynch had already scored the second point from Assassinate.  At the end of Turn 4 alone, Lynch would be sitting on 6 VP.  I would be sitting on 3 VP, with only 2 more possible with the current position of the pieces on the board.

  

Post Game Wrap Up

I finally remembered to use Lead Lined Coat to resist movement!  This meant that, during Turn 2, Santiago plugged up the hole in the bottleneck after throwing some damage through it, and allowed me some extra time to prepare for Lynch and Graves coming through the hole!  Now, onto the positioning/movement errors as promised.

First, when I realized that Lynch was moving exactly as I had wanted him to move during Turn 1, I got excited and forgot my own plan.  This meant that I moved Francisco as my 3rd activation that turn.  My plan was to activate the Enslaved Neph first, to see if I could squeeze out some free movement from Frightening Reminder, so that Francisco would be farther forward at the start of Turn 2, and potentially be able to charge to plug up the bottleneck along side Santiago.  Additionally, Turn 1 I forgot that Santiago and the Monster Hunters have Deadly Pursuit, and so I didn't move any of them during the End Phase.  I would continue to try and play without looking at the Monster Hunters' card in Turn 2, so while Santiago got his free movement in Turn 2, the Monster Hunters did not.  This meant that I was having to burn AP to get them into contact with terrain before dropping scheme markers to score Search the Ruins.  Granted, I estimate that I would have lost 9-5, but losing 9-6 is better than losing 9-5!  lol 

The Family's power is different from the Marshals.  While the Marshals are laying down fire while closing the distance between the crews, there were a number of times in this game where being at such short range was causing me issues.  Especially when Mr. Graves and Huggy are engaging you, while Lynch is throwing Brilliance tokens across everyone.  I had at least two turns where every model I had in the middle of the board was either slowed, stunned, or both.  This meant that the awesome firepower I was throwing out in Turn 2 couldn't be repeated in Turn 3.  That was a major misplay on my part.  Once Lynch and Graves were trying to close the gap between the crews I needed to pull back and let them come to me through the hail of fire.

Lastly, I need to find a way to make my totems useful.  In this game the Enslaved Nephalim got Frightening Reminder off once to push Papa Loco in Turn 1.  Beyond that it was merely a piece on the board not doing anything because I was failing my pulls and using the higher cards in duels from more important models.  He should have been in the middle of the fight with Papa Loco, throwing out Black Blood when he was hit.  Meanwhile, Scales from the Marshals has that nice little, I take damage then you take the same.  They shouldn't be an after thought.

Edit:  Also, I would like to mirror a sentiment that I have seen on the forums and in a few podcasts: there needs to be a way to remove tokens beyond waiting on your opponent to do something with them.  At one point in this game Santiago was sitting on some 8 brilliance tokens.  Not only is it a pain in the ass to move that many tokens around, it severely hinders his ability to do anything against the Lynch crew, while handing out all kinds of bonuses to them.  I'm not saying it should be as easy as removing conditions.  I think one action to remove all tokens is far too strong.  But maybe an action to remove one?  I know it is too late for the Beta Test, but hopefully in some later errata.

[Cathaidan]

Game 4 - Lady Justice vs. Rasputina 

Strat:  Turf War                          Deployment:  Standard

Schemes:  Search the Ruins, Dig Their Graves, Hold Up Their Forces, Power Ritual, Deliver a Message

Crews: 

Lady J, Scales of Justice, Judge, The Lone Marshal, Death Marshal Recruiter, Domadore de Cadaveres, Exorcist, Death Marshal, 5 ss pool

Rasputina, Wendigo, Blessed of December, Snow Storm, Ice Golem, Silent Ones x 2, Ice Gamin, 5 ss pool (He had an upgrade on one of the Silent Ones, but I don't recall which one.)

