25 SS, Kirai vs Willie... I mean, Kaeris.

[Halflingspy]

As a quick heads up, this is my first battle report ever, so I hope this is acceptable. Hoping that for future games having a more legit board and a better camera, but with my house under construction, my Terraclips and other pieces are boxed away somewhere.

Set Up

As part of an Achievement League going on at my LGS, my friend and I played a 25 soulstone game, Ressers vs. Arcanists. We flipped to get standard deployment, and chose to avoid really doing special terrain. For schemes, the Arcanists got Turf War while the Ressers got Supply Wagon. This is where things got interesting.

For crew selection, in order to get an achievement, I showed the Resser player who I was taking before he chose his crew: Kaeris as my Master, two gunsmiths, Johan and my newest toy that I was excited to try out, Willie the Demolitionist:

There weren't any fire gamin taken as I was doing a crew-build achievement for having nothing for less than 6 soulstones in my hiring pool. This gave me a full 5 soulstones for a henchman cache.

In response, to get a very tough achievement, my opponent allowed me to design his crew. He chose his Master, Kirai, to which I promptly decided how she would do without her spirits:

A Flesh Construct, the Carrion Effigy, A Punk Zombie, Canine Remains and Sebastian followed her into battle, giving her a SS cache of 4. I decided to leave in another summoning model just to give back some options after being given such a way to hamstring the opposing team.

Schemes were chosen: Arcanists went with staking a claim on a large rock to the right side of the enemy's boardside, and also kill protegee on the Flesh Construct. Ressers chose Assasinate and Hold Out for theirs. It was time to fight!

The Fight

Turn One

The first turn actually became a bit of a standoff. With the Arcanists having few models, and the Ressers having an odd crew selection, no one wanted to run up too quickly. The gunsmiths moved up behind walls, but out of range to fire, while Johan and Willie ran up the right side to find cover and hopefully find a way to pinch in to the middle in later turns. Kaeris flew up and dropped a flame wall near the stone to make sure no snap shots or summoned models could push up too quickly. Meanwhile, the Resser player figured out a way to fix his spirit problem: While his Effigy took purchase in a tower and other minions pushed up, Sebastian spent a turn butchering his own dog and then re-summoning it. This gave the nearby Kirai a seishin... for the remainder of the game, this became a routine to give him some extra juice and generate power for his crew. The first turn ended with both sides positioning for a way to start the fight, but unsure how to do so.

Turn Two

Winning the initiative, Willie quickly proved his worth by using the Bombardier trait on the Flesh Construct hiding around the side of the rock. At 4 combat, it was still enough to beat the low defense of the flesh construct...at which point, the red joker appeared, causing 7 damage on the monster and blowing up the nearby Seishin. Willie through another stick to chase the first one just to make sure... promptly killing the construct entirely.

To add insult to injury, Willie's "Set Charge" ability was used to lay down a mine near the stone, hopefully to prevent other attempts to get to him and to lock down that side of the board. For the Ressers, they moved up closer to the middle without stepping out from their cover. The gunsmiths fired at the Carrion Effigy and missed, or fired into the woods after the punk zombie but didn't have LOS. Meanwhile, the wagon moved forward, now guarded by a new Onryo crafted from Sebastian's dog-part factory. Things were primed for a show down.

Turn Three

Winning initiative again after burning a soulstone on the flip, Johan made use of his magical hammer and his high melee range to charge the Onryo at the edge of the woods. Burning all my high cards, the spirit was smashed in one severe swing. Unfortunately, it was still close enough for Kirai to get a new seishin out of the deal. The fight on the left escalated. The punk zombie threw out a self-mutilate from his safety in the woods at a gunsmith, hitting it while the carrion effigy wounded it also. Retaliation came in a stream of armor-piercing bullets, bringing down the effigy and the punk zombie was nicked by Kaeris as she flew in, her Immolate resisted. Kirai healed up using one of the generated Seishin, and then brought out Ikiryo behind the wagon in the hopes of defending it and taking out threats. This is when Willie made his move to dash forward: something had to be done about Kirai's spirit factory before wounds started piling up on the gunsmiths and Kaeris:

Willie has a fun trick called wheelbarrow of doom: during the second move, two blast markers fall off the wagon in a direction of your choice. Anything hit must make a defense 12 flip or take damage. The seishin that had been hiding nearby was blown away by this dash forward, and Willie then got very aggressive, placing a mine close to the seishin next to Kirai. This caused worry: if the seishin moved, or anything moved within 2 inches, the mine could possibly blow up... dealing enough damage to kill Kirai and deal damage to Sebastian as well.

​Turn Four

This turn turned into maneuvering for both sides. Kirai, safely out of range of the charge going off, fled to mid-table behind the wagon and the Ikiryo. This led to Willie's Bombardier ability being used, throwing dynamite at Kirai with all my high cards to deplete what was left of her soulstone cache as well as nicking her down to 3 wounds left. A mine was placed... right at the feet of Ikiyro. This led to a long debate about risking a move or not with the model, as the blast would take out the weakened Kirai right next to her. She passed rather than charge. The gunsmiths had no luck, as the injured one was killed off via self-mutilate and the other one spent its turn moving closer to close in on the wounded Master. Kirai resisted attacks by Kaeris as she flew in. Sebastian by this point had released the canine remains that he had made, each charging to try and take out Willie before he could unleash more havoc. It brought him down to 4 wounds left, but not enough to kill him.

