Mah Tucket vs Mei Feng 02/12/19

[TeaCrusader]

Had a game on my kitchen table with my housemate. It was a bit more uhm.. bloodbathy than most of our games and some notable things happened so I figured hey, why not, lets post up a battle report.

My opponent was playing Mah Tucket for the first time really here, but I am fairly familiar with my Mei Feng crew at the moment. He was trying out something new, and I was practicing a new configuration for the crew as I am trying to only use models I actually have right now, but want to try and make it work. Worth noting, Mei Feng crew is entirely played by itself, Mah is playing herself with a squadron of proxies and an unpainted emissary.

Apologies for both a lack of pictures (We were generally more bothered about playing the game really) and for the crappiness of the table. We have no terrain ;-;.

 

Mah Tucket vs Mei Feng.

Wedge Deployment
Plant Explosives

Breakthrough (Mah)
Dig thier Graves (Mei)
Detonate Charges
Vendetta
Search the Ruins (Mah & Mei)

Bayou Crew
Mah Tucket (Bomb)
Little Lass
Bushwhacker 1 (Bomb)
Bushwhacker 2
Bushwhacker 3 (Bomb)
Rooster Rider 1 (Bomb) (Inferiority Complex)
Rooster Rider 2 (Bomb) (Inferiority Complex)
Lucky Emissary

4SS

Arcanist Crew
Mei Feng (Bomb)
Forgeling
Metal Gamin 1 (Bomb) (Diesel Engine)
Metal Gamin 2 (Bomb)
Metal Gamin 3 (Bomb)
Rail Worker 1 (Bomb) (Diesel Engine)
Rail Worker 2
Mechanical Rider
Saboteur (Magical Training)

3SS

Deployment
Mah Crew mostly deployed together, with Emissary near front. Bushwhackers deploying around in shooting positions with either elevation or concealment. Pit Traps placed in flanking throughfares.
Mei deployed in Four small groups, mixing walking forges in with other units. Saboteur on defense duty and the rider taking a gamin with her up the left flank. Diesel engines together in middle (whoops).

Turn 1. 
Mah gets initiative and some shielded. First activation a Bushwhacker flips a red joker to hit, then a severe with a critical hit and nukes the metal Gamin with the rider immediately. The Rider picks up it's bomb. 
Mah pushed the emissary forward into the center. This resulted in him taking a chunk of damage from an angry metal gamin who burnt his shielded on the attack.
Rider and diesel rail worker headed up the left flank and were heavily pit trapped and brutalised by the two bushwhackers. 
The Emissary launched himself across the table and through Mei Feng and her entourage for a suite of damage. 
Mei Feng's friends attacked the emissary to little effect, and Mei headed to support her Gamin in the center.

   The board, end of turn 1. I am aware that fighting turn 1 is normal. We are not used to this though.

Turn 2.
On the left flank, the Rider used it's bonus action to place a scheme down and then speared the Bushwhacker for the first VP of Dig their Graves. It was then killed by the second Bushwhacker through liberal use of pit traps. The rail worker got into a scrap wih the rooster rider, throwing him in a pit, but staying engaged.
The emissary drove through 4 unit twice, and then after burning half of Mei's deck, got beaten up enough by the forgeling to die of burning at the end of the turn.
In the center, Mei used some bonus action trigger-based shenanigans to push herself up to the pillar, then climbing up, clawed the bushwhacker on top and kicked him off with Jackhammer kick. She finished by placing the first bomb atop the pillar.
Mah then shouted insults at her until she came down and jumped into a pit trap, leaving her pretty bloodied by the end of the turn. The Rail worker on the right flank, managed to rail ride to block the rooster rider from a potential charge against Mei, making him head towards the Arcanist deployment zone and placing a bomb.
Score: 1:2 to Mei.

Turn 3.
This turn ended up mostly being people continuing the fights they were already having, or escaping them. By the end of turn three, Mei had managed to rail ride her gamins around enough to get search the ruins, and a second bomb down. Mei herself pursued Mah and the rooster rider back towards her deployment zone, but due to scamper and concealing terrain was unable to kill him. She was lucky to survive the counter charge.
The rooster rider on the left flank managed to get Breakthrough despite the Sabateur blowing up Mah's scheme marker.
Score: 2:4 to Mei

Turn 4
Mah immediately decided to end the threat that Mei posed and Spooned her last two health away. Mah then headed back away. The Forgeling also fell this turn to a Rooster rider who wanted it dead more than it wanted points. And unfortunately Mah was now thin enough on the ground and far enough away from her own table half, that she couldn't stop Mei's remaining crew placing markers down to achieve the rest of the schemes. We called it here.
Final Scores: 2:7 to Mei.

 Board end of the game. So. Many. Markers.

If we'd played a Turn 5, Mei would have definitely gotten the last point of explosives, and it's unlikely Mah would have stopped the two end game scheme points for her. Mah would have got an extra point for explosives, and the second Breakthrough point making the likely final scores: 4:8 to Mei.

Bayou thoughts:
Mah is really fun. Could likely have been more ballsy with the bushwhackers and more cautious with roosters. Liked the crew makeup, Roosters with inferiority complex are Nasty. Liked Schemes and Strategies, good for the crew. 
Wasn't afraid of the crew, but felt she had to work around them, not quite worth the killing. Thinks that if he'd gone all in on damage turn three for the points denial would have potentially been in a better place to equalise/beat Mei on points.
Emissary was a good addition to the crew, but was not most efficiently used, resulting in his "needlessly early death".
Rail workers were quite nasty, especially throwing some units into own pits. Rider was nasty, but the crew is capable of focussing down priority targets.

Arcanist thoughts:
So Mah's scary. Her damage output at range is.. really something. Diesel engines were amazing, and the Rail workers are proving their worth most definitely. I hadn't really taken them much before, but they are impressing me. the charge toss is just.. infinitely handy. I was trying a very minion heavy crew as I have found myself without a rail golem and in his absence i find the emissary doesn't do a very good job. It seemed to work well in this matchup as I felt like I had enough tanky units that weren't worth focusing down so i could spread around and get my schemes done.
As always the Rider makes the first Dig their graves pretty simple and Mei in general makes the second part really easy too. 
Pit Traps are Scary, they can very quickly get out of control and just eat through a crew like Mei's. Armour does not help.
Sabateur is something i so rarely take, because it seems like a very situational scheme denier, but this was absolutely a pool for her. She didn't do as much as i'd like but did manage to hold up some advancement on Schemes and I can't ask for much more than that.
I feel that some mistakes were made on both parts, but I am much more experienced with my crew and much more aware of what they are capable of. My opponent was basically trying Mah for the first time and definitely put the fear into me.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Forgotten]

Thanks for posting!

[Mycellanious]

One thing I noticed, Turn 1, the Rider could not have picked up the Gamin's Bomb after it was killed, since when a model is killed ENEMY models get a chance to grab the bomb, or it is discarded from the game. I dont think it changed much tho. 

[TeaCrusader]

5 minutes ago, Mycellanious said:

One thing I noticed, Turn 1, the Rider could not have picked up the Gamin's Bomb after it was killed, since when a model is killed ENEMY models get a chance to grab the bomb, or it is discarded from the game. I dont think it changed much tho. 

Ah i had missed that detail. Thanks for pointing that out!

And yeah, that bomb ended up in oblivion upon the rider's death so yeah didn't change anything. But again, thanks!