 

Turn 1 -    Standard Turn 1 positioning craziness.  We both flipped both of the Turf Markers on our sides of the board.  Everyone except Lady J concentrated for focus.  The December crew walked the Ice Golem into position to clog the middle path of the three open lanes to move through the middle of the board.  The Blessed of December advanced down the path on my left while the Lone Marshal moved into the path on my right.

Turn 2 - Rasputina managed to blow up the Scales of Justice in a single action, which I was fine with.  (Yes, I will take cards to replace my crappy hand while Raspy takes damage.)  The Lone Marshal makes it almost to the end of the path on my right before an Ice Pillar is dropped to block his path.  The turn ends with Lady J moving forward, breaking an Ice Pillar on top of the only building terrain we had, leaping to the edge of the terrain into engagement range of the two Silent Ones and taking a few swings at the one with the upgrade.  Due to bad flips, only one attack lands, but it hits hard for moderate damage with the critical strike, badly wounding the Silent One.  The Blessed of December enters into my deployment and begins dropping scheme markers.

Turn 3 - The Silent One that Lady J had engaged disengages and attempts to backpedal away from her.  This places her into the line of sight of the Lone Marshal who makes quick work of her.  The Ice Gamin then charges the Lone Marshal in an attempt to lock him down.  Lady J leaps from engaging the second Silent One to engage onto Rasputina herself, but due to a placement error on my part leaves herself open.  (She was half an inch away from engaging Snow Storm or the Ice Golem, which allowed them to charge her on their activation.)  Lady J forces 4 soul stones to be burned by Rasputina to mitigate damage.  Lady J is then charged by both the Ice Golem and Snow Storm, and despite stoning to mitigate the damage, is brought down.  The rest of the Marshal crew advance forward, combined with focusing, shooting anything they can see, and the Domodore heals herself and the Judge for the damage received from blast markers when the Scales of Justice went down.  The single Death Marshal retreats into base contact with the Turf Marker that was flipped back to neutral when the Scales of Justice died.

Turn 4 - The Lone Marshal manages to seriously wound the Ice Gamin, but fails to bring it down.  However, due to a Black Joker, this takes his full activation.  The Ice Golem and Snow Storm resume their advance down the middle path, while the Marshals prove completely ineffective at putting any significant damage onto the Ice Golem.  Due to the narrow width of the path, all other lines of sight are blocked by the Golem's base.  The Exorcist manages to succeed at False Accusations against the Ice Golem, but the Domodore fails to Corpse Command him.  The Blessed of December leaps over terrain in my deployment and flips the Turf Marker on the left side of my deployment from mine to his.

Turn 5 - The Ice Golem advances down the middle path again, but has to slide all the way to my right in order to flip the center Turf Marker.  This opens up lines of sight to the Wendigo in the back, who is quickly brought down.  The Lone Marshal attempts to lay down more damage, and kills the Ice Gamin and puts some damage onto the remaining Silent One, and does so, but fails to bring her down.  The Death Marshal Recuiter manages to box up the Blessed of December, so that the path was clear to the Turf Marker on that side of the board, but I didn't measure the distances correctly and no other model was within range to get to it and deny Rasputina the point.  So, instead, everyone left in the middle (the Exorcist, Dom, Judge, and Death Marshal) charged the Ice Golem. The rest of Rasputina's actions are spent securing the victory, which was beyond the reach of the Marshals.

  

Final Result:  Rasputina wins 5-2.

  

Post Game Wrap Up

There were a number of positioning errors this game, and it is clear that I still have a lot to learn about how this crew works.  The first error that I realized was that taking the Exorcist, and potentially even the Domadore, was a mistake.  There is little to nothing that an Exorcist brings to the table against Rasputina.  While she can summon, if she is resorting to using that ability she is already on her back foot.  Additionally, there are not that many living models for the Domadore to flip to undead to gain the benefits for the crew that way.  (At least, there aren't many who can't just sit behind the Ice Golem, which we learned isn't elemental, construct, undead, or living.  Fun!)  When I do take a Dom, I also need to be using her differently.  Her blast attack with the built in trigger to heal friendly models is a decent ability, and it should be used more often.  I need to have more models close the gap with the other player, so that she can either blast the enemy and have my models in the blast, blast my models and have the enemy in the blast, or generally be doing more that merely hitting a single model with her attacks.

