30ss: Sonnia vs The Dreamer (and a Slug)

[Sholto]

Robert and I had a 30ss game last night. Robert had just finished assembling (and, in the case of the Daydream, sculpting and firing) his Nightmare crew, and I decided to bring Sonnia and her Witch Hunters.

On pulling my Malifaux city terrain out the box, I saw two or three patches of scratch damage. Odd, since the terrain had been kept neatly packed in a large cardboard box. On closer inspection, little silvery trails. Son of a – a slug had got in my garage, climbed up a stack of boxes five high and EATEN MY TERRAIN! We hunted through the pieces for a fat-looking slug and never found it – I reckon it was a Nightmare and the Dreamer had managed to bury it when I wasn’t looking. Still, when I can simply print out the damaged part and stick it back on – no bother. I love this terrain (and so do itinerant hermaphroditic gastropods, apparently).

Robert’s cunning plan involved:-

• The Dreamer/ Lord Chompy Bits
  
• Daydream
  
• Coppelius
  
• 2 Stitched Together
  
• Teddy
  

That gave him five Nightmares and so a cache of five soulstones.

I decided to go Guild, and brought:-

• Sonnia
  
• Sammael
  
• Nino
  
• The Executioner
  
• 2 Witchling Stalkers
  

That left me with Sonnia’s starting cache of four soulstones.

We flipped and got Shared Plant Evidence along with diagonal deployment. We got 1VP for every piece of evidence planted in the opponent’s half of the table. We chose Industrial Zone for the setting, which gave us a random event of Foggy.

I chose a Guild-Specific Scheme, Round-up, meaning I had to kill all his minions, and I also chose Breakthrough, where I got 1VP if I had more models in his table half than he had in mine. With the Strategy we had flipped, Breakthrough seemed a no-brainer. Robert chose Breakthrough as well, along with Frame For Murder. We announced everything, but decided that although Frame… had been announced, you did not need to announce which model had been picked.

Robert won initiative and deployed the Dreamer as far forward as possible, with Coppelius also starting on the table.

I deployed all my models, with the Executioner and a Witchling Stalker shielding Sonnia and Sammael, Nino off to the right, and the last Stalker off the extreme left.

Turn 1

Initiative: The Dreamer.

The Dreamer activated Fly and zoomed up 14″, landing atop the tower in the middle. Coppelius advanced.

I moved Nino up onto the walkway to my right, keeping him as far away as possible, while a Witchling headed away to my left – he would be the Evidence Planter. Everyone else shuffled 4″ to the right, but not much forward. There was no point advancing with a Nightmare Bomb about to arrive.

Turn 2

Initiative: The Dreamer.

The Dreamer activated Fly, moved across the tower to my side, and dropped Teddy, the two Stitched Together and the Daydream at the base of the tower (ie. within 6″). I spotted a couple of opportunities here. Firstly, there was no model within 3″ of the Dreamer, and I had shooters who could ignore cover. Secondly, the Nightmares were clumped together and I had Sonnia

Sonnia went to town. She was in range of the lowest Def model (the Stitched Together) that was not Hard To Wound, and she fired her Flame Burst spell three times. The first and second time she got Moderate dmg, and the third time I got Severe damage. With all the blasts, Teddy was down to 4 wnds, the Daydream was dead, one Stitched Together was dead (but back with 1 wnd and sacrificed at the end of the Turn) and the other Stitched Together was down to 3 wnds. This was looking good!

The 1 wnd Stitched Together moved forward, took 4 wnds from the Executioner with Gamble Your Luck and then generated some Creepy Fog, obscuring the others from Sammael.

The Stitched Together activates Creepy Fog

I activated Nino, and killed the other Stitched Together (Does Not Die bringing it back with 1 wnd), and then put a shot into the Dreamer, who was just in range I got him down to 1 wnd.

Teddy Regenerated 2 wounds, moved up getting into melee range of the Executioner, but had no AP left for attacks.

Sammael couldn’t shoot Teddy without risking hitting the Executioner, and I didn’t want to kill either of the Stitched Together again (as they would just gain Reactivate), and so he moved to join Nino.

