Episode 1.5 - The First Game

Well here is the belated musings on my first game with Jack against my local club mate Pete Wright. We showed up and flipped for strats and guess what the strategy for the league game was, yup, Reckoning (as provided by that ever thoughtful @malifauxschemes)

After getting my crew out, realizing I didn't have the cards with me, putting out a shout of twitter for a link to the cards, putting my crew away and selecting a Tara crew, getting a reply on Twitter with a link to the cards and finally getting crews in and out again I was ready to go!

The strategy was Reckoning, the schemes were Line in the sand, Distract, Breakthrough, Vendetta and Power Ritual.

My crew was Jack with all his upgrades bar Guillotine Injustice, Ligeia,  Montressor with both upgrades, 3 Guilty and 3 Wretches .

Pete’s crew was Ramos, Joss, Rail Golem, Howard, Electrical Creation and Brass Arachnid.

I sort of had a feeling that I wasn't going to get a lot from the strategy and would probably lose net of 2-3 VP on this and so decided to pick some unfamiliar schemes so I get a bit of practice. Normally I think I would have takes Distract and Breakthrough, instead I took Line in the Sand and Power Ritual.

I won’t bore you with the move by move analysis but suffice to say it didn't end too well. Instead I will have a look at how each model performed.

Jack – Mr Daw got stuck in early. I tried the movement up the table trick using the push from Montressor to get him up the table a bit. Unfortunately this went a little wrong and Jack suffered moderate damage despite a quad negative flip and I burned a stone to prevent 2 of this damage. Jack then had to burn a stone to get the crow for the place into base with Ramos as Ramos can strip the suits from casting but he did a couple of damage to Ramos and gave him a cursed upgrade, gave Joss a cursed upgrade and Obeyed Joss to hit Howard. I had moved Legia up previously to prevent the cheat. It went a little pear shaped turn 2 when I decided to move Legia away as she was being threatened by the Rail Golem and Jack was flurried by Howard. Not realizing that Ramos gave Howard a positive this allowed Big H to be on straight flips and Pete cheated in three (count em, that’s three) very high rams for three consecutive decapitate triggers, the last of which got through and killed poor old Jack stone dead, on turn 2! His cursed upgrades did a great job, causing Ramos some damage and forcing Joss to take a penance.

Legiea – I was possibly a little too careful with Ligea. She was fine in support of Jack and prevented Ramos cheating but with a crap hand on T2 I moved her out of harm’s way (the push from Jack was great to move her out of engagement) but I didn’t really have a plan of where to move her to. She ended up going back to try and support Montressor but was caught at the beginning of turn 3 by Ramos and was fried with electrical fire.

Montressor – I wasn't sure what to do with him in this strategy. After losing Jack and Ligeia I thought that Montressor would be the next target so I hang him back a bit. Performance wise he had trouble with the push into base contact from Toss the Noose as anything that was a key resist (at least one from Joss and one from the Rail Golem) Pete countered by dropping 2 cards. He got some damage off from The Choking Death and managed to hit Ramos for a cheatable flip which was cheated up to a severe and finished Ramos off. He was taken out on Turn 6 so lasted quite well. I mis-timed a lot of his actions and as he didn't have any kind of support from the beginning of T3 he was isolated and I was very indecisive with him. I used him to move a distracted model once allowing me to prevent one point from Distract, but it didn't matter as Pete got this back on T6.

The Guilty – They were, shall I say, average. They lasted quite well but I think this was because they were both distracted so Pete didn't want to kill them. One managed to kill off a spider but this was a chore due to min damage 2. I don’t think I got share guilt off once on an enemy model as it was resisted each time. One did exactly as it was supposed to in targeting Ramos (whom Jack had made Tormented) for the push and then hitting him. It would have been slightly more effective if Ramos hadn’t got his repulsion trigger and pushed him back where he came from. They aren't a bad model, but on choice I would only take probably one in most lists.

Void Wretches – The fact of the matter is that after losing Jack and Ligeia early doors I got confused by what to do with the Void Wretches. They had a specific job at the beginning of the game, Line in the Sand and Power Ritual. This didn't start well when I forgot to drop a marker for Power Ritual on turn one and moved the Wretch to the middle of the board. 2 dropped markers for LIS and one protected them while the other went and succeeded in dropping the far marker for Power Ritual. I didn't think the left flanking Wretch would fare too well when Pete deployed the Rail Golem opposite it, at it didn't. Come turn 3 I was in a quandary and I was torn between trying to use the Wretches offensively to bury Joss, which I nearly but not quite succeeded in. I then also wanted them to bury my distracted models to remove them from play but I either forgot or the positioning was just plain wrong. They did drop markers for Line in the Sand but like an idiot I didn't realize you needed 4 markers and not 3. Overall, for a 4 stone minion, they did fine.

Overall it was a bit of a mess and finished 9 – 4 with me getting 1 from Reckoning, 2 from Power Ritual and 1 from Line in the Sand, and to be honest I cost myself an extra 2 from LIS and 1 from PR due to being an idiot so it perhaps should have been 9-7.

Jack died due to a bit of over extension and nervous play with Ligeia but he died due to a freak set of decapitate cards and he did manage to cause a bit of trouble dishing his upgrades out before he went, even though he only lasted 2 activation's. I was pleased with the Twist and Turn upgrade.

I like to have jobs for all my models and in Reckoning, against that list with the schemes I chose I had no idea what Montressors job was, but he caused some problems and made a nuisance of himself.

One of the main issues was that, against Ramos, I struggled with the armor and as far as I can see in his thematic models there is nothing to counter that so it’s something I’ll need to bear in mind.

Hopefully over the next week or so I will be able to get in a few more games and I will have a clearer idea of how everyone is doing after these games.