As for Lady J, she again failed to bring a single thing down and died through a single turn of activations from my opponent.  I have to stop pushing her so far ahead of the rest of my crew that I am limited in options for supporting her.  If I was going to Leap onto Rasputina and try to bring her down, I needed to either wait until after the Ice Golem and Snow Storm had activated or else I should have advanced more pieces forward to lock down those models and tie them up.  Additionally, as noted above, I completely misplaced Lady J on her Leap into Rasputina.  Had I been paying attention, I could have prevented the Ice Golem from charging her and forced it to burn a walk action merely to get within its range.  This was a major misplay on my part that allowed the Ice Golem to Flurry onto Lady J and bring her down, despite burning stones to mitigate damage.

The Lone Marshal is a beast!  He was clearly the MVP of my crew this game, taking down a Silent One and an Ice Gamin, while having my opponent dedicate the Ice Gamin and both Silent Ones into just trying to hold him back from breaking the Ice Pillars blocking him from getting through and rampaging through my opponent's deployment.  He will likely move up in my list of, "need to take" models.  That being said, I seriously considered not taking the Exorcist or the Dom this game, and taking Perdita as a second master instead.  While I don't think she would have been able to do much against the Ice Golem that was easily my opponent's MVP, and what became the most "broken" thing in this game, her additional ranged pressure could have helped to clean up a number of the pieces that I was putting damage onto, but wasn't able to clear off the board.  (Side Note - I am not calling the Ice Golem broken by itself.  It isn't a broken model, nor is it broken in this crew.  What made it "broken" for this game was the terrain layout which allowed him to sit inside a 6 inch area on the board and effectively block most of the lines of sight that would have allowed attacks to happen against anyone else but him.  Combined with all of the Ice Pillars that were dropped around him in the concealing terrain or on top of the building, he was able to constantly heal back all the damage I was able to place onto him, while forcing me to either move through severe terrain or spend extra movement climbing buildings just to take actions against the rest of Rasputina's Crew.  The Ice Golem isn't broken.  Allowing him to be on a board where he can block off all lines of sight anywhere in the middle of the board while healing all damage against him is broken.  I need to make sure that, in the future, we play with less terrain or terrain set ups that don't allow a single 50mm base model to have that kind of game changing placement.)

Lastly, this is the second game I have played where I wasn't sure what to do with schemes before the game started.  There weren't many that seemed that viable or easy to accomplish.  I ended up going with Search the Ruins and Hold up Their Forces.  I managed to score the Hold Up Their Forces by charging the Ice Golem with the Death Marshal, but it was too little too late.  The idea of dropping scheme markers next to Rasputina's Ice Pillars to score Search the Ruins seemed like a solid tactic.  However, my inability to get models onto her side of the board caused this to be impossible.  In the end, I should have devoted more time to scoring points, and less time to trying to deal with my opponent.  Locking down pieces, even if you know that you're going to lose your piece, is better than letting your opponent score points at will with their pieces.

[Sweet Tooth]

Great write up! Lady J is my favorite master (and my main since the start of Open Beta). 

23 minutes ago, Cathaidan said:

When I do take a Dom, I also need to be using her differently.  Her blast attack with the built in trigger to heal friendly models is a decent ability, and it should be used more often.  I need to have more models close the gap with the other player, so that she can either blast the enemy and have my models in the blast, blast my models and have the enemy in the blast, or generally be doing more that merely hitting a single model with her attacks.

