Campaign battle reports _ Kaeris (Jan/Feb)

[Adran]

Reports From Canterbury Crusaders Beginners Campaign

2013

Fixed Master list 25 Soulstone games.

My Leader Kaeris

Game 1, Shared Reconnoitre No Schemes

Game 2 Shared Treasure hunt (new) 1 scheme.

Game 3 Share destroy the evidence, 2 schemes

Game 4 shared supply wagon, 2 schemes

Game 5 Flipped for individual core strategy, 2 schemes

Game 6 flipped for individual core strategy, 2 schemes use special event/terrain.

Bonus' in the campaign.

We have split the players between vets and beginners. Each person has 2 ways to gain 10 bonus points over the campaign.

For my self I have to complete all my master and faction specific schemes (we are still working out what that is going to mean for a henchman) and I have to complete a game where none of my crew cross the mid point of the table.

(but ssshh. its a secret scheme ;-) )

Minefitters union memo

- investigate area in region 157 for possible soulstone aggregation.

Note left in Kaeris' office

My Dear Kaeris

I have managed to hear rumours that there is another stable breech over beyond the swamp. It could be useful for shipping purposes. Be warned that the area is beyond civilisation. the breech is believed to travel to the 3 kingdoms Earthside. Expect one of their families to be in control of the earthbound side.

Take some of the Assets and take a look into the area. It likely has a reasonable soulstone deposit, but if we can use the mine as a base to control earthside shipping it would be worth the set up costs.

Victor.

Kaeris' Diary

Malifaux date 22nd November

I lead an early squad out into the swamp lands to try and find out what was there. I took several miners along with me to justify our Mining expedition, but I made sure Kang picked ones that were handy in a fight. I'm glad he picked that troublemaker Johan, as whilst he is belligerent, the guy loves to fight.

I made use of one of the large Arachnids to help cross the ground and carry supplies.

As we started through the swamp we encountered a small group of Gremlins who seemed to be doing their best to imitate the guild.

One of them danced up towards me, and tried to blow up some dynamite near me. Dang fool. Good job I was able to burn the fuse early and the blast left him out of it, with barely a singe on me.

The Miners advanced swiftly on the gremlins, under the assumption that they could actually lay claim to the land we found.

One of them rushed into a sword wielding green freak, and deserved to have his stuff handed back to him on a plate. Kang and the other miner were soon under fire from one of the shacks as a swarm of small green monsters poured out.

The Miner paused long enough to look at his health benefits before burying himself. I engaged in a prolonged duel with the female who seemed to be leading and her tough brother. They managed to damage my Arachnid through their attacks, but I was able to ignite her after several attempts and watch her burn despite the soulstone she seemed to have.

The sword wielding manic along with the sniper in the building managed to pin Kang down. and the weight of fire from them and the youngsters about finally brought the big man down Johan came to the fore, and took out the sword wielder, and the miner managed to unbury by the sniper and hurt him.

Eventually I was able to bring down the last gremlin, with a badly injured Union miner and Johan bleeding from several places, but we did at least manage to cover a large amount of the swamp. There are several promising leads.

Up Ahead I see what appears to be a small cache of Soulstone. My main forces are closer, they can tend to the injured, and help me retrieve them. There does seem to be a small child nearby though....

I partially picked the list to try and get the most out of Kang. I still haven't had much success with him. He was ignored until 1 turn when everything went for him and killed him. I'm not going to give up with him straight away. But he is slow and unless he is in the middle of a large fight, he doesn't do much.

Next game is Shared Treasure hunt vs the Dreamer, so I might see if preventing Morale duals helps. Plus it will contain many non living things.

[Adran]

As I drew closer I realised it wasn't a child, but a frozen construct. Obviously the Cult was here, and whilst I don't know what they are up to I do know Ramos won't take her as an excuse for failure.

I gave my miners orders to bury themselves and move forwards. As I sent Johan Forwards towards the stones, two huge pillars of Ice appeared, causing our path to be blocked. It looked like the came from Ramos' bodyguard Injun Joss. Now I know him, and he can't do that, so it certainly means the witch isn't far away. I call up a wall of fire to shield my forces. Willie walked up to the ice Pillars and signalled to the buried miners where to arrive. The Gunsmith moved up to see what he could cover. My Miners reappeared right by the treasure.

