[JAN] Protection Money: Misaki vs. Jakob Lynch 30ss

[FearLord]

My Crew:

Misaki, Mistress of the Ten Thunders

Kang

Yamaziko

Ten Thunder Brother

Ten Thunders Brother

Ten Thunders Archer

Cache: 4ss

Strategy: Treasure Hunt

Schemes: Emptied Pockets (Announced)

Save Face (Announced)

My opponent’s crew:

Jakob Lynch

- Hungering Darkness

Mr. Tannen

Doppleganger

Illuminated

Illuminated

Cache: 6ss

Strategy: Turf War

Schemes: Assassinate: Misaki (Announced)

Eye for an Eye (Announced)

Notes:

For the final week of our achievement league, I was out to score points, so I chose my crew to be composed entirely of models not in the box. For Misaki, this isn’t too bad, as a Torakage is the only model I’d miss per say. I’ve been planning on trying out Kang in favour of Ototo anyway and Archers, Brothers and Yamaziko have all proved invaluable in past experience.

My opponent has had a few games with Lynch, but this would be my first against him, and his first against Misaki, so we were both a little wary. He doesn’t have Beckoners yet, so chose a crew that featured some of the new models with the Doppleganger thrown in for good measure. This meant the crew was mostly composed of models that were new to me.

I chose my schemes in order to score maximum achievement points as well, for completing both a Faction and Master Specific Scheme in the same game. I’ve had reasonable success with Pilfer before, and with two models with ‘Use Soulstones’ on the board, stealing one or two shouldn’t be a big problem, but despite several attempts at Save Face, it always seems to let me down…

My opponent went for schemes he hadn’t done in the league yet, opting for Assassinate and Eye for an Eye, both of which could be quite tough against Misaki, although the Hungering Darkness could well even the odds.

Deployment (all directions from my point of view):

We flipped Standard deployment, and he won the flip so elected to make me set up first.

I deployed in a clump slightly to the left of the centre line, to avoid a large wood between my zone and the central treasure. My theory was that I could group together to make it harder for him to pick off my minions for his Turf War.

He also deployed in a Central clump with the Illuminated and Hungering Darkness at the front and the Doppleganger, Mr Tannen and Lynch towards the back.

Turn 1

My opponent won initiative and started with one of his Illuminated, who double walked towards the centre, taking cover behind a low wall and casting ‘Brill Shaper’ for the resist bonus.

My Archer went next, cast ‘Yajiri’ choosing the ‘Watakushi’ effect for extra damage and walked onto a hill. He used ‘Aim’ to ‘Focus’ a shot at the first Illuminated, dealing severe damage, which would have killed him if not for his ‘Armor’. The second Illuminated walked up next to the one that had just been shot, also casting ‘Brill Shaper’ for the resist bonus.

The Ten Thunder Brother on the right of my formation moved towards the treasure, skirting the wood as he went. He tried to cast ‘Martial Artistry’ but failed.

The Hungering Darkness ‘companioned’ with Lynch and double walked towards the treasure, passing through a building and landing nearby. He used ‘casting expert’ to use ‘The Light inside’ on the closest Brother, auto triggering the permanent ‘Brilliance’ effect. He then used ‘Feed on Brilliance’ to steal a wound from the poor unfortunate Brother.

Jakob Lynch double walked up next to the wall and the second Illuminated, before using ‘card trick’ for a bonus AP, shooting his holdout pistol at the ‘Brilliant’ Brother. He triggered ‘Malifaux Roulette’ and picked a Ram from my hand, getting the extra damage. He flipped severe and the Brother was killed… Ouch!

Kang started walking towards the Treasure, following the route of the now deceased Brother. He tried to cast ‘Rousing Speech’ but failed. Mr. Tannen walked up behind Lynch.

Misaki used her ‘fast’ AP to walk forward, before ‘Diving Charging’ at the Hungering Darkness who used a Soul stone to prevent the charge hitting. She used ‘Your Mine!’ and attacked again with ‘Melee expert’, which hit and triggered ‘decapitate’. As my opponent was down on cards and didn’t want to blow the Soul stones saving a model that could come back, he let the kill effect go through and the totem blinked out of existence.

The Doppleganger walked forwards twice next to Tannen and used before reactivating ‘Harmless’. Yamaziko double walked up beside Kang. The surviving Ten Thunder Brother walked twice, positioning himself between but slightly ahead of Kang and Yamaziko, ending within 6” of all my models.

Turn 2

During the draw phase this turn, my opponent chose to use ‘Mulligan’ to redraw his whole hand – with a high card 8, the Black Joker and the rest between 1 – 3 I didn’t really blame him! He was also able to win the initiative.

He started with the heavily injured Illuminated who regenerated a wound, cast ‘Brill Shaper’ getting two effects with the ‘Enveloped’ trigger (Additional damage flips and extra Mask on his shot) before shooting the surviving Brother for 3 wounds and getting the ‘Filled with Stars’ trigger to make the Brother and Kang ‘Brilliant’. He shot again, this time making Yamaziko ‘Brilliant’ and killing the poor Brother! Bye bye alpha strike….

I was keen to press the attack and hoped to try and deal with Lynch before he could place the Hungering Darkness back into the game (the fact that he didn’t drop him in when the Brother died was encouraging however, as it meant it was likely that he didn’t have the required cards at the moment).

