Von Schill vs Brewmaster

[Zebo]

Played this evening the first full game in a looooooooooong time. 

Corner

Recover Evidence

Claim Jump, Spread Them Out, Make Them Bleed, Assassinate, Leave Your Mark. 

I was between two crews, one bulky crew to go to the center and claim it, with the bigger Freikorps models + Johanna and one Librarian. My opponent had declared Brewmaster, so I expected a bubble crew that was gonna need to come to me to prevent me from scoring. 

But in the last game my opponent said that Freikorps didn't look too mobile, so I decided make him regret his words. Also didn't want to give a try to Brewmaster to work close and do his game. 

 

So I played with:

Freikorpsmobil (Outcast) 

Size: 50 - Pool: 3
Leader:
  Von Schill
Totem(s):
  Steam Trunk
Hires:
  Freikorpsmann
  Freikorpsmann 2
  Freikorps Librarian
  The Midnight Stalker
  Freikorps Scout
  Freikorps Scout 2
  Hannah Lovelace

My plan was quite simple: spread wide with one Scout and one Freikorpsmann in each corner, giving Rocket Boots and Reinforced Assault Shield to each Freikorpsmann and then pushing them towards the Scouts with the Librarian and Hannah (copying the Librarian). 

 

My opponent played this crew:

New The Brewmaster Crew (Bayou)
Size: 50 - Pool: 7
Leader:
  The Brewmaster
    Twelve Cups of Coffee
Totem(s):
  Apprentice Wesley
Hires:
  Fingers Leong
    Twelve Cups of Coffee
  Trixiebelle
  Whiskey Golem
  Moon Shinobi
  Moon Shinobi 2
 

Since the Intel tokens are designed after deploying, my opponent only could put them in the 5 non-Scouts-Leader-Insignificant models. I decided leave Whiskey Golem without Intel token. I went with Spread them Out and Make them Bleed (seriously, I wanted to avoid the center and his bubble crew, and I never expect to kill one of those nasty pushy-placy-Squealing Masters of the Bayou). My opponent picked Claim Jump (on Fingers) and Leave Your Mark. 

 

Turn 1: Thing were mostly as I expected, except for one little detail. 

I had good luck with Von Schill's flips (two masks) and full-equiped both Freikorpsmann with two actions, and then charged forward to advance. 

All our models take positions, one Freikorpsmann ran up to my left corner and dropped a Scheme marker, while the other reached the right Scout, who run up to my right corner. I even managed to make a couple of points of damage to the Golem with a pair of shots of the left Scout. 

Then the Golem suddenly was being pushed by fingers and nimbled-charged-killed my Left Freikorpsmann, making him drop an Intel marker. 

Suddenly my left flank was in great danger of being erased, with only one lonely sad Scout to face the golem, and Fingers too close. 

 

Second Turn:

The Golem removed my Scheme marker on the left flank and picked the Intel Marker to score his first point. The Left Scout tried to slow down it by dropping another Scheme marker and hiding in the forest, but Fingers simply walked twice and removed it with its bonus (Sabotage, I think). 

In the center, the Brewmaster walked and charged the right Freikorpsmann, making him no damage (thanks to Armor and Shielded) but leaving him on Poison +3; then lured the Midnight Stalker and put Poison +3 on him in total. Then one Moon Shinobi reached the MS and put him on Staggered and Stunned (and made him 2 damage). 

Von Schill gave Hannah the Reinforced Assault Shield and the Rocket Boots from the dead Freikorpsmann, hoping that she avoided the same destiny than their last user. Also have the Steam Trunk a Rocket Launcher and charged forward again to be more near the action (at this point he was also at focus +2 thanks to Shouting Orders). 

Then the Steam Trunk made focus with Shouting Orders and shot Brewmaster, doing him 3 damage (reduced by ss) and 2 to the Moon Shinobi that was engaging the MS. The Librarian pushed and shot also the Brewmaster, and Hannah leaped and hit hard the Brewmaster, leaving him on 2 wounds left. The Midnight Stalker also leaped and attacked twice the Brewmaster, but one fail and one good prevention flip left him still at 2 wounds. 

On the right corner, my Scout Dropped a scheme marker, ready to run, but the second Moon Shinobi sprinted and charged him, leaving him on poison 2.

At the end of the turn, my opponent scored 1 point from the Strategy and I did not scored at all. 

Freikorps - 0

Tri-Chi - 1

 

Third Turn:

My opponent started with the Brewmaster and he spread poison and healed 2. Then Von Schill killed the Brewmaster with his gun. The Apprentice sprinted to affect my models with his new Slow aura, but the Freikorpsmann managed to kill him. The Moon Shinobi protected the Intel token and didn't allow anyone to take it, I failed to kill him with both Hannah, the Librarian and the Midnight Stalker. 

On my left, fingers ran up to almost the center, while the Golem killed easily the Scout. 

On the right, the second Scout moved out of combat, shot the Moon Shinobi for 2 damage, pushed a bit more and dropped another scheme marker, too near the first one to score, but ready to have a contingency marker in case the first were discarded, but the second Moon Shinobi decided to squeal away and to help in the center, making the MS Staggered again. 

Then, Trixibelle ran and dropped a marker on the center point. 

At the end of the turn, mi opponent scored for Leave Your Mark and I failed again to score anything. I was very worried, since the end of the game was coming and I was 2 point under my opponent, with only 2 remaining turns to score and one of the schemes really hard (Make them Bleed). 