As the fires die down I get to see the witch, but she also gets to see us, and a bolt of Ice comes out and strikes Johan. He shrugs of the damage and tries to keep moving, but more bolts strike him, and finally he falls, the ice steam seeming to have a tint of soulstone to it.

The Familiar beside her then targets the Miners I had by the treasure, and an icy blast hurts them both. I call up a fire wall to protect them from any further attacks and move up to help. Through the wall runs the ice gamin, melting in the heat, which at least stops its attack from hitting home. One of the Miners grabs the treasure, and the other heals his wounds enough to kill the gamin without dying in its explosion.

Willie starts throwing dynamite at Joss, both to tray and harm in, but also laying traps to try and keep him away from the treasure, my gunsmith joins in and continues to shoot ineffectually at Joss' forcefield.

Again, as my fire wall drops, the Witch is ready with her icy blasts, hurting me and the cold air coming off from me is enough to drop both the miners. Rasputina freezes the building Joss and Willie are standing by to keep them in places, and then blocks my sight of her with yet more ice pillars.

Willie, Joss and the gunsmith continue their shooting battle with little effect, much of the building gets in the way, as does the forcefield on Joss'. I make use of the 3 of them to heal, and feel much better. As I walk towards the treasure I spot a harpoon wielding maniac, who manages to catch me with his weapon.

"Extracts from willie"

...So, the harpoonist seemed to manage a lucky shoot on the mistress an' it took her right out of it. So I looked to the enforcer, and he looked at me. "I'll give you covering fire" we both said, but I figured mine was more explosive. So he ran onto the treasure, got pegged by the harponist, which seemed to slow 'im down. It took him a while to get the arrow out of him, and by then the ice witch walked past my snares. Seems something about that bearskin she was wearing kept her safe. So she then froze the guy. I figured I had one chance, and dashed for the Treasure, but then I got froze. Adn I was stuck there, I watched the harponist walk upto the reasure, past me snares, and then walk back towards where we had coem from... "

Result at the end of turn 6 I had 3 points, Rasputina had 0. At the end of 8 turns I had 1 point and Rasputina had 4, havign managed to pick up the treasure on turn 7 and walk into my deployment on turn 8.

Blast damage is less effective against models with Bareskin armour, and armour peicing doesn't help against forcefields.

I really wished I could companion the miners with Kaeris. I needed to block line of sight with her wall, and also do things with them. The fact that I lost iniatives from turns 3-6 didn't help protect me from Rasputina.

I focuses on the mission. probably to much. Every model that picked up the Treasure was blasted shortly afterwards. Kaeris got shot by the Acolyte, failed to stop the hit (just) and then the negative damage flip brought up the red Joker. 9 wounds.

On the whole I was happy with my tactics. I struggled to hid models from Rasputina, who was a beast, and took a while to kill off any of the other models

The biggest plus was that I managed to achieve my never enter the opponents half. I liked the new Treasure hunt with VPs earned at the end of each turn. It would have ended up a 2-0 win otherwise as my regular death with the treasure chest was slowly moving it towards my half.

[kross1]

Nice, fun read. Thanx for the insight on how to play Kaeris.

Kross

[Adran]

"After the drubbing I received from the Ice witch, I realised that the site was not as secret as I had supposed.

So I sent Kang, Johan and a few miners out to remove any traces on the surface of what we might find. I also thought to push into enemy territory and to make sure that I had control of the power here. To that end I sent 2 miners out wide to make some mystic symbols into the ground to allow me to focus the flames. After they did that, they were to dig under the ground and do it again around the entrance. As Kang and Johan headed towards the known entrance to the Mine, I was aware of others coming up. They were largely equipped in some form of armour, not entirely sure what but they were heading to the entrance to. Just then the leader took to the air and flew to the entrance. The Miners appeared out of the ground to the side of the entrance, heading for the spoils that signified digging here.

Kang Charges into the leader, his battle cry inspiring those around him to join him in the fight. He managed to land his shove on him hard, and he flew back, and just didn't seem to stop. His assistant ran in to smite Kang with her Hammer, but I've seen him take a much bigger beating than that. Johan and the rail worker followed up into the melee, and after several blows were able to dispose of the evidence.