It's important to note you can't blast off of friendly models. Domadores can hit the enemy and heal models next to them or you can simply heal another friendly model for 2. (See the 3.22 Rule book, pg 30, last sentence under Blasts)

That was definitely a tough strat/scheme pool for Marshals. They're great in Turf since you do want to kill things. With those schemes I would definitely take Hold Up since DMs are fairly durable 5 cost minions. After that, consider Deliver for an easy first point or Dig for an easy second point (rewards you for killing things, which this crew wants to do). Power ritual is also a solid choice, but i'd consider adding the Pale Rider with the Lone Marshal to make that a much easier two points (Scales can drop the marker in your backfield while the riders head to the opposite corners & gun down anything in their way). Search is doable, but the Marshals don't have any action efficient methods to drop markers, so it feels rougher.

[Cathaidan]

3 hours ago, Sweet Tooth said:

That was definitely a tough strat/scheme pool for Marshals. They're great in Turf since you do want to kill things. With those schemes I would definitely take Hold Up since DMs are fairly durable 5 cost minions. After that, consider Deliver for an easy first point or Dig for an easy second point (rewards you for killing things, which this crew wants to do). Power ritual is also a solid choice, but i'd consider adding the Pale Rider with the Lone Marshal to make that a much easier two points (Scales can drop the marker in your backfield while the riders head to the opposite corners & gun down anything in their way). Search is doable, but the Marshals don't have any action efficient methods to drop markers, so it feels rougher.

The problem with Dig is that it requires you to kill next to your scheme markers, and as you pointed out the Marshals don't have any action efficient method for dropping scheme markers.  The big reason I grabbed Search is because I figured he would try and block off the three avenues passing through the middle of the board with Ice Pillars, which are terrain.  So if I could get someone past the concealing forest on my left side or across the building on my right side, Rasputina's pillars would suddenly start earning me VP.  It was an effort to make my opponent think twice about dropping too many pillars in his own backfield.  And it worked for the first two turns, until he realized he could clog the pathways with models in the middle and just trap the Lone Marshal with Ice Pillars all around him on the right.  Due to the layout of the terrain, I only had a 4 inch gap between severe, concealing terrain and another severe, concealing terrain on my left.  The reduced movement on that side without an easy way to bypass it meant that I didn't really have a way to get into the third open path over there.  (Which the Blessed was able to bypass by leaping and then get his free 4" push during the end phase.  8" of free movement through severe terrain meant that he was clearing into my backfield faster than I could catch him until late in the game where he thought he could deny me more points by engaging the Exorcist and Death Marshal Recruiter.  This lead to the Blessed being pine boxed and freeing those models up to try and take something down to flip his Turf Markers on the other side of the board.  Which they managed to do and prevent it from being a 6-2 loss.)

 

EDIT:  The other problem with Dig is that you can only ever get 1 VP from it reliably.  Because most of your models don't allow for corpse markers when you kill things, and a bunch of Raspy's crew have demise abilities that drop Ice Pillars instead of markers, the second point from Dig is just about impossible.

I should have looked at Deliver a Message closer, although I probably would have still taken the same schemes.  The original plan was to try and have the Death Marshal get Hold Up Their Forces on a Silent One.  But he kept them hidden from everybody except the Lone Marshal the entire game.  The only good target he ever really presented was the Ice Golem and the Blessed of December late in the game.

[Cathaidan]

Game 5 - Perdita vs. Molly 

Strat:  Plant Explosives                          Deployment:  Corner

Schemes:  Dig Their Graves, Hold Up Their Forces, Power Ritual, Deliver a Message, Take Prisoner

Crews: 

Perdita, Santiago w/ LLC, Francisco w/ LLC, Abuela, Nino, Papa Loco, Monster Hunter, Enslaved Nephalim,  4 ss pool

Molly, Archie, 2x Crooligans, Phillip and the Nanny, 2x Rabble Rouser, Fallen Marshal, Necrotic Machine

 

Turn 1 -    Standard Turn 1 positioning craziness.  Nino was deployed next to the corner on my right.  One Crooligan was deployed on the corner on my left, the other on the corner on my right.  The Monster Hunter moved towards the corner on my left, Papa Loco towards the corner on my right, and everyone else advanced towards the middle prepared to move one way or another.  Archie began advancing towards the corner on my right with a crooligan and Nino.  The rest of his crew positioned behind hard cover left of center in the middle of the board.

