Campaign Trial Run

While I was in Omaha on Sunday, I sat down with my friend Jon Goulbourne for a quick run-through game to get an idea of how the Misaki crew I'm planning on using for the upcoming campaign will operate. We cobbled something vaguely resembling terrain onto a board, lined up, and went after it.

My Crew:
Misaki
Shang
Torekage
Yamaziko
Archer
8SS

Opponent's Crew
Sonia Criid
3x Witchling Stalker
Samael Hopkins
Watcher
6SS (I think)

My strategies and schemes: Supply Wagon, Stake a Claim, Kill Protege (Sam Hopkins)

Opponent's Strategies and Schemes: Treasure Hunt (Old version), Stake a Claim, Frame for Murder (Sam Hopkins)

Well, that's annoying.

I decided not to get silly about this and just throw into the opponent's crew while leaving Yamaziko to protect the wagon, as her big threat range makes protecting the thing pretty straight forward. Shang would circle around the board to go claim the terrain towards the back of my opponent's half. I mused that our two crews might just wave at each other as they walk past each other. That didn't end up happening...

Early on, I moved forward with the Torekage and swapped him with Misaki for the free 5 inch move. The archer and Shang moved towards the left flank. Jon split his crew up a bit, with one stalker moving towards my right to eventually head towards the claim, the Watcher flying up to go get the treasure from on top of a building in the middle of the board, and Sonnia, Sam, and the remaining stalkers going to my left to go mix it up. Misaki then went, bounced up the board, and proceeded to gut Sam Hopkins and get Sonia and the stalkers into melee with her as well. Sonia puts up inferno, swings at me a few times with her sword, and (this ends up being critical) blocks me off from the crew by dropping flamewalls behind Misaki. Second turn ends with the Torekage unburying on top of the middle terrain, in prime "swap with the archer so he can shoot the treasure counter" position.

Jon wins initiative on the third turn and picks up the counter and high-tails it with his Watcher. I forget that he loses fly and the increased movement, but don't care because putting the treasure counter on top of a building was kind of harsh anyways. The torekage swaps the archer up to the roof, and I reflect on how neat it would be to have companion to make it so the archer could fire now. Also, I remember that Sonia put up Inferno last turn, and ask how many wounds Misaki took from that because I'm a nice guy. Jon says 3, spends another turn not hitting me, recasting inferno, and blocking Yamaziko from healing Misaki. I then gleefully murder Sonia, at which point Jon says "That's fine, I'm good with mutually assured destruction."

I give him a confused puppy dog look.

He then informs me that Inferno goes off and does 6 to everything around Sonia. So that's a dead Misaki, a dead Stalker, and a dead Witchling.

Whoops.

Then one of the remaining witchlings climbs the building and puts the archer into melee. This also annoys me, but I manage to succeed at disengaging despite having a negative twist and plunked the witchling for 3. Later on, Yamaziko climbs to the top of the building and drops that witchling, freeing up the archer to chase down the fleeing watcher and shoot him full o' holes. Given that my Torekage was running to my claim and Jon's was well hidden behind his, we decided the game was pretty well sorted at that point. So, 8-4 victory for me.

My concern was that we were flipping for the injuries as the game went on, and the Misaki and Sonia both flipped a 10+. We didn't see what injury we were going to end up with when we were finished, but we were slightly concerned at the fact that both our masters are pretty combat intensive.

Lessons Learned: Misaki will kill things dead. Then she will die. This is the way of things, unless one plays smarter than me and doesn't throw her at the enemy's whole stupid crew.

Archers kill things dead. This is not news.

When I can get companion Ten Thunders on my Torekage as an upgrade, it will be very useful.

Don't kill Sonia when she has cast Inferno, unless you plan on getting exploded for 6.