On my right flank, the miners were able to flush out a sniper and drive him off to his friends whilst they took out the spoil piles and even made the engraving my ritual would require.

I commanded the miners to continue their digging at to reach the far spoil pile and area for my engraving, and sent Knag over there to direct them. The rest of my forces I sent after the rat catcher and the leader. Unfortunately, the rail worker and one of the miners, who got a little lost were the first to try and ambush the leader. He was able to dispatch both with little worry and continue with his unexplainable actions, fiddling with some strange devices. I headed towards him whilst my assistants defeated the rat catcher, the sniper and the grunt. Unfortunately by the time I came to aid against the leader, he had completed his work and left. Still, my aims were sorted.

I am now hoping for additional supplies. Ramos has been informed and has said his associate Dr Marcus will be providing something for us"

Kaeris Vs Von Schill Shared destroy the evidence.

Crews

Kaeris

2 union miners

Kang

Johan

Rail worker

Von Schill

Hamelin

Taelor

Trapper

Friekorpsman

I declared power ritual and secretly decided on Breakthrough.

Von Schill declared bodyguard and didn't realise we were taking 2 schemes. When we worked out he only had 1 scheme we added the 2 soulstone to his pool (about turn 3).

I deployed evidence strongly on my right, with one over near the left corner.

Von Schill heavily deployed all his evidence on His right side, and focused most of his force there.

There was a small hut shielding the neutral marker from my forces.

I deployed a miner in each corner, and the rest of my forces in the centre.

Turn 1

Von Schill moved up to threaten the neutral evidence.

I tagged a corner for power ritual and buried the miner.

Hamelin moved up along the edge of the board and obeyed Tealor to charge towards Von Schill.

The other miner tagged the other corner and buried himself

Taelor moved up to support Von Schill

Kang walked forward on the right side. It But him in charge range of Von Schill and also gave a good unbury point for the miners. The Trapper shot at him and used his reposition trigger to move nearer to the middle.

Johan walked up on the left to pincer Von Schill and the evidence. It also gave me a second possible choice for bringing up the miners. The Friekorps man moved forward.

The Rail worker (brought for his versatility of weapons and extra ms&u membership) moved up on my left to be able to charge Von Schill from the other side.

Kaeris walked up and shot Von Schill. She set him on fire but failed with her spell.

Von Schill took a wound from the fire to allow him to still interact.

The miners appeared as far in front of Kang as they could. Kang healed

Turn 2 I won Initiative, and to stop Von Schill getting the neutral counter I charged in with Kang. The Charge hit, and brought Von Schill down to 4 wounds remaining. The Melee expert missed, but Kang brought up his fight with me aura. Taelor Charged in to try and force Kang away from Von Schill. She moved so that she was able to hit Kang but he couldn't hit her. The Charge hit, but her melee expert missed, and he wasn't able to trigger Knockback on either attack. I wasn't able to use Kangs defence trigger as Taelor was outside my melee range.

I charged the Rail worker into the fight, didn't do much but added to my numbers there. I failed to set fire to Taelor with his 0

Von Sschill decided things were too hot and so he bugged out. He ran right over to one of his evidence tokens. Johan ran in and managed to hit Taelor. Her hard to wound meant I only got weak damage, but it was looking good for me in the middle.

Hamelin moved up, and tried to obey the friekorps man but failed. Kaeris moved up, and managed to shoot the friekorpsman, but again failed her immolate. The Friekorpsman went over to guard Vonschill. One of the miners charges Taelor, gained the combat bonus from kang, didn't hurt her, and then buried. The Trapper realised how exposed he was on his own, and high tailed it out of there towards the rest of his crew.

The last remaining miner rushed forwards. This allowed his friend to reappear standing next to an evidence marker.

Turn 3

Again I won initiative. I started off by using Johan to Flurry Taelor. It took the 3 hits to kill her, but I managed to see her off eventually. (typically the first hit took her down to 2 wounds, so that meant the second hit obviously had to be the one that triggered Brutal, and despite ending on a double negative flip did severe damage).

The Frikorpsman managed to destroy the evidence that he and Von Schill were near. Kang took out the neutral evidence and Hamlin cast irresistible dance on Kaeris. And so it was irresistible (well I wasn't prepared to stop it ).

