Mako plays... badly!

[Mako]

I said I'd post up a record of a game I played with a friend, While trying to get us both more familiar with the basics of the game. We were restricted in crews to what we both had part painted, so he had the Ortegas and I took Kirai. Since she's capable of altering a totally new player even in my inept hands, I took some advice off a similar thread and limited myself a little (not too much as I'm not very good!). So, here's the first battle report I've ever done. If I ever get the time opponents and space to play more, I'll update with more ramblings on things I did wrong. Who knows, maybe seeing someone playing incompetently and learning painfully and slowly will amuse or inspire people!

---------- Post added at 11:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 PM ----------

Perdita vs Kirai, 30ss

Perdita, 5 cache

Enslaved nephilim

Francisco

Santiago

Niño

Papa loco

Kirai + avatar, 6 cache

Lost love

Datsue-ba

2 onryo

3 seishin

(restricted to 3 to start, and no Shikome at any point)

30" x 36" board, 4" deployment area. For simplicity, all terrain was considered Ht5, so we didn't have to deal with cover rules too. It was also mostly edible or drinkable, but we tried to keep it in the same place when we put it back down!

Perdita - distract (after flipping reconnoiter 4 times on the list, we went to expanded and that's what she got)

Kirai - claim jump

No schemes

Deployment

Perdita deployed in a loose line along the field edge, and Kirai kept to the half of the field that had the claim marker (Cassandra model since it was to hand) and was a long way from papa loco and Perdita.

Turn 1

With Kirai getting initiative, I thought I could spend the turn setting myself up for some movement shenanigans without too much trouble. So I spread my seishin up and out behind cover, setting myself up for some freedom of movement. Big mistake, as niño found the one route between cover pieces and promptly obliterated one of my seishin in one shot - I didn't realise how far he could shoot and how well! Perdita's crew then moved up through the cover towards the halfway line, forming a vague flank screen that would be in a lovely position next turn to give Kirai some serious punishment. Santiago and Francisco had made it to the centre of the field and were going to be a problem, especially with niño still far back and dangerous. At this point, I was trying to picture something other than a hail of lead taking out everything I have before we reach turn three, and that's before I remember papa loco and Perdita are still moving up...

We also then had the funniest comment of the night, when my opponent looked down and said "oh hell, I've eaten my cover. We got any more donuts?" after a quick refit of the battlefield, we carried on. But it's a good job we'd got a lot of donuts as we kept having this problem!

In an attempt to shut down niño, I used Kirai to swirl Datsue-ba up the right flank, getting her behind some terrain from the rest of Perdita's crew in case Santiago could get a shot at her. Then she guided herself through the terrain, no escaped niño, and ended up tucked against him in the corner of the field. She only did two damage with her skinning knife, but no more shooting from niño I thought.

Turn 2

Perdita took initiative this time, at which point both of us saw the skill niño has that lets him ignore disengaging strikes, leaving him free to walk away, turn, and empty his rifle into Datsue ba. Lucky for me, he couldn't get the mask he needed, then promptly failed to disengage, and with his last action decided to take a wound off Datsue-ba by hitting her with his butt. I tried to keep out of sight to use up a few more of the ortega's activations, and once again messed up my positioning. Santiago got a line to another seishin, and that one promptly ceased to exist too, leaving Kirai with one seishin, and some serious problems in the form of Perdita, papa loco, francisco and Santiago heading her way. To stop this, I charged an onryo into Santiago, hoping to tie him up for a while. Unfortunately, while i got the maul trigger, my opponent cheated the attack to make it miss. He then promptly countercharged Francisco into the onryo, stopping just outside the onryo's range and taking 3 Wds off her.

In a vague effort to slow up the up inevitable death of the onryo and mess up the centre of his crew, and for a laugh, I had Kirai ItSW up to the onryo, and summon Jaakuna Ubume in base to base with both Francisco and Santiago. I then swirled Kirai away to the nearby seishin, but not far enough to be safe. I didn't have enough spirits about in safe places! So with my last action, I spirit fooded niño and hoped Kirai wouldn't die at the start of the next turn. With the turn basically over, I finally activated Datsue-ba. Even if she didn't kill niño in melee, she'd tied him up for a turn and wasted his activation. But with two hits from her skinning knife, she killed him. I had hoped to get the weigh sins trigger, but he died to the second strike so that didn't happen. Still, Kirai was close enough to get a seishin, and a gaki popped up too. The gaki I walked down towards Perdita and totem, so that in the end closing phase I could have him walk into melee with both of them, further tying up the ortegas. I kind of expected the gaki to die next turn, but I planned to waste some of Perdita's activation to do it...

Turn 3

With most of the ortegas in melee, except papa loco (lagging behind his crew) and niño (turned into a gaki), I was hoping to get initiative and use jaakuna ubume for some shenanigans. And flipped the red joker for initiative!

I was planning to use siren call on papa loco to get him into melee (he was about 4 or 5 inches away from jaakuna's massive base) and thus paralyse him, but the blasted thing has a R icon, so no firing that out of melee. Instead, I used denial of sanzu to stop him coming any closer and blowing up the rest of my crew. Then activated Drowning in her wake, which given that Francisco and Santiago were in base contact, was not popular with my opponent! And since she had nothing else to do from in melee, I bashed Francisco to no effect.