The last Stitched Together moved forward and tried Gambler on my Witchling, but failed.

Coppelius planted some evidence and moved up, while my other Witchling did the same thing.

At the end of the Turn, both Stitched Together were removed along with the Creepy Fog, and I flipped for the random event. Next Turn would be Foggy, meaning –neg flips for ranged Strikes and ranged Spells. Uh-oh.

Turn 3

Initiative: Sonnia.

The Executioner killed Teddy, triggering Love The Job and getting all his wounds back.

The Dreamer flew down from his tower to land next to the Executioner, and turned into Lord Chompy Bits. He had two strikes left, and wasted the Executioner. I knew that was likely to happen, so had saved a high card for the Executioner’s riposte. Slow To Die enabled him to make a strike on LCB, and he got Moderate dmg with +2 due to his trigger! 6 wnds for LCB was Fatty’s parting gift.

Coppelius advanced, getting awfully close to Sonnia, but not close enough to be within Terrifying range.

Sammael decided it was time to get rid of the wounded LCB. He activated Flaming Bullets and triggered Rapid Fire, giving him three shots. Unfortunately, they were all at –neg flip, and with some great cards for LCB and some poor flips for me, Sammael missed with every shot. Eek!

Nino tried a Focused shot to negate Foggy and wounded Coppelius.

Sonnia activated Inferno, cast her Flame Blast on Coppelius and then charged him. The Witchling Stalker was just within charge range and charged Coppelius as well, and they both managed to get him down to 5 wnds.

My other Witchling Stalker continued planting evidence.

At the end of the Turn, LCB, Coppelius and the Witchling all took 3 dmg from Inferno, bringing LCB down to 1 wound and Coppelius down to 2.

The next Turn would be crucial and, after flipping a card, would not be Foggy. That had really cost me in the last Turn, so I was relieved.

Turn 4

We both realised how crucial Initiative would be, and both wound up spending two soulstones between us to try and seize it. In the end, Robert had flipped a 3 and I a 2. I spent a soulstone and flipped – a 1

Initiative: The Dreamer.

Coppelius activated, and started to claw into Sonnia. He took an eye (ouch!) and ended up putting her on only 3 wounds left, with Poison 2. I had to burn my last soulstone to make a damage prevention flip. He also used the eye counter to let LCB make 2 healing flips. In addition, LCB regained two wounds from the hits on Sonnia. Suddenly, what had been a perilous situation for the Nightmares was now looking a lot better.

I activated Sonnia. She immediately lost 2 wnds from Poison, putting her on a single wound, and tried to hit LCB twice, failing both times due to really poor flips and a very weak Control Hand. Lastly, I tried to cast Inferno (knowing she was about to die) but again flipped poorly, getting a six when I needed a seven. I had been hoping for an explosive finish, but no such luck!

LCB activated. I cannot remember clearly what he did, but it resulted in the Witchling Stalker exploding Everyone in the melee took 2 wnds (apart from LCB who was too far away), killing Sonnia.

But all was not lost. I had two of the finest shooters in the game left to go.

Sammael tried to get Flaming Bullets off, but poor flips and a weak hand combined to fail again. And then my cards turned. With Coppelius being Ca6, Sammael would be +2Cb and +1 Dmg against him! And my Scheme was to kill all the minions. So I shot Coppelius. Not only did I kill him in a single shot with Severe damage, but I also got the Ricochet trigger! And flipped Severe damage on LCB, killing him

The Dreamer turned up, injured and confused, and tried to hide behind some steps.

All that was left was for Nino to finish the job. He hit and killed the Dreamer, and it was all over.

Result: I had planted two pieces of evidence to Robert’s one, and with at least one Turn remaining and with me still having three models left on the table, it was a victory for the Guild.

Commentary: Slugs notwithstanding, this was a fun game. Robert was playing The Dreamer for the first time, so he hadn’t quite worked out the key tricks for this crew. He has now, though! He also knows not to bunch up near Sonnia I know not to let Coppelius get anywhere near my models – his auto-Paralyze is very nasty. The combination of Sammael and Nino worked very well, and is one I will certainly use again.

Edited November 10, 2010 by Sholto