I went with Misaki, using ‘fast’ to help fuel a ‘Diving Charge’ on Lynch. I knew he’d be pushing away from me as soon as I started attacking him, so I positioned myself behind him, which meant he’d push towards some of my other models and had the added benefit of letting me engage Tannen and the Doppleganger. I triggered ‘Cut Purse’ and successfully stole one of Lynch’s stones and inflicted 4 wds on him before he used ‘Squeal’ to push away. Misaki then used ‘melee expert’ to take a swing at Tannen. I cheated (so had to throw away a card) to beat his ‘pitiful’ duel, but was able to get a ‘decapitate’ trigger on the attack, forcing him to discard cards and still take 4 wounds. I used ‘Your Mine!’ on him and took her final attack against the Doppleganger, managing to get severe (6) damage. I’d done a fair amount of damage (but killed nothing), and all of my control cards were gone!

The Doppleganger used ‘Mimic’ on Misaki’s ‘Pilfer’ action, and tried it against her, but lost the duel. It then attacked her, doing a single wound and used a ‘Mimic Healing’ action to heal itself 3 wounds. With Lynch in the open, the Archer cast ‘Yajiri’ for extra damage again and opened fire. Both the aimed shot and the second shot missed with Lynch cheating to avoid them.

Lynch went next and cast ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ on Kang, who resisted it. He cast it again, and this time it was successful. He drew a 1 (discarded) and a 4 and a 10 which both allowed me to draw a card. Lynch then used ‘card trick’ to take a shot a Yamaziko, triggered ‘Malifaux Roulette’ again and picked a newly drawn Ram from my hand, flipping weak (3) damage.

Kang then charged Lynch, hitting him for severe damage and killing him (he’d used up all of his soulstones by this point). Not content with this body count, Kang used melee expert to kill off the wounded Illuminated. The other Illuminated cast ‘Brill Shaper’ for the additional damage flips and walked forwards to Strike Kang for weak damage.

Yamaziko cast ‘Invigorate’ on herself, healing 2 wounds and then charged the remaining Illuminated, using ‘Spark of Youth’ to get severe damage, which was reduced to 3 wounds by its ‘armor’. Mr. Tannen walked forwards towards Misaki, and used a strike on her that inflicted moderate damage (which I was surprised to see was a whopping 3 wounds!).

Turn 3

Kang healed to full with ‘Can’t Keep him Down’.

I win initiative, starting with Misaki.

She used ‘melee expert’ to finish off Tannen, then ‘fast’ to finish off the Doppleganger, before killing the final Illuminated with her next attack…

This gave me plenty of time to have Misaki pick up the treasure, but stay out of my deployment zone (so I could complete the Save Face scheme). I also had Misaki use ‘Drain Souls’ on the rest of my crew, as there was an achievement in the league for winning with just your Master still in play, although this did give my opponent the points for Eye for an Eye…

Final Score:

Me:

2VP – Treasure Held, but not in deployment zone

2VP – Pilfered more Soul stones than opponent had at end of game.

2VP – Neither of us score max points for strategy

6VP Total

My opponent:

0VP – No Models in my half of the Table

0VP – Misaki still alive

2VP – number of models in crew alive difference 0-1

2VP Total

Victory for Misaki!

This was a fast and furious game, as we’d started about an hour and a half late as my opponent got stuck at work. Going into this game we were both near the top of the league and I suspected that who ever won would win, but totalling scores up after this game, I actually came second to another player who’d had a few big scoring games over the last couple of weeks, despite pulling out all the stops to score maximum achievement points!

This game really demonstrates just how brutally effective Misaki can be at taking models down. Taking out Hungering Darkness early, and then killing Lynch before he could bring it back was very effective, and once Misaki was in amongst the support models, it was only a matter of time before she chewed through them (although Tannen’s abilities made it expensive for her to deal maximum damage).

I was impressed to see what Tannen could do, as I have him, but haven’t had the chance to play him yet. I’m hoping to add him in to some of my Ten Thunder crews to see what I can make of him. Kang was pretty great as always, racking up almost as many kills as Misaki, which is very impressive considering how much slower he is. Yamaziko was also well worth having along, dealing damage and healing wounds (as well as swapping ‘Reckless’ for ‘fast’ on Misaki, which is something I love to take advantage of).

My Brothers were killed without really doing anything, but the Archer proved useful as always for adding some ranged threat to a mostly melee crew. I’d like to try a crew using either 2 or 3 archers to see how it would work out.

Jakob and the Hungering Darkness went down quite easily, but I think in better circumstances (and where Jakob is used a bit more safely) they could be extremely tough to remove. I’m looking forward to playing against them again, and even picking them up to use as Ten Thunders!

[Argentbadger]

Good report, thanks for sharing that. I was impressed with Misaki taking out three models in a single activation right at the end; it makes for quite the cinematic image!

I doubt that I would have had the presence of mind to keep the treasure out of my deployment zone to get Save Face, but (unless the achievement was to score on the scheme rather than just take it) it seems like there would have been no difference anyway. You missed out on 2 points of the strategy, only to gain 2 from the scheme. Am I misreading this?

[FearLord]

No, you're reading it correctly, It would have been 6vps either way, but the way the achievement league worked, I got 1point for just playing a strategy I hadn't played before, and 1 point for actually completing (I.e. Scoring points) each scheme I hadn't scored for yet. In this case I'd not scored any points for save face or Treasure Hunt, so I scored 1 for playing the strategy and 1 for completing the scheme.

I had already scored for Misaki's scheme, but there was a bonus achievement available for completing both a master and faction specific scheme in the same game, so getting save face was quite important to my overall league score!

Misaki is extremely brutal. She'd soften up those 3 minions previously, but it's still impressive when she can kill so much and still have AP to spare!