My miners destroyed the evidence in my opponents deployment zone and activated with the 3rd corner for power ritual, and both dropped out of sight ready to switch to the other side of the board for the last corner and evidence marker.

Von Schill ran to the evidence in my deployment, and hoped to be safe. I sent a rail worker after him to keep him busy.

One of the miners joined the Rail worker.

Turn 4

Von Schill moved out of melee with the miner and shot him twice to kill him. My forces engaged Hamelin and the friekorpsman and managed to hurt them.

I managed to get the evidence and the last corner leavign me with just my hidden breakthrough left .

Turn 5

Von Schill got the evidence in the deployment. I managed to finish off the rest of his crew and turned on mass to chase after Vonschill.

Turn 6 Vonschill got the last evidence counter. I moived Kaeris close enough to try and kill him in turn 7. Completely forgettign Breakthrough.

Game ends, 6-5 to me.

I think I was luckly to do so well. The spread out nature of the forces meant I was able to concentrate on the middle force and get the neutral evidence.

My Miners were the stars of this game for me, they managed to get all 4 corners and 2 of the evidence markers (it could have been 3 but I had another model already in contact and thought that I could try and kill von Schill) in 4 turns as well as managing a charge on Taelor. I am very much enjoying File false claim, and think 2 miners and 2 other MS&U members is a pretty good combination.

Kaeris was a bit of a spectator here. She didn't try very much, and failed in a lot of what she tried. I kept back on using her soulstone ready for importanmt duels, that because we both largely avoided never occured.

I still wasn't hugely impressed with Kang. He was ok, and handy in gaining the middle marker, but I don't think he was much better that Johan was.

I avoided using Willie as he is largely useless against Friekorps armour, although his extra speed would have made the miners even better.

Next game is shared supply wagon, and as I've just made a new supply wagon (based on a Rhinox) for my Marcus crew for the Lost Love Tournement, I'm using it to gain Supplies from the slightly creepy doctor. At current opponent unknown. I'm contemplating bringing the Rail Golem, Willie and a miner as my main force as they come either with good weak damage, or bonus damage against enemy supply wagons. The remaining 11 points will probably depend on who I am facing, but Johan is quite likely as his 3" melee will make it very hard for enemies to harm my wagon, and his Knockback trigger can clear away an enemy defender from their wagon.

[Bacms]

This is awesome looking forward for the next ones

[Adran]

Shared Supply Wagon

3 way game

Kaeris

Rail Golem

Willie

Johan

Union Miner

Sabotage

Grudge Chaki

Yan Lo

Soul porter

Mr Tanner

Izamu

Chaki

Grudge Mature Nephlim

Something else I can't remember but he got 2 points for.

Lileth

Cherub

3 Terror Tots

Mature Nephlim

Reclaim Malifaux

Hidden breakthrough against Kaeris

A dust cloud seemed to rise from beyond the Swamp. It confused me, as I had travelled that way, and there wasn't the right land to create Dust.

I flew up, and saw a large metallic figure walking alongside a strange animal laden with boxes. The cloud was issuing from the smoke stacks on the Golems back, and from her view point she could see the heat haze from it.

" Excellent, here come the supplies, as well as re-enforcements from Victor. It appears he has sent us one of those new Rail Golems. "

As I turned to land, I spotted in the distance two other convoys that appeared to be heading this way.

"Heads up lads, it looks like we're not the only people getting a delivery"

Willie and Johan looked up from their tasks, and prepared to head out.

Willie called over his apprentice, and they started to discuss the best ways to destoy the wagons, and prevent any further supplies coming along the same routes.

As the Golem came up to them with the wagon, it seem obvious that there was no way they could avoid the other wagons, and it was vital that we kept these supplies safe.

Willie Headed up and started to lay mines alongside the path he expected his wagon to take to drive off anyone that out flanked us. I sent the Golem up with him, and in a big gulp of steam they disappeared from view. As ste steam started to come up, I caught a view of a large suit of ornate 3 kingdoms armour, and realised that this was proof that the second breech here connected with there.

It seems someone there had already started to take advantage of it.

