Another miniature was finished just in the nick of time before my battle last night.
I actually wanted to do either my Wraith or Araka, but as they both are large miniatures I was almost sure I wouldn't be able to finish them in time.
Tadao was high on my list anyway and brought me nicely up to 50 rice, so i thought: "Why not?"
Most of the time a miniature is finished only after I touched everything up and corrected mistakes or splashes, I didn't have time for that this time though, ... The painting rate is going up, despite losing my focus sometimes (Heavy Gear and World of Twilight looking very persuasive), but quality is going down, sigh ...
Sorry for the bad photo's, because of a storm the lighting wasn't really that good (I work a lot with natural daylight).
Last evening me and a friend had another tussle, with him finally being able to play with his Prefecture (thank you Firestorm games) and at 50 rice.
We decided to roll out a scenario and ended up playing 'Envoy'.
He choose my Armoured Kairai as a VIM, as he knew the kairai would be at the front and had the rise trait, and I choose Takashi as I had problems with damaging the samurai before and wanted a juicier target.
Here's our setup:
At the start of turn three, I decided to use 'The Breath of Yurei', as I knew he would separate his samurai from Takashi because of this.
The idea was to create a lane for some characters to get to her.
I think I made the mistake here of not asking my opponents cards to see what he could do.
At the end of round three I called it quits, he had just struck down 18 points with relative ease (Gaki, Tadao, Kairai Militia, Wrath) and my doll had also failed miserably.
On top of that I was very low on ki, while Bram had plenty of ki left and had only suffered one wound in return.
As I knew he would strike down another 18 points the next round (Kato and my Armoured Kairai) I knew it was all over by then.
I actually wanted to do either my Wraith or Araka, but as they both are large miniatures I was almost sure I wouldn't be able to finish them in time.
Tadao was high on my list anyway and brought me nicely up to 50 rice, so i thought: "Why not?"
Most of the time a miniature is finished only after I touched everything up and corrected mistakes or splashes, I didn't have time for that this time though, ... The painting rate is going up, despite losing my focus sometimes (Heavy Gear and World of Twilight looking very persuasive), but quality is going down, sigh ...
Sorry for the bad photo's, because of a storm the lighting wasn't really that good (I work a lot with natural daylight).
We decided to roll out a scenario and ended up playing 'Envoy'.
He choose my Armoured Kairai as a VIM, as he knew the kairai would be at the front and had the rise trait, and I choose Takashi as I had problems with damaging the samurai before and wanted a juicier target.
Here's our setup:
Looking back at it, it already went wrong at this very point.
The corner deployment meant I was stuck with the riverbed, which counted as rough terrain.
As I'm slow to begin with, it took me two turns to get past it, resulting in the fact I arrived at the bottleneck between the two bushes in the middle as a block.
Instead of being able to fan out and tak advantage of the terrain.
It also meant i had to use my Gaki to shield the whole force against the two ranged Prefecture characters. This proofed fatal, as he acted like an anchor point this way for the two samurai: Takashi Hiro and Akio.
At the start of turn three, I decided to use 'The Breath of Yurei', as I knew he would separate his samurai from Takashi because of this.
The idea was to create a lane for some characters to get to her.
I think I made the mistake here of not asking my opponents cards to see what he could do.
At the end of round three I called it quits, he had just struck down 18 points with relative ease (Gaki, Tadao, Kairai Militia, Wrath) and my doll had also failed miserably.
On top of that I was very low on ki, while Bram had plenty of ki left and had only suffered one wound in return.
As I knew he would strike down another 18 points the next round (Kato and my Armoured Kairai) I knew it was all over by then.
The defeat felt very bitter and I started wondering if I should participate in the tournament at all, I even had lost my will to paint more Bushido last night.
There was so little I could do, ... True, my dice rolls were horrible as I kept on rolling very low with a lot of ones and the terrain was also not in my advantage.
I made some tactical mistakes and could perhaps have done a little better, but a win seems like on the top of a mountain, almost unreachable.
Better luck next time I guess.
Thank you for reading!
Wouter
While reviewing yesterday's game, it seems like I used my Gaki and Shuchiro wrong. Both have the ability to ignore terrain, so I should have used them to get to Takashi instead. They could have used the terrain to their advantage, shielded by the Gaki's fog. The rest could have focused on entertaining the samurai while going on all out defense. Choosing Hiro as a target for the marionette also wasn't the best idea, even though it wouldn't have much difference with my dice roll (three ones and a two).
ReplyDeleteI also should have tried to bring the gaki back as a Kairai, but I kind of forgot to do so :-(.
This may sound weird for a Yurei player, but I still have to create my first Kairai, succeed in a Rise test and see a Fear test fail.
It's tough when the dice say no like that!
ReplyDelete:-) sure is!
DeleteWhile I reviewed the battle, I came to this conclusion:
ReplyDeleteFirst: don't charge if you don't have to cover the distance. If your target is within you movement range, a simple melee action is better. Your model is only tired instead of exhausted. You charge with Tadao and Wrath, when a melee was enough. This ruined their capability during the melee exchange.
Second: this sounds hard, but don't forget your traits. You didn't use Tadao's martial prowess and you didn't roll for rise when he went down. You also forgot Shichiro's forward deployement.
Third: because I nominated the armoured kairai, you were overprotective with him. He can be a pain in the ass and he should have been next to Tadao and the wrath tying my samurai in melee, so you could have gone for Matsu Takashi, your target with Shichiro.
Fourth: my opponent from the demo at TSOA always used ivory prison attack with Kato. He bought extra dice with ki and then discarded 2 for the special attack. He took out Jin that way.
Fifth: after round 3 you still had some options left. You could still summon a new wrath, Taka's other ki-feat could have drawn out Matsu or interferd with my strategy in another way. And Shichiro could have been used to threathen Matsu and score some VP.
In the end, both of us have still a lot to learn. And I believe Prefecture is a lot easier the use and to learn the game then Cult. Hang in there and realise that having fun is the goal!
Yes, but with a charge you have a better chance to overcome the high armour of the samurai, something which is really worrying me and have trouble to overcome. I shouldn't have charged with the Wrath though, as he already has sharp the trait.
DeleteI totally forgot about martial prowess :-), actually I didn't notice it until you pointed it out. I did roll for Rise though (a one for Tadao and a three for the Militia if I remember correctly)!
I also made the mistake to check out traits after deployment, it was getting late and I was to eager to begin :-). Forward Deployment is a coin with two sides though, as he would be vulnerable to first fire and not in range of my kairai to leech from.
After the 3th round I was very low on ki, so the wrath would start with only two ki, and be very easy to dispose off. with the number of characters you had in the vicinity after the 3th round I still don't think it would have made any difference if the game had continued.
It was indeed very clever to pick the Armoured Kairai, especially as he went down so easily in our first game. It was the reason I became so protective with him ;-).
I think Ivory prison attack only works if you have a lot of ki and luck.
But as the Kairai don't generate ki themselves it is better to leech it off Kato with Tadao. If I should decide to use it, I place Kato in a lot of peril, while he has very different and more useful abilities to use. It could be nice against an opponent who has been seperated from the rest or in the end game, but very little else.
Don't worry, I haven't given up yet :-), Even though I might have sounded a bit grim yesterday and I still think the tournament will come to soon.
Thank you for the feedback!