Francisco in fact went next, and ended up cheating in a card to avoid the 2Dg after failing the Df->13 duel for drowning (handy, given the stubborn skill gets in the way of willpower attacks...). He critical striked the onryo, killing it and netting me a seishin. I then haunted the lowest Wp model in range, which turned out to be the nephilim totem thanks to stubborn. He then failed the Df duel again, took the 2 wounds to save his hand, and struck jaakuna. At which point I black jokered my defence duel, and got hit for 3 wounds of a 5 wound spirit (ouch. Just... Ouch).

It was a few minutes away from when we needed to finish, so I decided it was time to activate Kirai and try to achieve something vaguely objective related. I ItSW her up to Datsue-ba, and then summoned ikiryo in case I needed more significant models by the claim marker. At which point we hit the time limit. If we'd had time to carry on, I had one of my manifest requirements met, so at some point I'd have gone avatar and seen what the mark of vengeance would do when I'd tangled his whole crew in melee.

Game end

It turned out all of his crew were more than 3" from the marker, so with Datsue-ba being near it, I didn't need ikiryo and Kirai there. And not summoning would have given me a walk action, which would have put Kirai in his deployment zone - I was half an inch away! So I claimed 4 points for having more than double the number of models he had by the marker, and he got 2 for Kirai not making it into his deployment zone.

So we had fun, he learned how to play and how to put me in really bad positions, and that he needs to think about denial as well as achievement. We decided he could have deployed closer to the marker, making me try to claim it past an Ortega wall, and probably meaning I would have had to stay away from his deployment zone in order to try and contest the marker. Would also have been harder to pick off niño, and tie up everyone else as they came in piecemeal.

I discovered that I need to be way more careful with my seishin positioning, and that jaakuna is hilarious for her defense duels, but I need to remember how easily the spirits fall over, especially the weaker ones. Even with spirit, critical strike severe damage makes a mess!

I dare say we both played in ways that make the competitive players flinch, but all we're after when playing is a laugh, so it doesn't bother us *grin*

[Bruglyother]

We also then had the funniest comment of the night, when my opponent looked down and said "oh hell, I've eaten my cover. We got any more donuts?" after a quick refit of the battlefield, we carried on. But it's a good job we'd got a lot of donuts as we kept having this problem!

Now that alone was worth the price of admission. My kind of fun game.

[fritz the cat]

I love the edible terrrain, this...INSPIRES ME! Suddenly I want to go invest in a supplies to make gingerbread houses and have a brawl in candy land! with special rules to eat pieces of terrain to hinder your opponent.

[Mike3838]

Nice battle report - I definitely don't think you played badly. In fact it sounds like you did extremely well with Kirai for someone new to the game.

My recommendation: Get Ikiryo out a lot more. She can act as your main offense (I tend to think of her as the melee capability of Kirai herself who doesn't do much offensively in person) and is completely expendable.

Mike

[Mako]

Yeah, I've played about five or six games with Kirai and seem to have used ikiryo less and less as i've gone along. Which is a bit mad now I think about it, given she can just be thrown in again and again!

Cheers for the comments guys, and I really recommend edible terrain for comedy games. Although between the two of us in less than three turns, we drank a ten cans of coke and ate a dozen donuts. So probably not very healthy to do too often! At some point I do plan to make up some terrain, but that may take a while. So until then it's crew boxes and sugary stuff!

[Da Git]

So until then it's crew boxes and sugary stuff!

Wow that sounds awesome!!

yeah, Nino really is a badass, between scout, hunter & such long range he really is hard to avoid. just make sure there are lots of baricades or other hieght one obstacles for the seichin!

Nice use for the Datsue-ba. I can never, ever get mine to work...

Also really cool to see Jakuuma out, never tried her, but she looks fun, especially to summon right up close like you did. Pity her spell is ranged

The other thing, with the Onryo, I really like using there ranged spell against Papa Loco (since he is such easily influenced & all!!)

I am really not sold on the Ikryo for offence, although for small fun games she is good, but I also really like her "call Spirits" ability.

Thanks for the report!

[Mako]

Nice use for the Datsue-ba. I can never, ever get mine to work...

Also really cool to see Jakuuma out, never tried her, but she looks fun, especially to summon right up close like you did. Pity her spell is ranged

Yeah, I never understood how she was apparently so useless, I figured in tournament serious games she must be a bit pointless, but at this level she's great. 16" assault, with an AP left over to try and get her trigger off and do two lots of damage and get a gaki. Kind of wrecks your control hand but if you have a good one like i kept drawing, may as well use it!

It was a bit disappointing to find out Jaakunas spell was ranged, but then I suppose she'd be a real beast for the same cost as an onryo. Next time I might see how she does summoned away from combat to lure people off the rest of my crew, as the drowning ability needs you to get initiative really.

I tend to use the onryo's malevolence when I have no better ideas, especially since into combat you can't hurt your own side even if you miss!

[Requirement]

Fantastic writeup. Sounds like you had a fun game. Sometimes I read reports like this and I'm like "Man, I wish me and my gaming group lived there to pick up a new laid back player."