Johan headed out towards our camp, ready to hold off the third wagon, which from the bat like forms that accompanied it seemed to be some for some of the local neverborn. Our Miner started to bury and get closer that way. The neverborn seemed to be running all over the local ground making marks and symbols as they passed

Just then I heard a strange screeching noise, and the large armoured person started to move towards the steam. He got faster and faster and I wasn't able to react until he had moved into the cloud of steam, and I could hear the sound of metal on metal. I flew up for a better look, but the steam hid it all from sight.

As the steam cleared I could see the suit clearly. It was empty, but that didn't seem to slow it down. An Old man and a young girl were also close by and they focused on my Golem, bringing it swiftly to its knees with their powers, when the large blade from the suit swung down and cleaved through the power couplings. The Steam boiler on the golem could take no more of this pounding ,and gave way in a huge burst of boiling water. The armour seemed slightly shimering and part of the water seemed to pass through it. I carried on its swing and was able to catch a slightly damp and smoldering willie whilst he was checking the state of his dynamite and in one swoop smashed him to the floor. The Cigar left his mouth and landed in the dynamite. The dampness caused a little sputtering at first, but then one cord caught and soon the whole barrow went off. The blast caught the 3 of the enemy models, but again some of the force seemd to just pass straight through them. Johan moved swiftly towards the middle, but as he ran I saw a shimmer and a small creature appeard where he was. In the distance I could hear his screams as he was torn apart by the bulk of the nephlim forces. It chilled me to the bone, but I knew there were more important matters here.

I ignited several of the forced that took out my golem, but I couldn't call the large pillar of fire onto the armour, it seemed to not have the life force to sustan the fire.

The Miner rushed towards the large rock formation he and willie had decided was the easiest to destroy to block the route, but as he rushed out, the large winged creature ran towards him. As he swipped he seemed to spot the Armour and swiped the miner out the way and charged into the armour.

Again the 3 kingdoms force acted speedily and were able to slay the winged beast. Everytime the fates seemed to shine on the beast, a small man behind the brawl looked up, and the matures luck ended. My miner was fortunate enough to pick himself up from the attack, prepare to be attacked and plant the dynamite on the structure as planned.

That epic tussle seemed to be something to avoid to I tried burning the older looking man from the 3 knigdoms who seemed in charge. The Epic tussle had the advantage of blocking one of the wagons, whilst the other two trundled onwards.

Then once again, the air Shimmered and a lady with a large sword appeared in the midst of the 3 kingboms forces, and laid into them.

The sword bounced from the side of the armour, and I saw the small man with his knife snigger, but so it seemed did Malifauxs public enemy number one. Lileth cut him down there, and then went onto the rest of the people, killing everything else in range. Whilst Lileth and the armour continues their fight, I burnt the winged cherub to death, leaving a pyre to warn its fellows. My Miner ran round to try and ambush the Nevrborn Wagon, but before he had the chance, Lileth mangaged a blow on the suit which ended what eevr power animated it, and it fell to the floor.

She was able to run close enough to her Wagon to stop him hurting it, and also able to damage the 3 kingdoms wagon. I set her on fire, and left her so close to death that I think the heat fom my own armour would kill her.

The miner made a brave move, and as Lileth tried to protect her own supplies he rushed towards her and was able to hurt the other Wagon. Unfortunatly she soon realised his ploy and struck him down. As she tried to get to my supplies the huge pyre was sufficent to prevent her heading one way I blocked the otherway so she headed off to safety. I was able to kill the small tot that tried to impeed me and meaded towards the neverborn Wagon to see if I could set fire to it. the last of the Tots seemed to run back along the route we tarvelled.

Unfortuntly the darkness of night came down, and all manged to get away in the darkness.

End Score Nverborn 7, Arcanist 6, Ten Thunder 6

Myself and the ten thunders playewr have a long standing rivalry, and this was the first time I had faced Yan lo and Izumu, so I was not completly sure of how to handle him.

I picked Willie and the miner for their bonus' against models with Object, and hardness, and Johan and the Rail Golem were just hard hitting in their own right.

I spread my forces slightly, with willie and the Rail golem on one side towards Yan to try and discourage anything from that side, and also put a dynamite marker down to reduce it futher. Johan was on the other side as that gave my miner the choice of where to help, and Kaeris started in the middle.