Turn 2 - Nino begins back pedaling away from Archie and trying to pump him full of bullets.  However, with only the Enslaved Nephalim being within LoS, this meant just more card draw for me.  Archie then proceeded to leap in and rip Nino into 3 pieces.  Perdita made a slight detour to take out the crooligan hiding in the corner on my left before ducking behind the other side of the blocking terrain as the rest of their crew.  Monster Hunter drops an explosive marker on my opponent's half of the board.  Everyone else continues to position around concealing terrain in the middle of the board.  The Fallen Marshal summons a new crooligan to replace the one gunned down.

Turn 3 - Perdita moves to the top of the stairs on the blocking terrain and fires off a single pot-shot at the crooligan advancing from the corner on my right.  She then puts her finger on the trigger.  Francisco and Santiago perform their movement shenanigans from bonus actions to get them both out of combat with Archie who lept in and drop their bomb markers while trying to shoot at anything that isn't Archie around them.  One Rabble Rouser is brought down.  The Monster Hunter drops a scheme marker and begins to book it towards the far corner.  Abuela begins to likewise high-tail it towards the corner on my right.  The Forgotten Marshal summons in the replacement Rabble Rouser.

Turn 4 - Perdita manages to bring down the Necrotic Machine and a Rabble Rouser before falling to the combined might of too many people ganging up on her.  Abuela, with the help of the Enslaved Nephalim, makes it into the corner on my right.  The Monster Hunter makes it into the far corner.  Santiago and Fancisco manage to drop their bomb markers before being ripped to shreds by Archie.  All of my scheme markers except for the one sitting in the corner to my left and the one in the opposite corner are eaten by Molly's crew.  Molly's crew begins dropping bomb markers on my half of the board.

Turn 5 - Archie manages to leap, walk, charge back across the terrain to charge Abuela.  Initial measurements are confirmed.  Perdita concedes defeat.  (At this point I was 1 VP behind in the score.  He was going to score Explosives one more time.  Without Abuela being able to interact and drop a scheme marker, there was no other way for me to earn enough VP to overtake him.)

  

Final Result:  Molly wins 5(+)-4

  

Post Game Wrap Up

For once, I don't think it was positioning errors that cost me a game!  Huzzah!  That being said, target selection and priority needs to become the next thing to work on.  While I was dropping his scheme runners all over the place, I practically ignored the Forgotten Marshal (I mean, you're supposed to forget him, right?!?).  This allowed him to just constantly summon them back into the game, over and over again.  Archie is a beast, and I really didn't take the time to think about a proper way to answer him.  Obviously, putting enough lead into him would work, but I couldn't make up my mind who should be actually taking those actions, and it gave him free reign to just stomp all over the map.  In the future, I need to make sure that I actually consider these things a little bit longer (or at least long enough to make a call) and then do them.  Otherwise I am letting big beater models just stomp all over me.

Perdita again showed why she is who she is.  The pile of kills that she alone racked up for me this game was quite impressive.  I need to start using Santiago and Francisco's movement tricks to save her a little more than I have been.  (Hey, it was my second game with the crew.  I consider myself lucky I realized they had shenanigans.)

Nino doesn't seem to be quite as terrible as I have been lead to believe.  His biggest issue that I've found is one of my own making.  I am used to advanced deployment troops being like my scouts from WH40K.  Nino is not a Space Marine Scout.  He's not durable enough to be deployed that far ahead of the rest of my crew.  In the future I need to make sure he's either deployed with everyone else, or pushed forward enough that he is able to draw some shooting lines in Turn 1, but not so far forward that nobody can support him until Turn 3.