(Continued Next Post)

Edited August 23, 2012 by Halflingspy

[Halflingspy]

Turn Five: Boom Goes the Dynamite

Winning the flip for initiative, Willie really showcased yet again how great he is: using an action called Short Fuse, he was able to use a demo charge in melee combat against a canine remains. After hitting though, the real beauty of it this ability is shown: with a mask in the attack total, a demo charge triggers "Fire in the Hole!", which makes all of your friendly models in melee with the defender push up to their walk away from it, probably as they scream in terror about the incoming explosive. Targeting the canine opposite from Kirai, Willie ran from his own explosive throw... right into the mine that had been set up. Now, when a set charge is tripped, you flip a card. If its a Tome, it sets of a 3 inch pulse of 3 damage. Only Willie can cheat this flip. I had a tome in my hand ready to cheat when...

...Red joker. Which states that its now a 5 inch pulse with 5 damage behind it. The 'after' picture shows the pain:

Kaeris and Johan were brought to half wounds, and ironically, the "Blast Resistant" trait that Willie has means he usually survives his own explosive charges, since he has armor +3 against them. With this leaving Sebastian on the table for Ressers, Johan turned and broke the supply wagon with a severe hit, after failing to do so the previous turn. The game was called by this point.

Aftermath and Takeaways

-Willie is insane. Just absolutely, wonderfully insane. He KOed 8 models in one game. What's great about him is that he has so many different ways of delivering destruction, whether its from behind rocks, through obscuring terrain, running at someone full-tilt, or dropping explosives. The set charges are more useful than what you think on paper: Dropping them next to enemy models brings up a lot of fear and trepidation, especially melee models who need to move closer to attack. The worry of causing explosions made my opponent unwilling to move up until it was too late.

-Willie and Johan are a great combination for Supply Wagon. Johan is great because of his high damage profile, but Willie would have been if the Resser player didn't spend so much time making sure he didn't get close. Why? Because within 1 inch of something with hardness, he can use his demo charges with +2 damage. That's an instant kill on a Wagon.

-Sebastian and a canine remains actually isn't a bad way to create a seishin factory for a Resser player. I was impressed that with such a rough crew selection brought on by me, the Resser player was able to get enough seishin out to start summons and building up a force by turn 2. If Willie hadn't had as much luck just for one turn, there might have been some painful damage on my limited forces. Its a bit unorthodox, but as Kirai has just started being played around my LGS, thought it might be worth mentioning.

I hope this was fun to read, and informative as well. Again, I cannot stress this enough: if you are an Arcanist player, taking the crazy guy with a wheelbarrow is way, way too much fun.

[Ratty]

A little note.. The way Hardness works means you have to beat it's Hardness 3 times, not beat it's Hardness by 3 once.

Q. How does Hardness work on the Supply Wagon?

A. The Supply Wagon must be damaged 3 times before it is destroyed. Hardness 3 means that you have to do 4+ damage in order to damage it once.

Saying that Willie is still a huge threat to the Wagon, as it can take off a hit every (1) he spends.

[Viruk]

A very good read. Great to see new releases put into creative use. If I played Arcanists, he'd probably be #1 on my to buy list.

[G. Footman]

Yeah thT game was nuts

[G. Footman]

Ressers chose Assasinate and Hold Out for theirs.

Actually, I took Bodyguard and Kirai's specific one (Ikyro taking out your master)

hadn't noticed you had the wrong schemes earlier as i read this on my phone

[Da Git]

when I started reading this, I was thinking who in their right mind would chose that crew for Kirai... (of course, her opponent!!)

Wow, willie was really devastating, and is going to be quite hard to deal with by CC crews. Same tactics as Loco & Pere I guess.

[Halflingspy]

The tactics for Willie are actually a bit different. From what I know of Pere and Loco, the goal is to get them in for that one big bang, followed by a death rattle/explosion. If you look at Willie, his death burst doesn't do nearly as much damage... but you can direct it. I didn't get to that point though with him and he still did an obscene amount of damage.

The 0 act 'set charge' really sets him apart because you can use it for board control or a deterrent for people charging through them at you, especially if they don't want to take a risk. Meanwhile, Bombardier means that if you are fighting low Def crews, you can park behind a wall or rock and huck dynamite from a safe distance. The dynamite ignores armor AND object (Something becoming increasingly important), and to top it off, he can use it in melee with a hilarious trigger.

Don't get me wrong, he's got a great last attack when he dies, but you are going to want to be in just the right place, with a good set of high cards to chain the blast markers out where you want to go. Its a move you do AFTER they've been softened up by a bombardment and some mines going down on the table.

...Side note, my second game with Willie didn't go well. He ran straight at Nino with no cover. Bad things happened.

[Da Git]

Ah, I was thinking from the other point of view!!

Nice that he is quite different to loco & pere.

It's also nice that he not that devastating every game!!

[Golden]

Good job, krautly. Way to make sure nobody else completes that achievement. And I will be signing Mr. Tannen's sheet for losing a model due to the Black Joker. He flipped it as Sonya 3 times last game, just not on defense.

[FearLord]

Great report! Really excited to see the new models in play! Hopefully we'll get some more battle reports with some of the new stuff soon!

Willie seems very cool and pretty powerful for a 6ss model - I suspect he'll become a priority target for many people once they've seen what he can do...