I didn't realise quite how fast you can make the Armour, and it engaged me on turn 1. Then I lost inniative on turn 2 and the whole force short of Tanner focused on my rail Golem. and after his death, Willie. With those down I knew I was in trouble so ran Johan towards the middle so I could concentrate my remaining forces. Unfortuntly it wasn't out of range of the cherub and Transposition, and he ended up in the middle of the neverborn crew with Lileth to have a full activation.

When on the same turn the Mature Nephlim was able to get into range of the miner for his melee expert I though I was completly out of it, but fortuantly he got the shove aside trigger and decided charging the largely intact Yan lo force was better than killing the miner. (A good call I think).

My plan was for the miner to sabotage the terrain and then file false claim away to safety, but I had no one for him to get to so he just had to survive on his own.

Lileth showed the power of Transpositon when she was put into the middle of the Yan lo crew by the cherub and wiped out everything but the Armour in whirling death.

I got lucky enough that I hurt Lileth with Ignite (doen at range to avoid her defensive trigger) and then immolate her down to 1 wound, so she couldn't hit Kaeris as she was out of stones by this point. One Lileth killed my Miner I could only hurt a wagon with a red joker, so even if we had more turns I don't think i could have done much. The terror tots completed reclaim, and then one of them survived to breakthrough into my deployment. Everyone had ignored them in the early game, and by the mid game didn't have the models to handle them easily.

It was good play by lileth, capitalising on Yan Los worries of the Golem, and taking advantage of him Companioning almost his whole force for his first activation. After his first shot of whirling death against he armour he rememebred he wanted to kill Tanner first, and then killed Yan lon and then Chaiki in that order to stop Yan getting a relic.

I was Happy with 6 points after I lost almost everything in turn 2. That was partialy my error in pushing up too much, and also not realising he could companion quite so much if I lost Iniative. It was only a small risk for him, as I was unlikely to do much with the golem to the armour (I was hoping to trigger the charge on another model instead of doing damage, but I'm not sure he would have allowed me to get the trigger off), and even if it did die, he would get the relic and could summon him back.

[Adran]

Reconnotre Vs Claim Jump

Kaeris ( eye for an eye, Breakthrough) (for my master scheme we allowed my opponent to select my second scheme)

2 miners

Johan

Rail Worker

Rail Golem

Seamus (Body guard, Death beyond death)

Mortimer

Flesh Construct

2 belles

Fight in the moutains with a magical nexus. Diagonal deployment The Claim is in a corner.

..." So having had problems with the supplies, I decided it was time to find out what is out there. I decided to repair the Golem, and use him to deal with any troubel we found out there. As we started to spread out there seemed to be a commontion out in front. The Miners, being nearest seemed to be heading off to investigate some Belles that appeared to be in the area. Something about them caught his eye, as he headed straigh towards them. Suddenly from behind the rocky outcropping a huge fleshy construct lept on him. I sent the Rail golem towards it and after it pounded the construct and knocked him away, the Golem charged towards the belles. It was able to destroy 2 of them, with the fires withing it burnign brightly allowing it to just keep fighting. The destruction of the second undead woman saw it try and undress, which seemed to confuse the poor golem, allowing the grave digger to sneak up and smash the golem into an empty grave from which it took time to leave. As it tried to climb out, the ressurectionists were able to swarm all over it, and cause it to be destroyed. I took advantage of the flaming wreckage and was able to cause it to harm all of those ressurectionests except the leader of the Band, Seamus.

Whilst that had been going on Seamus had snuck towards me, and called up an undead abomination to rise before me. Johan and the rail worker were able to keep it under control and started to bring the fight to Seamus himself.

Whilst the rail worker kept his distance, johna was afraid of nothign and dove straight into the fight. Unfortuantly, when facing one of the most dangerous men in Malifaux, Caution is for the wise. He turns his back on the belle he had just destroyed, and didn't realise she waas still clawing at him even after her body was destroyed. I don't know where she connected, but it ceratinly took the wind out of his sails Some smart work with his bag o' tools and Seamus is looking a lot healthier whilst Johan is on the floor.

One look at the glee on His face,and I know I can't stand there. I flee out of range, and all I can do is try to protect my forcelign up a flame wall. Unfortuantly, as I do so, those rotten belles manage to climb the hill and are able to entice the miner to head to them, putting him right through the Flames.