Monster Hunters are still getting some work done!  Going back to the mistake I noted in the first paragraph, my biggest issue with them this game was that I just used him to run schemes.  He had a great opportunity to take out the Forgotten Marshal if I was willing to burn a Turn doing it, but I passed it up in order to single-mindedly pursue VPs.  While you should always focus on gaining VPs, that is how you win, it is just as important to recognize what the opposing crew is attempting to do.  In this game it was feed me meaningless kills while summoning those models back into the game with the Forgotten Marshal, while having Archie, Phillip, and Molly score and deny my points.  Without his ability to summon in models, this meant LoS to higher priority targets would have opened up and allowed me to push farther forward.

The Enslaved Nephalim did something this game!!!!  Granted, all he really did was terrorize Abuela into booking it down the edge of the board to try and score points when it became clear that I wasn't going to hold the middle, but it is something.  And by did something, I mean his bonus action was useful.  Still haven't found a good use for him outside of that.

[Cathaidan]

Game 6 - Lady J vs. Zoraida 

Strat:  Cursed Idols                          Deployment:  Corner

Schemes:  Detonate Charches, Breakthrough, Harness the Ley Line, Assassinate, Delivery a Message

Crews: 

Lady Justice, Lone Marshal w/ LLC, Judge, Death Marshal Recruiter, Domadores de Cadaveres, Death Marshal, Death Marshal, Scales of Justice, 4 ss pool

Zoraida, Bad Juju, Doppledanger, Spawn Mother, Gautraeux Bokor, Will o the Wisp, Will o' the Wisp, Voodoo Doll, (Don't remember the upgrades) 8 ss pool

 

Turn 1 -    Cursed Idol spawns on my right hand side, 8" from the corner.  Standard Turn 1 positioning craziness.  The Lone Marshal and the Judge walk towards the Cursed Idol while the rest of the crew advances towards the middle of the board; moving slightly to the right hand side because of blocking terrain positioning at the dead center.  Zoraida does all kinds of obey/lure shenanigans to move her whole crew towards the Cursed Idol except for Bad Juju who manages to swing around the blocking terrain in the middle of the board and approach my crew from the left flank and a single Will o' the Wisp that was following Juju.

Turn 2 - Cursed Idol spawns in my right hand corner.  Bad Juju storms into my crew and starts wrecking face, dropping one of the Death Marshals and putting the hurt down on Lady J.  Additional attacks from obeys lead to Lady J sitting in bad shape and being buried by one of her own Death Marshals.  The Marshals respond by having throwing all of the damage they can into Juju.  Lady J then pops out of the box and starts swinging at Juju.  She manages to bring him down to 2 health.  Stone for suit on the leap to drop one more attack in, and Juju goes down without being able to heal back up.  (Opponent didn't have the cards in hand.)  Domadores then "shoot" Lady J to give her some additional healing.  The Lone Marshal moves to stand on top of the Cursed Idol that spawned on Turn 1, and takes a pot shot at the Spawn Mother that misses.  The Judge attempts to give me card draw, but 2 out of 3 cards were Tomes.  He then limps into position within concealing terrain to back up the Lone Marshal.  The lone Will o' the Wisp on my left side continues his advance while the rest of Zoraida's crew marches towards the two Cursed Idols on my left flank.

Turn 3 - Cursed Idol spawns underneath the Lone Marshal, meaning he is standing on two markers.  The Lone Marshal spends both of his activations throwing the Cursed Idols onto Zoraida's table half.  The Judge attempts to bring down the Spawn Mother, but she butterfly jumps away (b/c of the upgrade card.)  He spends the rest of his actions firing at the gups that had been summoned.  Lady J spends her actions walking towards my left, before leaping onto the Will o' the Wisp on that side and whacking it for most of its health.  The Death Marshal, Recruiter, Scales of Justice, and Domadore continue advancing towards the middle of the board, laying down ranged attacks against Zoraida and the Gautraeux Bokor once Zoraida moved behind blocking terrain.  The Doppledanger moves into base contact with one of the Cursed Idols I had thrown onto Zoraida's half and throws it back onto my half.  Then after much obey craziness she grabs the second idol and throws it onto my half as well.