Freikorps - 0

Tri-Chi - 2

 

Fourth turn:

This time I went first and killed both Moon Shinobi with Hannah and the last Scout. The remaining Freikorpsmann leaped and ran up to my opponent deployment, and dropped one Scheme marker, while the Midnight Stalker leaped up to one Intel token, discarded it and dropped a Scheme marker. 

Von Schill charged Fingers and pulled him far, although not far enough. Then shot Trixibelle and make her some damage. The Librarian finished Trixibelle. 

The Golem was stuck inside a forest on my left side, and barely managed to get out and advance a little. But Fingers moved a lot and arrived unengaged to the center point. 

At the end of the turn, I scored Recover Evidence and Spread them out, while my opponent Scored Claim Jump. 

Freikorps - 2

Tri-Chi - 3

 

Fifth turn:

Von Schill charged and killed Fingers. 

The Midnight Stalker and the Freikorpsmann dropped scheme markers. 

The librarian picked one Intel marker. 

The Golem charged Von Schill and did 8 damage to him in two swings. 

At the end of the turn, I scored Recover Evidence, Spread them Out and the second point from Make them Bleed (he was down to only the Golem), my opponent didn't score. 

Freikorps - 5

Tri-Chi - 3

 

That was a fun one, at least from my perspective. I saw things really hard in the second and third turns, with no scoring from my part and being almost impossible to score the first point from Make them Bleed, but killing stuff help me to take advantage in the last two turns. 

I think my opponent took a pair of bad decisions by spreading and also charging with the Brewmaster almost alone in the middle (that combat did not take place exactly in the center, but midway to the right). He was a disruptive piece, but allowed me to surround him and take him down (I didn't expected him not pushing anyone with his trigger). 

The Whiskey Golem is an annoying fast tough strong model to face, I was lucky of him sending it to the left corner. 

Hannah is super strong in each game I play. I wanted to play Arik to deal with the Golem, but in the end Hannah and his extra card and copy of push won the place in my list. 

This game the Librarian didn't heal, but shot a lot and did great role damaging enemies and pushing friends. 

The Scouts were more or less as usual. Une died fast and easy, and the second tried to scheme, but I realized he was too slow to drop a marker on the fourth turn and then run on the fifth and drop another for Spread them Out. Maybe is something not really achievable to many models, but I had at least 3 models in this list capable of doing that, and that's a bit sad. 

This game the Midnight Stalker was bullied by the Moon Shinobi, pinning him and not allowing him to escape until the last part of the game, and he proved being quite useless in combat. At least he didn't died in the first or the second turn, like the other games I've hired him. 

Von Schill was a bit underwhelming. He had the luck of hitting two masks in the first activation that allowed him to give all the equipment I wanted in two actions, letting him one action to move and take a better position (in other games I've had to cheat or stone to have the cool stuff out), but then he simply didn't had any real useful action to do. There wasn't any need of a Rocket Launcher or Mines (or, hahahaha, that crappy grenades) when I wanted my troops to use their bonus action pushing, healing, copying, leaping or focusing. He then proceeded to move and make a shot that finished an already very injured Brewmaster. And needed like 4 attacks (three of them focused) to finish a 9 we no defense model (fingers). My opponent decided not to squeal with him, not sure why (I suppose to keep him near the center point). One thing I need to get used is that in this edition Von Schill need a lot of ss to do his game, since you almost always want to hit the Quick Reflexes or Give'm Hell trigger with his tactical, and the Pull! with his melee, because 2/3/5 is a bit short for a Master. When he shoots you don't have the same problem, since his only trigger is quite crappy and situational (and non-trustworthy). 

The Steam Trunk did a nice work today, it failed a lot of Rummage Through the Trunk and some healing, but it managed also to heal a bit and remove poison from a couple of models (and started offense versus Brewmaster). 

[touchdown]

If you know you're going to face armor 2 (like the Whiskey golem). It's worth considering taking Mad Dog ook. Min 3 ignoring armor makes short work of him.

[Trample]

Great report - thanks. It sounds like a fun game. I've played against Schill in this edition and I would agree he is a bit underwhelming himself. Hannah is certainly a beast though. I would agree with TD though, I played a Bandit crew into a Tri-Chi crew recently and Mad Dog did indeed make short work of the Whiskey Golem.!

[James Dyson]

Thanks for the write-up.  I appreciate you going in depth on your crew selection choices, and sticking to your guns on scheme selection and play.

If you had the chance to do it over, would you change anything about the models you took?  

A follow up question - you mention loading up the Freikorpsmenn with a pair of upgrades in RAS and Rocket Boots.  Is this your go to combo for them?

[Zebo]

I probably wouldn't have changed anything about my crew choices, since all of them worked as I was expecting. If I wanted to change something, probably it would have been the entire crew to force a brawl in the center, like Hannah & Arik (and maybe Lazarus too) and Johanna. 

I usually not play Freikorpsmann, and when I do is not more than 1 of them. I like the combination of RAS and RB because they become a quite good scheme runners, although I also like a lot those upgrades on our beaters, so I only hire one Freikorpsmann when the scheme pool makes them valuable. 

[Thatguy]

On 3/12/2020 at 6:24 PM, touchdown said:

If you know you're going to face armor 2 (like the Whiskey golem). It's worth considering taking Mad Dog ook. Min 3 ignoring armor makes short work of him.

I know this first hand.

;_;