There was little for me now, and I called to the rail worker that we should leave. The land here isn't safe and I don't want to stick around anywhere near that maniac. "

So not a good week for me.

I strongly dislike Reconotre, especially at the 25 ss Level. Especially when I'm facing a crew that is trying to increase its numbers because it needs to complete Death after death for a bonus 10 Campaign points. (I at least manged to prevent that, but the crew ended up with exactly the same number of models as it started with). The Slow to die action from the belle doing red joker damage to Johan didn't help, and then lossing initaitive allowing Seamus to kill him (from 1 wound) before I flurried Seamus also didn't help. If I had been on the 6 wounds or so I was on before the red joker I might have survived Seamus' activation and the flurry would have got Seamus close to death.

If I had avoided the ressurectionists entirely then I'd probably have got a 8-6 loss, but that seemed a little pointless. The Rail Golem managed to wreck face, but being paralysed and surrounded by most of the enemy minions is not a good place to be. If I had held back using its re-activation until Mortimer was in range then I would have had a good chance of wiping him out rather than the belle I did kill, which undressed as a slow to die.

Once agains Kaeris came up against an immune to influence undead monstosity, and was stuck on ways to kill it. I think I need to make sure I protect the damaging parts of my crew if I have to get rid of these.

Union miners were pretty handy again, even if I did manage to kill one myself by using its smalderign heart to try and stop it walking through a flame wall. The Flame wall was of no use (I only cast it as a chance to get a surge) and if it wasn't there, whilst the gaggle of belles could have lured my miner to their hearts content, it would have done nothing for him except bring him nearer to the enemy claim jump.

[Adran]

Last week V the dreamer

dreamer

Coppelius

2 stiched

2 daydreams

Destroy the evidence - Stake a claim and Body guard

Kaeris

Willie

Rail golem

Large Steampunk arachnid

Gunsmith

Claim Jump - exterminate Nightmares and Kill protégée (Coppelius).

(Exterminate was selected by my opponent as my master scheme for this game)

"Right, this is it. One last Push and I think we can hold the entrance to the breech. Now if it weren't for all those nightmare force about we'd have no trouble here. I sent Morris, my gunsmith up to the top of a hill to see what he could see.

I started to head my forces out right towards the entrance, only to see a small boy advance up on my left. Suddenly the skies shifted and out of now where 2 strange sewn constructs and a couple of floating spirits appeared, and behind those was a strange figure with long fingers and far too many tentacles for this place. I tried setting up a wall of flames in front of them, but one of the stitched constructs ran into it and seemed to destroy something. The Tentacled beast then headed towards something else so I sent my Arachnid and Golem towards him to try and drive him off. Willie took advantage of the cover granted by the flame wall and set some charges over on my left. The Daydream took the injured stitched out of the flame and back into thin air. With that pop, the tentacled monstrosity continued his advance and was able to destroy something just in front of my mechanical forces. The Spider charged in, and cut the creature up with the aid of some fire from me.

As the flame wall died down on my left, the forces seemed to skirt round Willies dynamite, head towards a rocky outcropping. The Small boy rushed up first, with the other sewn construct. then the fogs appeared and we couldn't see them anymore.

Not letting a little thing like that stop him, Willie started to throw dynamite into the cloud. There was a muffled bang as it exploded, but Willie wasn't happy with that. He threw one of his snares in to the cloud and then followed it into the fog. There was a much more resounding blast, and parts of the daydreams flew out the fog. Then I saw Willie and his barrow come out. It was a little singed, but he had the look of a happy man on his face as he headed towards the rock out cropping. Just as he reached the rock the burnt stitched reappeared, left the area that Willie was in and smudge something that was written on the rock. I started to wonder what and then I saw the fog cloud move towards Willie. It rolled over him, and then there was a huge bang.