Turn 4 - Cursed Idol spawns on my right side, 8" from the corner.  Zoraida, the Doppledanger, and Gautrauex Bokor bring down the Lone Marshal, and throw the new idol onto my table half.  Lady J makes a break for it and starts dropping scheme markers into Zoraida's deployment area.  The rest of the Marshals continue their advance, trying to get pot shots in at Zoraida when they can, or anybody else crazy enough to show their face.  The Judge is charged by the Spawn Mother, but when he goes to return fire she eventually leaps away to save her life and prevent him from healing up.

Turn 5 - Lady J concedes defeat.  

  

Final Result:  Zoraida wins 4(+){Sitting on 3 VP at the end of Turn 4, with an almost automatic 1 VP from the strat at the end of Turn 5}-1(+){At most, 3 points total}

  

Post Game Wrap Up

This game was a problem for me across a few fronts.  For starters, having never faced Zoraida before, and hearing about how strong her obeys were in Cursed Idols, I wasn't expecting what was thrown at me to show up.  Now I know: Bad Juju takes a whole lot of work to put down, and Zoraida's crew is good at throwing him forward pretty quickly so that you have to deal with him.  Additionally, while I had a good tactic for how I wanted to play the match, my execution was terrible.  The plan was to try and control where the Cursed Idols were spawning using the Pass Tokens generated from Zoraida summoning Voodoo.  Then to have most of my crew collapse on that location and fight for it, while the Lone Marshal moved around to flank, scoring break through and generally being a trouble maker in the backfield.  Unfortunately, between Bad Juju crashing into me on Turn 2, and the first idol showing up on the side of my deployment as the Lone Marshal, with no way to move him through the cluster that was building on my left side, I scrapped by plan and didn't come up with a good enough substitute.

My opponent commented after the game that he kept expecting me to Leap Lady J away from Juju, and instead send her barreling off to try and score points somewhere else.  While this might have been a good idea, she had been roughed up pretty badly by Bad Juju, and was in need to the healing she receives from killing models, and the healing from the Doms before taking off.  Plus, giving everything nearby Focused helped to try and stack some damage onto Zoraida for Assassinate, even though I didn't end up scoring it.

All in all it was a good game, and I had ways that I might have been able to pull out a win, but for my own mistakes.  Positioning wasn't as terrible as it has been in the past, as I always had something I could do with my actions, even if it wasn't always the absolute most efficient thing that could have been done.  I feel like I broke up my bad habits of just shooting and killing things because I can, and had specific reasons that I was going for the targets I had chosen.  (Bad Juju is just too disruptive in my back line to be left alone, Gatrauex Bokor was obeying too much of Zoraida's crew into completing schemes and strats out of activation, and Zoraida for the Assassinate Scheme.)  All of that being said, The Lone Marshal ended up not doing anything for me this game.  Not because he can't, but because I misused him.  Which in turn caused me to misuse Lady J, just so I could score some points.  The Judge was underwhelming because I didn't get him into the action quick enough.  And the Death Marshal Recruiter was nice, but I'm not sure he's worth the stones.  I used to be a big fan of them, but not in this crew and against this opponent.  I think a second Domadores would have been better.  Or a third Death Marshal and keeping a larger soul stone pool.

[Cursed25]

5 hours ago, Cathaidan said:

Additional attacks from obeys lead to Lady J sitting in bad shape and being buried by one of her own Death Marshals. 

pine box can't be used on Lady J with an obey because it's enemy only!  

[Cathaidan]

19 hours ago, Cursed25 said:

pine box can't be used on Lady J with an obey because it's enemy only!  

That was our mistake, then!  Although, in the end, this ended up helping me.  Lady J was below the Assassinate threshold prior to killing Bad Juju and the heal from the Domadores.  Stacking another 2+ damage onto her, and she might have still been beneath that threshold.  lol