I sent the Golem over to investigate, and as the fog lifted we saw a very badly injured stitched creature, a little boy looking like he was about to cry, and a large scared patch of ground that was roughly the size of Willies barrow. The Golem was able to smash the stitched, and went off after the boy. The Injured stitched chased after the golem, and was able to hurt the golem some how. With just the boy to remove, I decided this wasn't the time to be careful and sent my forces after him. He flew off, so we started to cordon off the area. He ran behind a mountain, and the injured arachnid climbed over it. I went down one side and the golem went on the other side, whilst the Gunsmith continued to head towards our overall target. The kid kept running, but eventually the spider caught him, and managed quite a blow. He escaped and rushed over to Morris. As he reached the claim we were after, the boy muttered some words, and from nowhere a nightmare creature appeared. It tried to rip into Morris, but he was a survivor, and used to enforcing his will the hard way. He wasn't phased when the nightmare creature turned back into a boy, he just shoot it straight down, and continued to fire as the Creature returned. unfortunately, whilst he was about to dodge the first set of claws at him, the final set was just too much for him, and the creature started to feast on him. I wasn't going to let that be the end of Morris, so I called forth my flame and set fire to the large beast, then I used my mastery of the flame to call forth a huge pillar of fire which was able to burn away the monster, and leave a fitting pyre for Morris right over the entrance of the claim.

We moved up carefully but it seemed we'd managed to wipe away the clutch of nightmares out here.

Game 6 ended up a 8-4 win for me. The dreamer player really focused on getting at least 2 of the evidence tokens as that would give him the number of Strategy points he needed to complete his campaign mission.

Willie walking into 2 of his snares and me cheating to set them off was great, even if I did have to cheat the red joker in for one of them to reach the 2 daydreams. Following on from the focus death of Coppelius the activation before I killed 1 stitched and the 2 daydreams. And the creepy fog meant that the dead stitched could only try and gamble with Willie once. Unfortunatly once was enough, and Willies death was only enough to put the last stitched on 1 wound.

I brought up the Golem, Killed the stitched before it activated and then charged off to attack the Dreamer. Whilst his soulstone flips meant I missed, I was outside his gamble your life range, so he had to walk and then gamble your life. I realised I didn't want to win this, and was lucky to be able to cheat second. Dave worked out that if he won, he couldn't kill the stitched and get a second activation, but despite him cheating in a 1, I was able to cheat lower.

The end of the game was a chase. I couldn't leave the dreamer alive as he could just bring out Chompy on the last turn and cost me my Exterminate, potentially gain his stake a claim and win. He kept winning initiative, but eventually he run out of board and tried to kill the gunsmith. He did eventually succeed, but it took up 2 complete activations from dreamer and Chompy (Partly due to 2 black jokers on his paired claw strikes and my Hard to kill) and meant the Gunsmith could kill the dreamer and badly injure chompy.

I ended up immolating him and leaving the pillar over the claim. After checking that I could be within 3" and still win.

Will add thoughts on the learnings over 6 weeks shortly

[PokiePrawn]

Wow, Kaeris did well again the Dreamer. It seems you had a much better force than he did. Did he load up on SS? The Rail Golum is a beast. I can't wait to get him for my Levi crew!

[Adran]

The dreamer was on 7 stones where as I spent some of Kaeris' reserve on hiring so I think I only had 3 stones.

I think I was lucky in that my opponent was focused on campaign victory points so he sent Coppellius off unsupported, and then was happy to expend his forces to get the other evidence markers.

When Copellius was ganged up on by almost my whole team, he was using the stiched in a very defensive manner to keep them alive rather than to try and kill Willie. And they were relatively close so I could use Willies set charge to kill off 2 daydreasm and a stitched very easily with the use of a Joker (which looking at the exact phrasing I couldn't have cheated in) and a tome from my hand. Even with out the tome, I could have done 2 walk actions instead to make sure that I killed the stiched and daydreams with his dropped load, so whilst I cheated, I don't think it changed the outcome.

And once he was down to just the dreamer he tried to run rather than fight. This might have been the wrong call, but any turn he tried to fight instead of run I think I could have got a couple of models to attack him even if he killed the model that was right by him. He spent stones on defense and even on disengaging from my models which in the long run weren't helpful. Had he dropped Chompy on me earlier I probably still would have won just with fewer models. I couldn't afford to let chompy be alive, but if he had traded Chompy for the Rail Golem and another model, then I might have had to let the dreamer live whilst I tried for my claim jump.

2 turns running getting a black joker on Chompys claw attack really helped my Gunsmith survive as long as he did and stop him running further away. Either of those hitting would have meant he could have escaped and I would have had to rely on casting Pain train on my Golem to catch him.